Brown v. Board of Education.

• Author: Bell, Steven M.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the Editor

Regarding the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, it is good to see our country develop as a civil society and in so doing shape the course of legal jurisprudence and case law.

In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the "separate but equal" doctrine came to be known, the ruling in Plessy set the stage, historically, for a further refinement in case law defining this country's accepted standard for living.

Specifically, but for the Plessy decision, our legal standards for equal protection of the law may not have adequately addressed the desegregation issue in Brown. We, as lawyers, depend quite heavily on the rule of the precedent in terms of guiding our daily law practice. We cannot disregard the legal and historical significance of Plessy and simply take the Brown decision on its face. For Brown is an outgrowth of Plessy and while we as a society strive for equality among the individuals, individual equality cannot logically be achieved...