A Study Of The Role Of The Supreme Court In The Process Of Educational Racial Equality Since1954

The U.S. Supreme Court is one of the three branches of the federal government，which has the power to interpret the Constitution, playing an important and specialrole in the political system of the United States. In1954, the Supreme Court took thelead in declaring war to the apartheid system in the field of public education, and thentook drastic measures to get rid of the segregation supported by the federal executiveand legislative branches. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court established “allowed butstrictly limited” principle regarding the affirmative action in university admissions,which pointed out the direction for the policy of racial preferences in the field ofhigher education. Accompanied by a series of decisions in the process of educationalracial equality, the Supreme Court’s judicial review is also showing a lot of newfeatures. By utilizing a lot of original documents, combined with researchachievements of scholars home and abroad, this dissertation makes a historicalinvestigation about the role of the Supreme Court in the process of educational racialequality, emphasizing the different characteristics of the Supreme Court comparedwith the President and Congress.This dissertation is composed of the introduction, four chapters of main body andthe conclusion. The introduction mainly introduces the reason of choosing such topic,the objectives, innovations and shortcomings of this dissertation, and makes anoverview of the previous research works home and aboard.Chapter one traces the formation and proliferation of the apartheid system in thepublic education, and analyzes the reasons and significance of the Brown decision. Italso explores the reasons why the Supreme Court took the lead in declaring war toapartheid regime.Chapter two reviews the different attitudes and measures of the Supreme Courtin desegregating the public schools before and after the enactment of the1964CivilRights Act.Chapter three describes the gap of population growth between different races andresidential segregation in modern society, and analyzes their influences on segregationin public schools. It also interpretes the reason why American politics turnedconservative in the1970s and the Supreme Court treated “de facto segregation” withgreat caution.Chapter four investigates the reasons for the rise of affirmative action, and explores the various positions of the groups opposed to the policy, interpreting thespecific meaning of “allow but limit” principle.The section of conclusion makes a brief summary of the dissertation. It pointsout that the role played by the Supreme Court, in the process of educational racialequality, can be divided into two aspects: establishing principles, and regulating andsupervising the measures to implement the principle. Compared to the President andthe Congress, the characteristics of the Supreme Court are acting earliest, standingfirmly, and enforcing forcely. And the role of the Supreme Court is influenced by theextent of racial discrimination.