In the __________ decision, the Supreme Court ruled that "separate-but-equal" facilities were constitutional.

• A. Plessy v. Ferguson
• B. Brown v. Board of Education
• C. Loving v. Virginia
• D. Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is how the Supreme Court interpreted the Equal Protection Clause to allow racial segregation. In the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, the Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring separate railway cars for Black and white passengers, saying that state-imposed separation was constitutional as long as the facilities provided for each race were equal in quality. This created the legal doctrine of "separate but equal" that rationalized widespread segregation under Jim Crow for decades. In practice, the facilities were rarely equal, and the doctrine was eventually overturned in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which rejected separate but equal in the realm of public education. The other cases address different issues or contexts—Brown challenged the doctrine in education, Loving concerned interracial marriage, and Cumming dealt with school funding and segregation—so the statement points to Plessy v. Ferguson as the ruling that endorsed separate-but-equal facilities.