McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education

At the time of its ratification, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was interpreted as prohibiting state discrimination on the basis of race. Given the deep divisions between the races, particularly in the years prior to the Civil War, it is not surprising that many states codified racial discrimination with segregationist statutes. Racial tensions did not disappear with the end of the Civil War, and states in both the North and South continued to pass segregationist legislation. In fact, this approach to race relations was sanctioned by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. In this case, the Court ruled that a Boston, Massachusetts statute mandating racial segregation in schools and on public transportation was constitutional. The Court stated that "the object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color." Thus, Plessy v. Ferguson established the "separate but equal" doctrine, which rendered virtually all segregationist statutes legally binding provided that facilities of equal quality existed for all races. In reality, of course, the facilities available to African Americans were seldom equal to those available to the majority under segregation.