The Supreme Court under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]], a liberal Republican, issued [[Brown vs. Board of education]] in 1954, declaring legal segregation to be unconstitutional. It marked the culmination of a judicial movement that had been underway for a decade. It had the short-term effect of ending segregated schools in border states, and the long-term effect of ending legalized segregation in schools.
+
The election of a Republican for the first time in 20 years was momentous. Eisenhower appointed Republican California Governor [[Earl Warren]] as [[Chief Justice]] of the Supreme Court. All the other members had been appointed by Roosevelt and Truman who believed courts should defer to the policymaking prerogatives of the White House and Congress. Warren convened a meeting of the justices and presented to them the simple argument that the only reason to sustain segregation was a deep-rooted belief in the inferiority of African-Americans. in ''[[Brown v. Topeka Board of Education]]'', Warren produced a unanimous decision that said: {{quotebox|"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group…Any language in contrary to this finding is rejected. We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”}}