Question

In the famous Brown v. Board of Education case, it was found that the segregation of schooling was unconstitutional. The ruling was based on the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This clause says that no state should deny any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of laws.” The 14th Amendment, as a whole, was ratified in 1898 in order to grant “citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves. Because the 14th Amendment mentions the role of the states, it guarantees civil rights to all Americans. Considering the original design of the 14th Amendment, explain how the Brown v. Board of Education decision was a strict constructionist interpretation.

Answer 1

Strict constructionists interpret constitutional statements strictly. That means they want the words of the constitution to be put into practice with close attention to the original intent of the constitutional protections that were put in place.  Since the 14th Amendment calls for "equal protection of the laws" for all citizens in respect to all their rights as citizens, Brown v. Board applied this to education and insisted equal rights could not be abridged or infringed upon in regard to educational facilities in any state of the Union.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, decided by the US Supreme Court in 1954, ruled that all Americans are entitled to the same civil liberties and protections in regard to access to education. Until that decision, it was legal to segregate schools according to race, so that black students could not attend the same schools as white students.  An older Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), had said that separate, segregated public facilities were acceptable as long as the facilities offered were equal in quality.  In the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that standard was challenged and defeated.  Segregation was shown to create inequality, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled segregation to be unconstitutional.

The 14th Amendment was being violated by states whose laws supported the segregation of schools.  The full context of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads as follows:

• All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.