The Road Not Taken in Brown: Recognizing the Dual Harm of Segregation

Abstract

SUPREME Court opinions like Brown v. Board of Education' reveal their consequences and yield their secrets only with the passage of time. The Supreme Court candidly recognized this reality seventeen years after it delivered Brown: "Nothing in our national experience prior to 1955 prepared anyone for dealing with changes and adjustments of the magnitude and complexity encountered since then."2 Fifty years have now elapsed since May 17, 1954, and the passage of time allows us to put perspective into a reexamination of the opinion that launched American society into the desegregation era and became the catalyst for astonishing changes in race relations not only in public education, but throughout American society. In 1954, the Supreme Court came to a fork in the road in its school segregation jurisprudence when Brown became the first case to force the Court to articulate the harm generated by segregation per se.3 Chief Justice Warren defined the primary harm of segregation to be the negative psychological impact on African-