Supreme Court Cases in Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Supreme Court Cases in Education - Essay Example Linda Carol Brown was an eight year old girl who was denied the privilege of attending the Sumner Elementary School, because she was black. Linda Brown had to walk six blocks, over a switch track, just to catch a bus, although the Sumner Elementary School was a mere seven blocks away. Her father, Reverend Oliver Brown, was a well respected Christian minister. He peacefully approached the principal of the all-white school and calmly asked if his daughter could attend. Linda Brown and her father were immediately denied the right to attend the school. At this point, Reverend Brown sought the assistance of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (Dudley, 2004). The NAACP was an organization that was born in 1909. Its goal was to grant all minorities the rights of equal voting, schooling, and housing. It pounced on the opportunity to have a legal battle with the white dominated public schools of America. For years, the NAACP had attempted to stop this sinister way of life through court cases. Until Brown v. Board, the many attempts had proved unsuccessful. The head of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall, figured that with Linda Carol Brown, they had the greatest possible chance of winning the court case and upsetting the former case, Plessy v. Ferguson. On February 28, 1951, Linda Brown, her father and the NAACP filed their lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (Barlow, 2004). A grand jury decided to hear their case but their plea for the overturning of Plessy .v. Ferguson was quickly dismissed. Since the case was being held in Kansas, a southern state, the jury was mostly composed of white male, landowners who still believed that African Americans were inferior humans. This was the reason that the court decided to reject the proposed idea of integrated school districts. Because of appeals, the case kept advancing from court to court,