In the 1981 case Johnson et al. v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago et al., parents and students from Chicago public schools sued the city's board of education, alleging that their children were being denied equal educational opportunities due to racial segregation in schools. The plaintiffs argued that this was a violation of both federal law and constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. However, they faced an uphill battle as previous court rulings had established that de facto (in practice) segregation resulting from housing patterns did not violate these laws unless it could be proven there was intentional discrimination by school authorities. The Supreme Court ruled against Johnson and his co-plaintiffs, stating that while racial imbalance existed in Chicago's public schools, there wasn't sufficient evidence to prove intentional discriminatory practices by school officials or policies promoting such segregation. Therefore, no violation occurred under either federal law or constitutionally protected rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Johnson et al. v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago et al., Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Marshall and Blackmun, argued that the majority's decision to uphold a school board policy mandating retirement at age 70 was flawed. They contended that this ruling failed to properly apply standards set forth in previous cases regarding age discrimination in employment under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The dissenters believed that there should have been a more rigorous examination into whether mandatory retirement truly served public interest or if it was merely an arbitrary limit based on stereotypes about aging. Furthermore, they disagreed with how much deference was given to legislative judgments about older workers' abilities without sufficient evidence supporting these assumptions.