Plessy vs. Ferguson || Case Summary|| 163 U.S. 537 (1896) || Racial Segregation and Equal Protection Clause

Racial Segregation and Equal Protection Clause

FACTS

Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth Black, challenged Louisiana's Separate Car Act, which required segregated railway cars. He was arrested for sitting in a whites-only car.

ISSUES

Does racial segregation violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

RELEVANT LEGAL PROVISIONS

Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Guarantees equal protection of the laws.

JUDGEMENT

The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation in a 7-1 decision. Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote the majority opinion.

KEY POINTS

Established the "separate but equal" doctrine, allowing state-sponsored segregation.

Argued that separation did not imply racial inferiority.

IMPACT OF THE JUDGEMENT

1. Legitimized segregation for more than half a century.

2. Influenced Jim Crow laws across the American South.

3. Eventually overturned by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

CONCLUSION

Plessy v. Ferguson institutionalized racial discrimination under the guise of equality, marking a low point in civil rights jurisprudence later reversed through landmark civil rights decisions.

Vinita Pathak