The Meaning Of The Constitution - Research Paper Example

The Meaning Of The Constitution A Research Paper FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT OVERVIEW In order to understand the outcome of the case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (KS), a quick review of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, is given first. This amendment says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, are citizens of the United States and of the State they reside in. In the second part, it says that no state shall create or enforce a law which will abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. In the third part, the statement is that no state can deprive any person the right to life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. In the final and fourth part, no person, within the jurisdiction of the State, shall be denied equal protection of the laws (Holder 88). BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA The case of Brown v. Board of Education (347 U.S. 483), as determined by the Supreme Court in May, 1954, concerned the situation of segregation of White and ‘Negro’ children in public schools, which was based solely on race. As such, it was determined that, by this action of segregation, ‘Negro’ children were denied equal protection of the laws of the United States, as put forth by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. As noted above in the overview of the amendment, it does not mention education and how it should affect public education, one way or another (LII Brown web). This decision by the Supreme Court in 1954, overrode the original Supreme Court ruling in 1896, which had said that, so long as the schools themselves were equal in its offerings, then there was no violation of the fourteenth amendment. Yet, in 1954, viewed that the issue of segregation meant that there was something different implied, otherwise there would be no cause to implement the segregation (Holder 90). HISTORICAL BACKGROUND LEADING TO THE CASE The case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a consolidation of five different jurisdictions because of the basis for each on obtaining desegregation of schools: Kansas (Brown v. Board of Education), South Carolina (Briggs v. Elliot), Delaware (Bulah v. Gebhart and Belton v. Gebhart), Virginia (Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County) and District of Columbia (Bolling v. Sharpe). The Brown v. Board of Education case dealt solely with the fact that, regardless of quality of schools and education, the fact that there was segregation of schools at all, was an unequal process and violated the equal protection as put forth in the fourteenth amendment (Leadership Conference web). The Supreme Court stated that a quality education was essential for all children and that it was a mandated function for all states, and the District of Columbia, to ensure that this took place. It did not matter that all schools, teachers and the supplies for each, were determined to be the same. The issue was the separation of the races, in effect, and that education should be made available to all on equal terms. Furthermore, the separation of the races meant that Black children suffered detrimental effects from separateness, particularly when sanctioned by the law of the land (Leadership Conference web). SIDE-STEPPING THE SUPREME COURT There was a side issue to the segregation of students, however, in that many schools were set up to accommodate the children in whatever neighborhood the school was built in. Some neighborhoods were predominantly Black and, therefore, those children would walk to their neighborhood school. The same was true in White neighborhoods where White children walked or took public transportation to their school in their own neighborhood which was primarily based on home purchasing prices. In other words, people bought homes in neighborhoods according to what they could afford on their salaries. As Black people usually had lower incomes than Whites at that time, they congregated together in neighborhoods where homes were priced according to what they could afford. Therefore, how to integrate the schools meant that Black children would have to either move, or travel by public transportation, to other schools. Economically, this just was not a financial solution for most Black children nor was it an option for White children to start going to school much further away from home (Holder 90). FINDING SOLUTIONS Eventually, in an effort to end segregation of schools, a bussing system was developed whereby children from one neighborhood were bussed to other schools outside their neighborhood, as presented by the Supreme Court in 1971 after the case of Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (401 U.S. 1) in April, 1971 (LII web2). The plan, as devised by a desegregation expert, would have junior high and high schools engage in the desegregation by school buses. Objection to transportation of children would have validity when distance of travel was great enough to risk the health of the child or impact the educational process in a negative manner (LII web2). In today’s environment, this is now a common process for all school children. SUCCESS OR FAILURE? In the six decades since the beginning of desegregation in the schools, it is important to look back and determine what success there was in the implementation of the solutions as required in these cases. On the one side, the bussing system worked as a tool in creating desegregation in schools but were the children really better off? The sense of neighborhood and the friends made would certain become an issue later on when people no longer knew each other as closely as before. Before desegregation, kids played together at each other’s houses just down the street. Teachers, most likely, lived in the same neighborhood too and therefore, had a chance to know the parents a bit better. Once desegregation began, much of that would be naturally lost, as children went off to predetermined schools far away and parents really did not have incentives to meet up with other parents because their children were not going to the same schools anymore. In rural areas, desegregation actually happened better than in cosmopolitan cities because there was often one school available for all the children in a rural town (Orfield and Lee 33). Yet, the outcome of desegregation also proved that children of different backgrounds also learned to get along better with different people rather than just staying in their own social infrastructure (Orfield and Lee 23). Works Cited Holder, Angela Roddey. The Meaning of the Constitution, 2nd ed. New York, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. 1987. The Leadership Conference. Brown v. Board of Education. The Leadership Conference Online. 2013. Web. May 21, 2013. LII. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (No. 1), 347 U.S. 483. Supreme Court Decision. 1954. Web. May 21, 2013. LII. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (No. 281), 402 U.S. 1. Supreme Court Decision. 1971. Web2. May 21, 2013. Orfield, Gary and Chungmei Lee. “Brown at 50: King’s Dream or Plessy’s Nightmare?” The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University Online. 2004.1-54. Web. May 21, 2013. Read More