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Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived for a time in a “free” territory. The Court ruled against him. -
Civil War Ends
The Confederacy is the name commonly given to the Confederate States of American which existed from 1860-1865 throughout the Civil War. It was started when southern states seceded from the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln. -
First case to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment
the Supreme Court narrowly interpreted the newly passed amendment and its privileges and immunities clause, as only applying to a very limited number of federal rights of citizenship, such as the right to travel between states or use navigable waterways. The Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held, did not protect the much broader range of rights granted by the individual states. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was not constitutional under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court established the state-action doctrine, thereby allowing segregation and discrimination by private actors. -
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
The Court ruled for the first time that a facially neutral law applied in a racially discriminatory manner violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
the Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and other public places to serve African Americans in separate, but ostensibly equal, accommodations. In establishing the separate but equal” doctrine, the Court said that segregation is “universally recognized as within the competency of states in the exercise of their police powers.” -
Powell v. Alabama
The Supreme Court overturned the convictions of the “Scottsboro boys,” and set a precedent that the right to counsel is required for death penalty cases under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process clause, whether in federal or state courts. -
Missouri ex el Gaines v. Canada
The Supreme Court ruled that Missouri could not satisfy its obligation to provide equal protection by sending an African American resident to an out-of-state law school and that Lionel Gaines must thus be admitted to the all-white University of Missouri School of Law. This case was the beginning of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s effort to chip away at the separate-but-equal doctrine -
Korematsu v. U.S
The Supreme Court held that the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII was Constitutional. While extremely controversial, this case is the first time the Court invoked the concept of strict scrutiny in regard to racial discrimination, requiring a showing that the racial classification is narrowly tailored, in the least restrictive means to further a “compelling government interest.” -
Brown v. Board of Education
Chief Justice Earl Warren, reading his first major opinion from the bench, said: “We conclude, unanimously, that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”