A note about "separate but equal"

The other day Eric left a good and substantive comment regarding the recent California Supreme Court decision on Prop 8, and I think now I've read up enough to say a few things about it.

First, though, I want to digress for a bit and clarify some things about the "separate but equal" doctrine and what was ruled in the Brown decision, which overturned it. Eric says:

...From what I understand, a major problem with separate-but-equal in the pre-Brown v. Board of Education days was that, for example, education in black schools was demonstrably inferior to that in white schools; that is to say, they were separate and unequal.

This isn't correct; the ruling in Brown which overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine concluded that separate was inherently unequal, even if all "tangible" properties of the segregated schools were in fact equal. Take it away, Earl:

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

...

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

So you can see here that the majority opinion is actually kind of weird in its reasoning in the way it relies so completely on empirical evidence from psychology. Basically, it's an argument from fact rather than law: Plessy was wrong not so much because it seriously misinterpreted the Constitution, but because it failed to take into account psychological harms that were caused by segregation as a matter of fact. But I guess that's another story. (I ran into a long but interesting article about Brown here which I've skimmed a bit of and bookmarked; also it might be of interest to take a look at Justice Harlan's dissent to Plessy here.)

Oh, and disclaimer: this is just my amateur take on the situation. I'mnottalawyer. So all of what I said could be disastrously, embarrassingly wrong.

I'll tackle the Prop 8 decision in a separate post.

(Photo by cliff1066)