Which legal doctrine was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education?

The legal doctrine that was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education is the principle of "separate but equal." This doctrine, established in the earlier case of Plessy v. Ferguson, upheld state laws that legalized racial segregation, so long as the separate facilities for different races were considered to be equal.

In the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was inherently unequal, and therefore unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court's decision emphasized that separation in public education created a sense of inferiority among African American children that undermined their educational opportunities, thereby demonstrating that "separate but equal" was not a viable or constitutional doctrine.

This ruling had a profound impact on the Civil Rights Movement, as it challenged the legality of segregation and provided a foundation for subsequent efforts to dismantle discriminatory practices across various sectors of society. The decision effectively marked the beginning of a pivotal change toward desegregation in the United States.