Segregated schools in the states are unconstitutional because they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court found that the separate but equal doctrine adopted in Plessy "has no place in the field of public education". Decided May 17, 1954 (argued December 9, 1952). Opinion of the Court: Earl Warren → go there Applied: the Fourteenth Amendment → go there Topic: Discrimination based on race and ethnicity. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even if the segregated facilities are equal in quality. The decision partially overruled the Court's 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, which had ruled that racial segregation laws were constitutional as long as the facilities for each race were equal, a doctrine that had come to be known as "separate but equal". The Court's unanimous decision in Brown and its related cases paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement, and it became a model for many future impact litigation cases. Wiki link