Plessy v. Ferguson: Difference between revisions

{{redirect-distinguish|Plessy|the case's plaintiff|Homer Plessy|the British company|Plessey}}

|Overruled = (''de facto'') ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954), and subsequent rulings{{sfnp|Schauer|1997|p=280}}<br/>''[[Bob Jones University v. United States]]'' (1983){{efn|According to the [[Library of Congress]]}}<ref name=LOCtable/><ref name=LOCappx/>

'''''Plessy v. Ferguson''''', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a [[List of landmark court decisions in the United States|landmark]] [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] decision ruling that [[racial segregation]] laws did not violate the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]] as long as the facilities for eachpeople raceof color were equal in quality to those of white people, a doctrine that came to be known as "[[separate but equal]]".{{sfnp|Nowak|Rotunda|2012|loc=§ 18.8(c)}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Groves |first=Harry E. |year=1951 |title=Separate but Equal—The Doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson |journal=Phylon |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=66–72 |doi=10.2307/272323 |jstor=272323}}</ref> The decision legitimized the many state "[[Jim Crow laws]]" re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the [[Southern United States|American South]] ("[[Jim Crow laws]]") after the end of the [[Reconstruction era]] in 1877. Such legally enforced segregation in the southSouth lasted into the 1960s.

The underlying case began in 1892 when [[Homer Plessy]], a mixed-race man, deliberately boarded a whites-only train car in [[New Orleans]]. By boarding the whites-only car, Plessy violated [[Louisiana]]'s [[Separate Car Act]]|Separate Car Act of 1890]], which required "equal, but separate" railroad accommodations for white and non-white passengers. Plessy was charged under the Act, and at his trial his lawyers argued that judge [[John Howard Ferguson]] should dismiss the charges on the grounds that the Act was unconstitutional. Ferguson denied the request, and the [[Louisiana Supreme Court]] upheld Ferguson's ruling on appeal. Plessy then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In May 1896, the Supreme Court issued a 7–1 decision against Plessy, ruling that the Louisiana law did not violate the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]] and stating that although the Fourteenth Amendment established the legal equality of whites and blacks, it did not and could not require the elimination of all "distinctions based upon color". The Court rejected Plessy's lawyers' arguments that the Louisiana law inherently implied that black people were inferior, and gave great deference to American state legislatures' inherent power to make laws regulating health, safety, and morals—the "[[police power (United States constitutional law)|police power]]"—and to determine the reasonableness of the laws they passed. Justice [[John Marshall Harlan]] was the lone dissenter from the Court's decision, writing that the U.S. Constitution "is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens", and so the law'slaws distinguishing of passengers' races should have been found unconstitutional.

''Plessy'' is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history.<ref>{{harvp|Amar|2011|p=76}}; {{harvp|Epstein|1995|p=99}}.</ref> Despite its infamy, the decision has never been explicitly overruled.{{sfnp|Lofgren|1987|pp=204–05}} However, a series of the Court's later decisions, beginning with thein 1954 decisionwith ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', which held that the "separate but equal" doctrine is unconstitutional in the context of public schools, a series of the Court's later decisions have severely weakened ''Plessy'' to the point that it is considered to have been ''de facto'' overruled.{{sfnp|Schauer|1997|pp=279–80}} The [[Library of Congress]] regards ''Plessy'' as not having been expressly overruled until ''[[Bob Jones University v. United States]]''.<ref name=LOCtable>{{cite web |url=https://constitution.congress.gov/resources/decisions-overruled/ |title=Table of Supreme Court Decisions Overruled by Subsequent Decisions |website=constitution.congress.gov |access-date=July 9, 2022}}</ref><ref name=LOCappx>{{cite web |url=https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/appx.1/ALDE_00000065 |title=Appendix 1.2: Methodology for the Table of Supreme Court Decisions Overruled by Subsequent Decisions |website=constitution.congress.gov |access-date=June 10, 2023}} Footnote 13.</ref>

[[File:JudgeJMHarlan.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|[[Justice John Marshall Harlan]] became known as the "Great Dissenter" for his fiery dissent in ''Plessy'' and other early civil rights cases.]]

Justice [[John Marshall Harlan]] was the lone dissenter from the Court's decision. Harlan strongly disagreed with the Court's conclusion that the Louisiana railcar law did not imply that black people were inferior, and he accused the majority of being willfully ignorant on the subjectissue.

In a now-famous passage, Harlan forcefully argued that even though many white Americans of the late 19th century considered themselves superior to Americansthose of other races, the U.S. Constitution was "color-blind" inregarding matters ofthe law and civil rights.{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;9.3.1, p. 761}}

Harlan predicted that the Court''Plessy''s decision would eventually become as infamous as the Court'sits 1857 decision ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'', in which the Court had ruled that black Americans could not be citizens under the U.S. Constitution, and that its legal protections and privileges could never apply to them.

[[File:ColoredDrinkingNegro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by Russell Lee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|An [[Oklahoma City]] streetcar terminal's "colored" drinking fountain, 1939<ref>{{cite web|last=Lee|first=Russell|title=Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma|work=Prints & Photographs Online Catalog|publisher=[[Library of Congress]] Home|date=July 1939|url=https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997026728/PP/|access-date=March 23, 2005}}</ref>]]''Plessy'' legitimized state laws establishing "racial" segregation in the [[Southern United States|South]] and provided an impetus for further segregation laws. It also legitimized laws in the North requiring "racial" segregation, such as in the Boston school segregation case noted by Justice Brown in his majority opinion.<ref>{{cite book|last=Brands|first=H. W.|title=American Colossus|location=New York|publisher=Anchor Books|date=2010|page=466}}</ref> Legislative achievements won during the [[Reconstruction Era]] were erased through means of the "separate but equal" doctrine.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1954/07/segregation-and-the-supreme-court/6055|title=Segregation and the Supreme Court|last=Sutherland| first=Arthur E. Jr. |author-link=Arthur E. Sutherland Jr.|magazine=The Atlantic Monthly|date=July 1954}}</ref> The doctrine had been strengthened also by an 1875 Supreme Court decision that limited the federal government's ability to intervene in state affairs, guaranteeing to Congress only the power "to restrain states from acts of racial discrimination and segregation".<ref name="oldfield">{{cite journal |last1=Oldfield |first1=John |title=State politics, railroads, and Civil Rights in South Carolina, 1883–89 |journal=American Nineteenth Century History |date=January 2004 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=71–91 |doi=10.1080/1466465042000257864 |s2cid=144234514 }}</ref> The ruling basically granted states legislative immunity when dealing with questions of "race", guaranteeing the states' right to implement racially separate institutions, requiring them only to be equal.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/separate-but-equal.html|title=Separate But Equal: The Law of the Land|publisher=Smithsonian National Museum of American History Behring Center}}</ref>