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261

COOPER V. AARON

It is, of course, quite true that the responsibility for public education is primarily the concern of the States, but it is equally true that such responsibilities, like all other state activity, must be exercised consistently with federal constitutional requirements as they apply to state action. The Constitution created a government dedicated to equal justice under law. The Fourteenth Amendment embodied and emphasized that ideal. State support of segregated schools through any arrangement, management, funds, or property cannot be squared with the Amendment's command that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The right of a student not to be segregated on racial grounds in schools so maintained is indeed so fundamental and pervasive that it is embraced in the concept of due process of law. . . .

The basic decision in Brown was unanimously reached by this Court only after the case had been briefed and twice argued and the issues had been given the most serious consideration. Since the first Brown opinion three new Justices have come to the Court. They are at one with the Justices still on the Court who participated in that basic decision as to its correctness, and that decision is now unanimously reaffirmed. The principles announced in that decision and the obedience of the States to them, according to the command of the Constitution, are indispensable for the protection of the freedoms guaranteed by our fundamental charter for all of us. Our constitutional ideal of equal justice under law is thus made a living truth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BATES, DAISY. The Long Shadow of Little Rock. University of Arkansas Press, 1987.

FREYER, TONY. The Little Rock Crisis. Greenwood, 1984.

HAYS, BROOKS. "Inside Story of Little Rock." U.S. News & World Report, March 23, 1959, p. 118.

IRONS, PETER. The Courage of their Conviction, ch. 5. Penguin, 1990.

KNEBEL, FLETCHER. "The Real Little Rock Story." Look, November 12, 1957, p. 31.

SCHLESSINGER, GARY A. "The Law, the Mob, and Desegregation." California Law Review 47 (March 1959): 126.

WOFFORD, HARRIS, JR. "The Supreme Court as an Educator." Saturday Review, March 7, 1959, p. 13.