Sold – “Brown vs Board of Education II” – The Complete Opinion Signed by Chief Justice Earl Warren

Many Southern states and school districts responded to the Brown case decision by resisting, delaying, and avoiding significant integration, using such tactics as closing down school systems, using state money to finance segregated “private” schools, and token integration where a few carefully selected black children were admitted to former white-only schools but the vast majority remained in underfunded, unequal black schools. These actions were clearly inadequate to comply with the ruling. Moreover,  school districts ordered to desegregate were requesting clarification on timing and relief from the imminent burdens of this task.

In 1955, the U.S. Supreme Court considered arguments made by them and issued a new decision, which became known as “Brown II.” With Chief Justice Earl Warren writing the opinion, on May 31, 1955, the Court delegated the task of carrying out the details of school desegregation to district courts, with orders that desegregation occur “with all deliberate speed.” That phrase became the best known of all standards related to desegregation.

The Court reaffirmed “the fundamental principle that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional.” It then went on to set the standard for desegregation, holding that “the courts will require that the defendants make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance with our May 17, 1954, ruling. Once such a start has been made, the courts may find that additional time is necessary to carry out the ruling in an effective manner. The burden rests upon the defendants to establish that such time is necessary in the public interest and is consistent with good faith compliance at the earliest practicable date. To that end, the courts may consider problems related to administration, arising from the physical condition of the school plant, the school transportation system, personnel, revision of school districts and attendance areas into compact units to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis, and revision of local laws and regulations… The…cases are remanded to the District Courts to take such proceedings and enter such orders and decrees consistent with this opinion as are necessary and proper to admit to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed the parties to these cases.”

Typescript of the entire opinion, 4 pages, signed by Warren at the conclusion. The document comes from the collection assembled by Eugene Gerhart, a prominent attorney in upstate New York and the biographer of Justice Robert Jackson. It is the only signed copy of the Brown II opinion we have ever seen. Its original surviving invoice indicates that this was obtained by Gerhart in 1970 from noted dealer Paul Richards.