Bolling v. Sharpe - Significance

The Court incorporated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause (which applied only to the states) into the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause (which applied to the federal government).

Bolling v. Sharpe was one of several racial segregation cases decided in May of 1954. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had brought five cases on appeal to the Supreme Court, all challenging the assignment of black and white children to separate public schools. The more famous decision, Brown v. Board of Education, consolidated four cases from Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia. Bolling v. Sharpe concerned the District of Columbia.