Which landmark Supreme Court decision shaped civil rights protections by prohibiting racial segregation in public schools?

• A. Roe v. Wade.
• B. Plessy v. Ferguson.
• C. Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
• D. Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Answer: (C)

Racial segregation in public schools was challenged by looking at how the Constitution protects equal rights for all students. The main idea this question tests is how a Supreme Court ruling used the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down segregation in education. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court held that separating children by race in public schools is unconstitutional because separate facilities are inherently unequal. This decision rejected the previous “separate but equal” logic and established a legal standard that desegregation in public education is required. It provided a crucial foundation for civil rights protections by connecting equality under the law to the everyday reality of schools, and it propelled further desegregation efforts nationwide. Other options involve different issues or earlier doctrines: Roe v. Wade concerns abortion rights, Dred Scott v. Sandford predates the Fourteenth Amendment, and Plessy v. Ferguson introduced the problematic separate-but-equal doctrine that Brown specifically overturned in the school context.