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Page Number: 21

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

dedicated  belief.”);  post,  at  39,  n. 7  (THOMAS,  J.,  concur-
ring).  The  Court  reiterated  that  rule  just  one  year  later,
holding that “full compliance” with Brown required schools
to admit students “on a racially nondiscriminatory basis.” 
Brown  v.  Board  of  Education,  349  U. S.  294,  300–301 
(1955).  The time for making distinctions based on race had 
passed.  Brown, the Court observed, “declar[ed] the funda-
mental principle that racial discrimination in public educa-
tion is unconstitutional.”  Id., at 298. 

So too in other areas of life.  Immediately after Brown, we 
began routinely affirming lower court decisions that invali-
dated  all  manner  of  race-based  state  action.  In  Gayle  v. 
Browder, for example, we summarily affirmed a decision in-
validating state and local laws that required segregation in 
busing.  352  U. S.  903  (1956)  (per  curiam).    As  the  lower  
court  explained,  “[t]he  equal  protection  clause  requires 
equality of treatment before the law for all persons without
regard to race or color.”  Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707, 
715 (MD Ala. 1956).  And in Mayor and City Council of Bal-
timore v. Dawson, we summarily affirmed a decision strik-
ing  down  racial  segregation  at  public  beaches  and  bath-
houses maintained by the State of Maryland and the city of 
Baltimore.  350 U. S. 877 (1955) (per curiam).  “It is obvious 
that  racial  segregation  in  recreational  activities  can  no
longer be sustained,” the lower court observed.  Dawson v. 
Mayor  and  City  Council  of  Baltimore,  220  F. 2d  386,  387 
(CA4 1955) (per curiam).  “[T]he ideal of equality before the 
law  which  characterizes  our  institutions”  demanded  as 
much.  Ibid. 

In the decades that followed, this Court continued to vin-
dicate the Constitution’s pledge of racial equality.  Laws di-
viding  parks  and  golf  courses;  neighborhoods  and  busi-
nesses; buses and trains; schools and juries were undone, 
all by a transformative promise “stemming from our Amer-
ican ideal of fairness”: “ ‘the Constitution . . . forbids . . . dis-
crimination by the General Government, or by the States,