Supreme Court nixes bid to rename landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling

The Supreme Court this week rejected a petition seeking to rename the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 ruling that said separating students in schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional.

Without comment, the court declined to take up In Re Nathaniel Briggs, Beatrice Brown Rivers and Ethel Brown Marshall.

The plaintiffs had asked the justices to rename the landmark Brown case as Briggs v. Elliott. They say the Briggs case actually was filed and had reached the Supreme Court first, but the clerk “inadvertently docketed” the Brown case ahead of Briggs.

“This inadvertent clerical misstep deprived the petitioners their rightful place in history in spite of the great physical, emotional, and financial risks taken by each petitioner. The petitioners request that their place in history be restored by the simple act of reordering the petitioners to the just and accurate place,” their filing read.

Thomas Mullikin, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said they were disappointed with the court’s refusal of their petition in its Monday orders.

“The Briggs petitioners set into motion educational change from which the nation benefits today. The South Carolina case of Briggs v. Elliott was the first case filed in federal district court; Briggs was the first case appealed to the United States Supreme Court; Briggs was argued by the future United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; and the dissenting opinion written by U.S. District Court Justice Waties Waring became the basis of the ultimate decision of the court. Our petition was simply to pay gratitude to these brave and determined South Carolinians who led our nation to a stronger, better and more equitable education,” Mr. Mullikin said.

In his filing, Mr. Mullikin noted that the Briggs petitioners came from segregated South Carolina and faced financial risks and even death threats while fighting for their children’s education.

“History is calling upon the nation to recognize the great sacrifice these families made in the face of great danger,” the brief read.

The high court had consolidated desegregation cases under Brown, which caused Briggs to be considered a “companion case,” and the case name to fade “into relative anonymity,” their filing said.

Nathaniel Briggs, son of Harry Briggs, the lead South Carolina plaintiff, previously told Education Week: “For historical correctness, it needs to be said which case came first.”

The high court’s unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregating students on the basis of race ran afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The court had considered cases from a number of jurisdictions, including Kansas, Virginia, Delaware, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. — all consolidated under Brown, which came out of Kansas.

The Brown decision overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 case that said separating students by race was legal as long as the facilities were equal.