Publication Date
1980
Publication Title
Georgetown Law Journal
Abstract
By a process that has been the subject of considerable speculation, the United States Supreme Court reached a unanimous decision in the 1954 cases of Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe, declaring unconstitutional statutory segregation in public school systems in the states and in the District of Columbia. Using previously unpublished material, Professor Hutchinson traces the rise and fall of unanimity in the segregation cases of the 1950's. The article delineates the Court's internal decisionmaking process and analyzes the role of unanimity in influencing the response of both the Court and the nation to the escalating challenges to the separation of the races.
Recommended Citation
Dennis J. Hutchinson, "Unanimity and Desegregation: Decisionmaking in the Supreme Court, 1948-1958," 68 Georgetown Law Journal 1 (1980).
