Which Supreme Court case established the constitutionality of 'separate but equal'?

• A. Racism
• B. Plessy v. Ferguson
• C. Jim Crow
• D. Reconstruction

Answer: (B)

The idea being tested is how the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause was interpreted in relation to racial segregation. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court ruled that state laws requiring separate facilities for black and white people were permissible as long as the separate facilities were “equal in quality.” This established the doctrine of “separate but equal,” which allowed Jim Crow segregation to be upheld by law across many public spaces, from trains to schools. In reality, the facilities for African Americans were almost always inferior, but the Court’s decision provided a legal framework that sustained segregation for decades. The doctrine was later overturned in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which held that segregation in public education was inherently unequal and unconstitutional.