The scientific attack on Brown v. Board of Education, 1954-1964.
Psychologists' work was cited in the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). One criticism of the citation was that psychology could be used to overturn the Brown decision and return the country to segregation. A historical examination of such an attempt to overturn Brown in the early 1960s on the basis of new psychological knowledge shows that psychology was not persuasive in the face of the civil rights movement. The failure of segregationists to overturn Brown with psychological experts underscores how psychology is ineluctably bound to the larger society.
Jackson
John P
JP
Department of Communication, University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 270, Boulder, CO 80309-0270, USA. john.p.jackson@colorado.edu
D044383:Black People / Q000266:history*; D002648:Child; D002961:Civil Rights / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011287:Prejudice; D011584:Psychology / Q000266:history*; D011822:Race Relations / Q000266:history*; D012574:Schools / Q000266:history*; D035521:Supreme Court Decisions / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000266:history*; D001741:Black or African American