Case Name: Plessy v. Ferguson
Year: Argued 1896 ; Decided 1896
Result: 7-1 in favor of Ferguson
Related Constitutional Issue/ Amendment: 14th Amendment
Civil Rights of Civil Liberties: Civil Rights
Significance/ Precedent: Based their decision on the "separate-but-equal" policy that separated facilities for blacks and whites but still satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal.
Quote from Majority Opinion: "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, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either."
6-Word Summary: separation is constitutional with equivalent facilities
Year: Argued 1896 ; Decided 1896
Result: 7-1 in favor of Ferguson
Related Constitutional Issue/ Amendment: 14th Amendment
Civil Rights of Civil Liberties: Civil Rights
Significance/ Precedent: Based their decision on the "separate-but-equal" policy that separated facilities for blacks and whites but still satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal.
Quote from Majority Opinion: "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, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either."
6-Word Summary: separation is constitutional with equivalent facilities