Brown v.

Board of Education: A Bittersweet Birthday

A CASE STUDY
Presented to
The Faculty of Master of Business Administration (MBA)
University of Mindanao
Davao City

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Subject

Human Resource and Global Management
2nd Semester S.Y. 2016-2017
Professor: Dr. Evelyn P. Saludes

By:

Charly Mint A. Israel

John Bert B. Rincunada
Akime Rolos
Ronel Grantosa

February 2017
I. Background / Rationale
After the end of the American Civil War in 1865, during the period
known as Reconstruction, the government was able to provide some
protection for the civil rights of the newly-freed slaves. Reconstruction abruptly
ended with the Compromise of 1877 and federal troops were withdrawn,
southern state governments began passing Jim Crow Laws that prohibited
blacks from using the same public accommodations as whites.

In 1890, the State of Louisiana passed Act 111 that required separate
accommodations for African Americans and Whites on railroads, including
separate railway cars, though it specified that the accommodations must be
kept "equal".

Plessy boarded a car of the East Louisiana Railroad that was

designated for use by white patrons only. He was able to purchase a ticket in
first class because his light skin color, but was later asked to leave the car.
Plessy refused to leave and was arrested. He sued the state of LA for
infringing on his rights of the 13th and 14th Amendments.

Thirteenth Amendment Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary

servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject
to their jurisdiction.

Fourteenth Amendment Section 1. 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.

However, the judge presiding over his case, John Ferguson, ruled that
Louisiana had the right to regulate railroad companies as long as they
operated within state boundaries. The Committee of Citizens took Plessy's
appeal to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, which ruled with the state again.
 The committee appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1896.
The Supreme Court sided with LA and racial segregation was written into US
LAW.

Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896), is a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case

that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the doctrine of
separate but equal

"Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until

Brown Vs. Board of Education.

II. Issues and Concerns

For next 90 years, separate but equal doctrine ruled the land. In
1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City
of Topeka, Kansas in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The
plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their twenty children.

The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial
segregation. Separate elementary schools were operated by the Topeka
Board of Education under an 1879 Kansas law, which permitted (but did not
require) districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black
and white students in twelve communities with populations over 15,000. The
plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership of the Topeka NAACP.

The named plaintiff, Oliver Brown, was a parent of Linda, a third

grader, had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe
Elementary, her segregated black school, which was one mile (1.6 km) away,
while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house.
III. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Eight year old, Linda Brown was a third grader at

the segregated Monroe Elementary School in
Topeka, Kansas.

In 1950, her father, the Reverend Oliver Brown was working at the
Santa Fe Railway when he and 12 other African American families tried to
enroll their children in white only elementary schools. The families were
from several states throughout the nation. They sought justice from states
such as Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of
Columbia.

The school boards in each state (with the exception of Delaware)

refused to allow the children to enroll in all-white public schools. The Board
members argued that segregation provided separate, but equal schools.
 COMPARE

Separate but equal?

IV. Point of View

Racism has no doubt been the scourge of humanity. It usually surfaces

from generalized assumptions made about a particular race or cultural group.
While it is wrong and unfair to assign particular negative characteristics to
everyone within a racial group, it is done all the time. The bitter result of these
racial attitudes is intolerance and discrimination.

Often racism goes beyond just individual attitudes. These racial

attitudes can become the mindset of a particular people group who may use
cultural as well as legal means to suppress another race. These cultural
norms and laws can be used by the majority race to exploit and discriminate
against the minority race.

First, the Bible really only talks of one race: the human race. Superficial
differences in skin color, hair color, hair texture, or eye shape may provide
physiological differences between people groups. But the Bible doesnt
provide any justification for treating people differently simply because of these
physical differences.

The Bible teaches that God has made from one blood every nation of
men (Acts 17:26). Here Paul is teaching the Athenians that they came from
the same source in the creation as everyone else. We are all from one blood.
In other words, there are no superior or inferior races. We are all from the
same race: the human race.

V. Objectives

Based on issues and problem, Brown and other parents aims:

To abolish the segregation of students and racial discrimination;
To have an Education for all;
To have an equal right.

VI. Areas of consideration

Diversity is a multidimensional, broadly inclusive concept that

acknowledges and embraces the richness of human differences. As a
 practical matter, it is vital that a school board define diversity with sufficient
clarity, given the inherent ambiguity of the term and the frequently ill-informed
debates that surround it.

Properly understood and used, the term diversity is not code for race,
ethnicity, or gender by themselves. While a school boards concept of
diversity may include these factors, it should be far more comprehensive,
encompassing relevant attributes and experiences that can influence learning
in and out of the classroom.

Indeed, when addressing the diversity in a student body, multiple

factors may be considered. Many district policies across the country include,
in addition to race, ethnicity, and sex, references to socioeconomic status,
neighborhood, language status, special education needs, academic
performance and potential, record of achievement, community or civic
engagement or interest, and more.

VII. Alternative Courses of Action

Based on the study, the proponents stated the courses of action

Boost promotion and protection of human rights and respect for human
dignity;
Raise awareness of anti-racism, equality and anti-discrimination issues
among public officials, civil society and the general public, mobilizing support
from a wide range of people;
Encourage the collection of updated information regarding racial
discrimination and allow for a more comprehensive assessment of the needs
to effectively combat it;
Ensure that the concerns of individuals and groups facing racial discrimination
are more effectively addressed;
Increase the effectiveness and coherence of measures against racial
discrimination, including financial and human resources;
Generate a commitment to eliminating racial discrimination and turn that
commitment into realistic activities aimed at reaching achievable targets;
 Strengthen programmes for groups of individuals facing racial discrimination
in education, health, employment, housing, nutrition, social services and the
administration of justice;
Facilitate the identification of legislation that needs to be amended and/ or
adopted with a view to improving the protection of victims of racial
discrimination

VIII. Recommendation
Separation and inequality violated the Fourteenth Amendment and caused
students of color to feel less valued by society.
Fourteenth Amendment Section 1. 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.
Thus, the proponents decided to facilitate the identification of
legislation that needs to be amended and/or adopted with a view to improving
the protection of victims of racial discrimination

IX. Action Plan

Through the help of civil rights movement like NAACP (National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People) there is a change. The
outcome of Brown vs Board of Education was a milestone in American society.
Many quietly rumbled about segregation in education facilities, but no person
had the courage to go against the law. The Topeka parents that tried in court
brought segregation directly to the court and changed all of America in their
stride. Redefining the south and abolishing separate but equal, Brown and
Brown II set a plan for the courts to desegregate schools. This plan also
invigorated debate and controversy of the validility of scientific racism. During
the trial of Brown vs Board of Education, scientific evidence was brought forth
that desegregation was harmful to white children but quickly rejected by the
 Supreme court. After the ruling of this case, enraged southerners, unwilling to
change, resisted desegregation. NAACP urged the families to take their case
to the United States Supreme Court, the highest court the land The case was
scene as a major victory for the civil rights movement.

References:

Abrams, D. E. (2013). The Little League Champions Benched by Jim Crow in 1955:
Resistance and Reform after Brown v. Board of Education. Journal Of Supreme
Court History, 38(1), 51-62. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5818.2013.12003.x
Minow, M. (2013). Brown v. Board in the World: How the Global Turn Matters for
School Reform, Human Rights, and Legal Knowledge. San Diego Law Review,
50(1), 1-27.