37. Was Brown About Belonging—or Results?
Segregation, disenfranchisement, and the fragile foundations of a landmark case
It’s easy to remember Brown v. Board of Education as a moral high point. A unanimous Court. A stirring declaration. Children finally welcomed into schools that once excluded them.
But underneath that hopeful surface lies a tangle of unresolved questions. What, exactly, made segregation unconstitutional? Was it the harm it caused? The history it carried? Or the way it was imposed?
And what does it mean that Brown never fully answered those questions?
White Supremacy and the Political Process
One powerful argument against segregation isn’t about schools at all. It’s about power.
For decades after the Civil War, Black citizens across the South were systematically disenfranchised—stripped of the vote, silenced in legislatures, and excluded from the institutions that shaped their daily lives. Segregation, in this view, wasn’t just a social policy. It was the product of a distorted political process, one that legalized white supremacy by shutting Black Americans out of democracy.
Thought experiment:
Would all-Black schools be unconstitutional if they were created by a Black-majority legislature, supported by a Black electorate, and funded equally? In other words: is separation the problem, or is it who controls the separation?
This question reveals a deep tension. Some scholars argue that Brown was not about physical separation itself, but about the coercive power of a racially exclusive state. It wasn’t just that Black children were sent to separate schools—it was that they had no say in the matter.
Segregation, in this account, wasn’t neutral. It was a system designed and enforced without (and often against) the will of those it affected most.
Was Brown About Outcomes or Integration?
Another unresolved tension in Brown is whether the decision was meant to improve academic results or to promote social cohesion.
Some have read the opinion as a policy judgment: that integrated schools would lead to better educational outcomes for Black students. This reading leans heavily on the Clark doll studies and on Warren’s emphasis that segregation harms “the hearts and minds” of children.
But others argue that the ruling was about more than outcomes. It was a stand against state-imposed racial distinctions, a declaration that the government could not use race to define where a child belonged.
Key question:
Was Brown a decision about social progress, or a legal ruling about equal citizenship?
The answer matters. If Brown was about social science and outcomes, then future courts could undo it by claiming the facts have changed. If it was about constitutional principle—about who counts, who belongs, and who decides—then its meaning is deeper, more enduring, and more resistant to political backlash.
The Problem of History: Did the Fourteenth Amendment Support Brown?
Originalist critics have long questioned whether Brown was faithful to the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In the 1960s, legal scholar Alexander Bickel pointed out that many of the same Congressmen who passed the Amendment also approved segregated schools in D.C.
The Timeline:
The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, primarily aimed at protecting the rights of formerly enslaved Black Americans in the post-Civil War South.
But Washington, D.C. is governed by Congress, not a state legislature.
Around the same time period, and for decades after, Congress itself maintained and funded segregated public schools in the District of Columbia.
In his view, Brown could not be justified by original public meaning alone. Instead, it was a case that responded to “the moral and material conditions” of 1954.
This is what some call living constitutionalism, the idea that the Constitution’s meaning evolves as society changes, and that courts may interpret its guarantees in light of current values.
But that flexibility comes at a cost. It opens the door for critics who argue that Brown wasn’t law at all—it was judicial policymaking, untethered from constitutional text or history.
And yet: strict originalism would have left Plessy untouched. Sometimes, fidelity to principle means confronting the limits of history and the injustices it once tolerated.
Psychology on the Docket: The Clark Doll Studies
Perhaps the most famous and most controversial part of Brown was its use of psychology.
Recall that, to prove that segregation harmed Black children, the Court cited the Clark doll experiments. These studies showed that Black children, even at young ages, were more likely to associate positive traits with white dolls and negative traits with Black dolls.
This helped ground the Court’s finding that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” But it also raised profound questions about how constitutional rights are defined.
Critics of Brown’s reliance on social science raise several concerns:
Empirical volatility: What if future studies show no psychological harm? Do rights vanish?
Methodological skepticism: Was the research strong enough to support a constitutional ruling?
Moral hazard: If segregation is only wrong because it causes harm, does that mean it would be acceptable if no harm could be measured?
In Parents Involved v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), the Court returned to these questions. Justice Thomas argued that many Black students had succeeded in all-Black schools, undermining the link between integration and educational achievement. For him, Brown didn’t mandate mixed classrooms, it simply forbade racial classifications.
But that reading flattens Brown into something it never quite was: a rule against naming race, rather than a ruling against racial hierarchy.
Final Thoughts: A Case Built on Fragile Foundations
Brown v. Board remains the crown jewel of American constitutional law. But it rests on contested terrain:
A vision of equality that was never fully defined.
A psychological study that sparked inspiration—and discomfort.
A historical legacy both invoked and overridden.
And yet, for all its ambiguity, Brown matters. It matters not just because of what it said, but because of what it made possible.
It reminds us that law lives in context. That sometimes, what makes something unconstitutional is not just the rule it creates, but the power that enforces it—and the people it leaves voiceless.
If the harm of segregation depends on how it affects children’s self-image, what happens if that harm becomes harder to measure—or seems to go away?
When talking about Brown in class today, it struck me how much we talked about the legitimacy of the Court. In writing the opinion, the Justices knew it had to be unanimous, or the integrity of the Court would diminish in the eyes of the public. I actually respect this goal of legitimacy and ensuring that the legal opinions are strong with bipartisan support and argued in a clear moral voice. Now, it seems like the Justices pick and choose the law based on their own political leanings, sometimes even ignoring the literal words of the Constitution. I also think the moral voice has vanished in opinions. The Justices now openly attack each other in their opinions that become binding law. Personally, I question the legitimacy of the Court as it stands.
It's just an interesting shift that in Brown, in the 1950s, the Court was so worried about this. For most of my childhood and until the 2020s, I really did not question the Court's decisions, just assuming that the foundation was good law. Now, I sift through every opinion trying to figure out how they could possibly come to their conclusion.