The U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark decision that fundamentally changed the American education system. The plaintiffs, representing African-American students in Topeka, Kansas, challenged the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools under the "separate but equal" doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). They argued that segregated schools were inherently unequal and violated their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. In 1954, after two years of deliberation following initial arguments in 1952, Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered a unanimous verdict overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and declaring school segregation unconstitutional because it denied black children equal educational opportunities - even if facilities were otherwise similar to those for white students - thus marking an end to legal racial segregation in public schools across America.

The landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education did not have a dissenting opinion. The Supreme Court's decision was unanimous, with all nine Justices agreeing that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling overturned the "separate but equal" principle set forth in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and mandated desegregation across America's public education system.