The case of Sweatt v. Painter (1950), challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine regarding racial segregated schooling which had been asserted by an earlier case, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

Heman Marion Sweatt was a black man who was not allowed admission into the School of Law of the University of Texas. Theophilus Painter was the president of the University of Texas at the time. So that's where the names in the lawsuit came from.

In the case, which made its way to the US Supreme Court, the ultimate decision was that forcing Mr. Sweatt to attend law school elsewhere or in a segregated program at the University of Texas failed to meet the "separate but equal" standard, because other options such as those would have lesser facilities, and he would be excluded from interaction with future lawyers who were attending the state university's main law school, available only to white students. The school experience would need to be truly equal in order for the "separate but equal" policy to be valid.

In 1954, another Supreme Court decision went even further. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka extended civil liberties to all Americans in regard to access to all levels of education. The Plessy v. Ferguson case had said that separate, segregated public facilities were acceptable as long as the facilities offered were equal in quality. In Brown v. Board of Education, segregation was shown to create inequality, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled segregation to be unconstitutional. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, there was a struggle to get states to implement the new policy of desegregated schools, but eventually they were compelled to do so.

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