Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1954

Bolling v. Sharpe

347 U.S. 497 | 74 S. Ct. 693 | 98 L. Ed. 2d 884 | 1954 U.S. LEXIS 2095 | 98 L. Ed. 884 | 53 Ohio Op. 331

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Takeaway

In short, Bolling held that the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause bars the federal government, including the District of Columbia, from maintaining racially segregated public schools—a principle often called reverse incorporation.

Background

Black minor students in the District of Columbia were denied admission to a public school attended by white students solely because of their race. They sued in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking admission to the school.

The District Court dismissed the complaint. Because the case presented an important constitutional question, the Supreme Court granted certiorari before judgment in the Court of Appeals. The case was decided the same day as Brown v. Board of Education, which held that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids state-sponsored racial segregation in public schools.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether racial segregation in District of Columbia public schools violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, even though that Amendment contains no Equal Protection Clause.

Holding

Yes. Racial segregation in the District of Columbia's public schools is an arbitrary deprivation of liberty and therefore denies due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.

Reasoning

The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause applies to the states, not to the District of Columbia. The Court therefore could not simply apply Brown's Fourteenth Amendment holding directly. But equal protection and due process both reflect the constitutional ideal of basic fairness, even though they are not interchangeable in every setting.

Discrimination can be so unjustifiable that it violates due process. The Court emphasized that classifications based solely on race demand especially careful scrutiny because racial discrimination is contrary to American constitutional traditions and is constitutionally suspect.

The liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment extends beyond freedom from physical restraint. It includes the broad range of conduct an individual is ordinarily free to pursue, and government may restrict that liberty only for a proper governmental objective.

Segregation in public education was not reasonably related to any proper governmental objective. By separating Black children from white children solely because of race, the District imposed an arbitrary burden on Black students and deprived them of liberty without due process.

Having held in Brown that the Constitution forbids states from operating racially segregated public schools, the Court concluded that it would be unthinkable for the same Constitution to impose a lesser constitutional duty on the federal government, which governs the District of Columbia.