1

482 OCTOBER TERM, 1953.
Opinion of the Court. 347 U.S.

the complete exclusion of negroes from jury service, the constitutional provision . . . would be but a vain and illusory requirement."¹⁵

The same reasoning is applicable to these facts.

Circumstances or chance may well dictate that no persons in a certain class will serve on a particular jury or during some particular period. But it taxes our credulity to say that mere chance resulted in there being no members of this class among the over six thousand jurors called in the past 25 years. The result bespeaks discrimination, whether or not it was a conscious decision on the part of any individual jury commissioner. The judgment of conviction must be reversed.

To say that this decision revives the rejected contention that the Fourteenth Amendment requires proportional representation of all the component ethnic groups of the ommunity on every jury¹⁶ ignores the facts. The petitioner did not seek proportional representation, nor did he claim a right to have persons of Mexican descent sit on the particular juries which he faced.¹⁷ His only claim is the right to be indicted and tried by juries from which all members of his class are not systematically excluded -- juries selected from among all qualified persons regardless of national origin or descent. To this much, he is entitled by the Constitution.
Reversed.

¹⁵ 294 U.S., at 598
¹⁶ See Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 403; Cassell v. Texas, 339 U.S. 282, 286-287.
¹⁷ See Akins v. Texas, supra, note 16, at 403

BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION. 483
Syllabus.

BROWN ET AL. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA ET AL.

NO. 1. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS.*

Argued December 9, 1952. -- Reargued December 8, 1953. -- Decided May 17, 1954.

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State soley on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal. Pp. 486-496.
(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education. Pp. 489-490.
(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined, not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Pp. 492-493.
(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. P. 493.
(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and
other "tangible" factors, may be equal. Pp. 493-494.
(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, has no place in the field of public education. P. 495

*Together with No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, argued December 9-10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia et al., on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued December 10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al., on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware, argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.