The doctrine of 'separate but equal' was established by which case?

• A. Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education
• B. Loving v. Virginia
• C. Plessy v. Ferguson
• D. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

Answer: (C)

The main idea as tested is how the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause was interpreted to allow racial segregation through a “separate but equal” standard. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring race-based segregation on trains, ruling that segregated facilities could be legal if they were equal in quality. This created the legal justification for Jim Crow laws and maintained state-sanctioned segregation for decades. The doctrine wasn’t really challenged until Brown v. Board of Education, which held that segregation in public schools is inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional, overturning Plessy. Other cases touched on different issues or outcomes—Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education dealt with school funding and segregation in that context but did not establish separate but equal; Loving v. Virginia struck down bans on interracial marriage; Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education dealt with desegregation through busing.