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Series

Litigation

Judicial review

2004

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Some Legacies Of Brown V. Board Of Education, Mark V. Tushnet Jan 2004

Some Legacies Of Brown V. Board Of Education, Mark V. Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The litigation campaign against segregation that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education' remains an important subject of study. Brown continues to be controversial because Americans remain uncertain about what its substantive commitments were, and, perhaps more important, how those commitments, as we now understand them, fit together with the other values and institutions that provide the structure of contemporary politics. This Essay will follow up on three aspects of the litigation campaign preceding Brown in an effort to show how Brown and its legacy illuminate enduring features of the organization of the U.S. political system.


Litigation Campaigns And The Search For Constitutional Rules, Mark V. Tushnet Jan 2004

Litigation Campaigns And The Search For Constitutional Rules, Mark V. Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Journal's focus on appellate practice and procedure suggests that it might be appropriate and productive to take a somewhat unusual approach to Brown and its significance. Brown was most important, of course, for its role in the transformation of American race relations. From the point of view of the appellate courts, Brown is significant in another way. Brown was the culmination of a sustained campaign of strategically designed litigation-or so it came to be thought. Lawyers subsequently took the strategic litigation campaign they saw ending in the triumph of Brown as a model for their own causes, and developed …