Ethical Issues: Brown Vs. Board Of Education

A recurring issue throughout the history of both the United States and the world is the ethics and motives for breaking laws. While some may argue that everyone should follow all laws despite personal opposition, there are times when violating the law is completely necessary. This is especially true when a law is discriminatory or infringes on basic human rights. During the civil rights era in the United States, the separate but equal or “Jim Crow” laws were broken on many different occasions for these reasons by individuals or groups of people before they were eventually abolished.

State laws supporting racial segregation were common in the United States, especially the southern regions, from the 1880s to the mid 1960s. This discriminatory

practice was generally known as the separate but equal or “Jim Crow” laws. According to the US National Parks Service, “From Delaware to California, from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated” (National). As explained by this article taken from the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, it was completely normal during the time period these laws existed to have legal segregation of black and white people segregated. Public or private interaction between races was nearly impossible. The National Parks service listed a few specific examples of these laws in their article: “No person shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed… No colored barber shall serve as barber to white women or girls… The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons” (National). The overall claim for these laws was that, as implied by the name, although the races are separated, they should have the same quality of facilities and services. Through further examination of specific laws, however, the underlying discrimination against black citizens becomes clear.
The first time separate but equal laws were challenged and reached national attention was the Plessy vs. Ferguson court case on May 18th, 1896. The case challenged Louisiana's Separate Car Act, which required railroad companies to have separate train cars for black and white passengers. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American, purchased a rail ticket for travel within Louisiana and took a seat in a car reserved for white passengers. After refusing to move to a car for African Americans, he was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act” (Britannica). Homer Plessy’s actions, although illegal at the time, were justified for many reasons. The law itself discriminated against black citizens by not allowing them in train cars with white citizens. There is no reasonable explanation for this segregation besides racism. Plessy’s case brought forth another aspect, however, as he was mostly caucasian. Despite being over 80 percent white, his partially African American heritage made him susceptible to this law. Associate Justice Henry Billings Brown, working in opposition to Homer Plessy, won the case. He argued, “The Separate Car Act did not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment because it did not reestablish slavery… Yet the act did not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment either because that amendment was intended to secure only the legal equality of African Americans and whites, not their social equality” (Britannica). This argument lacks depth because the Separate Car Act was a law, which falls under legal equality, not social equality. Having races in separate rail cars encourages racism and the blurred lines on what is considered equal treatment provides many loopholes for discriminatory practices which violates the concept of separate but equal. For these reasons Homer Plessy’s violation of the Separate Car Act was justified.
Almost 60 years after Plessy vs Ferguson another separate but equal law was challenged, this time in Topeka, Kansas.

The case is known as Brown vs Board of Education and it took place in May, 1954. It was centered around a young girl, Linda Brown, and her family. Biography.com’s entry on Linda Brown states that, “Linda Brown… and her two younger sisters grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood. Linda was forced to walk across railroad tracks and take a bus to grade school despite there being a school four blocks away from her home. This was due to the elementary schools in Topeka being racially segregated, with separate facilities for black and white children” (Biography). The article goes on to explain that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People asked Linda’s father, Oliver Brown, as well as a few other African American parents, to attempt to enroll their children in whites only schools. The Brown family attempted this without success and brought the case to the United States Supreme Court (Biography). Oliver Brown’s reason for challenging school segregation was both simple and logical. Linda’s daily trips to the African American school was dangerous for a child her age, as well as clearly unnecessary given there was a school closer to her home. Opposition to Brown vs Board of Education argued that, as with all separate but equal rulings, the segregated schools still gave equal opportunity to black and white students. This idea is false because similar to Louisiana's Separate Car Act, segregation of schools almost always meant the whites-only school had better funding and education than the African American school, giving white children an unfair advantage. The efforts of the Brown family and the other families involved in similar cases paid off, and the Supreme Court ended Brown vs. Board of Education by ruling school segregation unlawful

(Biography).
A little over a year after Brown vs. Board of Education, another fight for civil rights had begun. This time in the form of a criminal case, 42-year-old Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat to a white man on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Biography.com gives a detailed description of the incident: “On Thursday, December 1, 1955, the 42-year-old Rosa Parks was commuting home from a long day of work… at one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats… were taken. So the driver told the riders in the first row of the ‘colored’ section to stand… The three others obeyed. Parks did not… Eventually, two police officers approached the stopped bus, assessed the situation, and placed Parks in custody” (Biography). Rosa Parks’s should not have been arrested and had every right to resist the demands of the bus driver. It is highly illogical to clear an entire row of seats on an already crowded bus to make room for one man, and unfair to the four passengers, including Mrs. Parks, who were already occupying the row. In addition, the law that allowed the bus driver to demand African Americans to give up their seat was unconstitutional and demeaning towards non-white citizens. In this situation there is no argument for “separate but equal” because unlike other Jim Crow laws, this rule openly favored one race, Caucasians, over all others.
(Paragraph 6 - Freedom Riders)
The United States civil rights cases and protests that took place from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s are a just a few of the many situations in history where breaking laws was necessary and justified. Separate but equal, also known as “Jim Crow,” laws discriminated against minorities, especially African Americans, and violated their basic human rights. Laws and doctrines that treat one or more groups of people unfairly should most definitely be challenged and changed or abolished.