Supreme Court Landmark Cases

1. Marbury v Madison, 1803
2. McCulloch v Maryland, 1819
3. Gibbons v Ogden, 1824
4. Dred Scott v Sandford, 1857
5. Plessy v Ferguson, 1896
6. Lochner, v New York, 1905
7. Near v Minnesota, 1931
8. West Coast Hotel, v Parrish, 1937
9. Smith v Allwright, 1944
10. Sweatt v Painter, 1950
11. Brown v Board of Education, 1954
12. Mapp v Ohio, 1961
13. Baker v Carr, 1962
14. Gideon v Wainwright, 1963
15. New York Times Co. v Sullivan, 1964
16. Griswold v Connecticut, 1965
17. Miranda v Arizona, 1966
18. San Antonio Independent School District v Rodrigues, 1973
19. Roe v Wade, 1973
20. United States v Nixon, 1974
21. Texas v Johnson, 1989
22. Cruzan v Missouri Dept. of Health, 1990
23. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v Thornton, 1995
24. Clinton v Jones, 1997
25. Engel v Vitale, 1962
26. Cherokee Nation v Georgia, 1831
27. Worcester v Georgia, 1832
28. Regents of the California v Bakke, 1978
29. Bob Jones University v United States, 1983
30. Other topics: e.g. History of the Supreme Court; Marshall’s Court; Warren’s Court, specific areas: Native Americans’ rulings, civil rights, civil liberties,….

Hawke v Smith, 1920

Coleman, v Miller, 1939

Marbury v Madison, 1803

Eakin v Raub, 1825

Baker v Carr, 1962

Valley Forge Christian College v Americans United, 1982

McGrain v Daugherty, 1927

Barenblatt v United States, 1959

Schechter Poultry Corporation v United States, 1935

Unites States v Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation, 1936

United States v Nixon, 1974

Nixon v Fitzgerald, 1982

Clinton v Jones, 1997

Buckley v Valeo, 1976

Immigration and Naturalization Service v Chadha, 1983

Morrison v Olson, 1988

Prigg v Pennsylvania, 1842

Dred Scoatt v Sandord, 1857

Kennedy v Mendoza-Maartinez, 1963

United States v Classic, 1941

Smith v Allwright, 1944

Reynolds v Sims, 1964

Shaw v Reno, 1993

McCulloch v Maryland, 1819

Martin v Hunter’s Lessee, 1816

Unites States v Butler, 1936

Collector v Day, 1871

University of Illinois v United States, 1933

United States v California, 1936

Garcia v San Antonio Metro, 1985

Gregory v Ashcroft, 1991

Printz v United Sates, 1997

Hylton v United States, 1796

Pollock v Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company, 1895

Gibbons v Ogden, 1824

Edwards v California, 1941

Hammer v Dagenhart, 1918

United States v Lopez, 1995

Woods v Miller, 1948

Missouri v Holland Ex Post Facto Laws, 1920

Calder v Bull, 1798

United States v Brown, 1965

The Dartmouth College Case: The Trustees of Dartmouth,

College v Woodward, 1819

Barron v Baltimore, 1833

Munn v Illinois, 1877

Nebbia v New York, 1934

Lochner v New York, 1905

Hurtado v California, 1884

Powell v Alabama, 1932

Palko v Connecticut, 1937

Betts v Brady, 1942

Gideon v Wainwrigh, 1963

Irvine v California, 1954

Griswold v Connecticut, 1965

Roe v Wade, 1973

Washington v Glucksberg, 1997

Wyman v James, 1971

Bordenkircher v Haves, 1978

Schenck v Unites States, 1919

Gitlow v New York, 1925

Dennis v United States, 1951

Tinker v Des Moines, 1971

Adderley v Florida, 1966

R.A.V. v St. Paul, 1992

Walker v Birmingham, 1967

Near v Minnesota, 1931

Kingsley Books v Brown, 1957

Miller v California, 1973

New York Times Co. v United States, 1971

Rust v Sullivan, 1991

Richmond Newspapers Inc v Virginia, 1980

Murdock v Pennsylvania, 1943

West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette, 1943

Employment Division v Smith, 1990

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v City of Hialeah, 1993

Zorach v Clauson, 1952

Mueller v Allen, 1983

Rosenberger v University of Virginia, 1995

Edwards v Aguillard, 1987

Lynch v Donnelly, 1984

Goesaert v Cleary, 1948

Korematsu v United States, 1944

Kramer v Union Free School District, 1969

San Antonio v Rodriguez, 1973

Plyler v Doe, 1982

Batson v Kentucky, 1986

Shelley v Kraemer, 1948

Plessey v Ferguson, 1896

Sweatt v Painter, 1950

Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, 1954

Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 1971---update please-2001

Milliken v Bradley, 1974

Richmond v Croson, 1989

Geduldig v Aiello, 1974

Mississippi University for Women v Hogan, 1982

United States v Virginia, 1996

Maher v Roe, 1977

Romer v Evans,1996

United States v Guest, 1966

South Carolina v Katzenbach, 1966

Boerne v Flores, 1997

Jones v Alfred H. Mayer Co, 1968

Supreme Court Cases

Sample (short version) be creative!

Historical Perspective: After the American Civil War, 1861-1865, and with the passing of the Reconstruction Era Amendments (13^th, 14^th & 15^th), we then had the return of the "white man’s government" to Southern states. State laws re-invented the "Black Codes," which had been passed right after the Civil War to keep the African American people in their place. These laws established and enforced by criminal penalties a system of racial segregation under which members of the black and white races were required to be separated in the enjoyment of public and semipublic facilities. Plessy v. Ferguson is the case in which the Supreme Court upheld state laws segregating people by their race. Many believe these "Jim Crow" laws were passed in large part to stop poor whites from a political and economic alliance with blacks to threaten the established order in the South.

Separate schools, parks, waiting rooms, and bus or railroad accommodations were required by law; when completely separate facilities later on proved not to be feasible, as in a railroad dining cars, where curtained partitions served to separate the races.

When racial segregation was effected by private actions, as in the case of stores or clubs, no Constitutional Issue could be raised after the decision in the Civil Rights case in 1883. When segregation was required by law, however, the question arose of whether it violated the rights guaranteed to newly freed African Americans by the 14^th Amendment. This problem came to the Court for the first time in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, some twenty-eight years after the Amendment had been adopted.

Background: The Legislature of Louisiana had passed in 1890 a statute providing  "...that all railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in this state shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger coaches for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by a partition so as to secure separate accommodations..." A fine of $25 or 20 days in jail was the penalty for sitting in the wrong compartment.

Plaintiff: Mr. Plessy, a person who was one eighth African American refused to vacate a seat in the white compartment of a railway car and was arrested for violating the statute. On June 7, 1892, a 30-year-old African American shoemaker named Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy was only one eighth black and seven eighth white, but under Louisiana Law, he was considered black and therefore required to sit in the "Colored" car. Plessy went to court and argued, in Homer Adolph Plessy v. The State of Louisiana, that the Separate Car Act violated the 13^th & 14^th Amendments to the Constitution. The judge at the trial was John Howard Ferguson, a lawyer from Massachusetts who had previously declared the Separate Care Act "unconstitutional on trains that traveled through several states."   In Plessy’s case, however, he decided that the state could choose to regulate railroad companies that operated only within Louisiana. He found Plessy guilty of refusing to leave the white car. Plessy appealed to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, which upheld Ferguson’s decision. In 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States heard Plessy’s case and found him guilty once again.

Defendant: Mr. Ferguson, representing the State of Louisiana.

U.S. Supreme Court’s Ruling: ruled in favor of Ferguson/State of Louisiana, the case in which the Supreme Court upheld state laws segregating people by their race.

Ramifications: The Plessy case made lawful for nearly 60 years the doctrine that African Americans are not denied the equal protection of the laws by compelling them to accept "separate but equal" accommodations. The case endorsed and condoned separateness in all social and governmental institutions: public schools, higher education, the justice system, employment, recreation, transportation, etc. Such were the ramifications of the Court’s ruling;  these artificial and unequal conditions lasted until the 1950s-1960s.  The damage of this decision made an impact on several generations of African Americans, especially to their self esteem, self worth, and what their proper place was in the United States. The African American man could not only fight for this nation and its ideals, but he also could die for them too. He could be on the front line in war, but he was required by statute to sit only in the back of the bus and, he was kept from voting by artificial means. Based on the limited research, the conclusion might be drawn that the U.S. Supreme Court caved in to social pressure with this ruling. A point of interest would be that it is the only time in American history that later on the Supreme Court would overrule itself some 58 years later with the Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, 1954.  The Court held that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal because they irreparably damage the self-esteem of African American children-- "To separate African American children from others of similar age and qualifications solely based on their race generates a feeling of inferiority...that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone."  

Oddity: There is a bit of irony in the fact that the majority opinion in the Plessy case was written by Justice Brown, a Yale man from the state of Michigan and the eloquent PROTEST against racial discrimination is found in the dissenting opinion of Justice Harlan, a Southerner from Kentucky.

Question: Does it raise an equal protection question that the Court accepted the state’s determination that Plessy, who was seven eighth white, was black? What would have been the impact of a ruling that permitted segregation but held that a person was to be considered white if he were more than 50% white and black if more than 50% black? Incidentally a Haitian perspective on racial matters is illustrated by a humorous story about "Papa Doc" Duvalier’s reply to a journalist who asked him what percentage of the Haitian population was white:

Ninety-eight percent. The startled American journalists, sure he had either misheard or been misunderstood, put his question again. Duvalier assured him that he had heard and understood the question perfectly well, and had given the correct answer. Struggling to make sense of this incredible piece of information, the American finally asked Duvalier: "How do you define white?" Duvalier answered the question with a question: "How do you define black in your country?" Receiving the explanation that in the U.S. anyone with any black blood was considered black, Duvalier nodded and said, "Well, that the way we define white in my country. Feagin: 1999:285.