(of Brown v. Board of Education). In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision was based on two propositions: that segregated schools were inherently unequal and that the very act of racial segregation generated a feeling of inferiority that had a detrimental effect on the mental and emotional well‐being of minority schoolchildren. In support of the latter proposition, the Court, in Footnote Eleven (p. 495), cited works by prominent psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists describing the harmful social and psychological effects of segregation.
Critics of the Court's decision in Brown complained that the justices had relied on imprecise data from the social sciences to forge constitutional doctrine. Some of the critics agreed with the Court's decision outlawing segregation but argued that the nonlegal materials cited provided too flimsy a basis for such an important ruling. Supporters of the Court's method pointed out, first, that the decision did not rest solely on material from the social sciences but also that such material was in fact vital in helping the Court deal with social issues. In Brown, the Court recognized that the social sciences could provide information pertinent to the issue of racial segregation, and it used that information to render an informed decision.
See also Race and Racism; Separate but Equal Doctrine; Social Science.
— Jeffrey M. Shaman
