1. What are the important and relevant faces of the case? 2. What issues is the court addressing? What is the legal problem? 3. What law is the court applying? 4. What is the court’s decision, analysis, and rationale?
For this week, you need to find a case that deals with Due Process, the Equal Protection Clause or Delegation.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
What are the important and relevant faces of the case?
The Case is based upon The Equal Protection Clause, in which, this case occurred one hundred and nineteen years ago, but it was very interesting as to see what has changed during the century. In 1890, Louisiana State passed laws prohibited races to sit together on railroads; something in common with segregation in the south in the 1950’s and buses. Trains were required to have seating for different races and were divided by curtains or some form of barricade to prevent the races from sitting beside one another. Homer Adolph Plessy, a Louisiana businessman, who lived a society of whites and blacks, happen to have a black grandparent, in which Louisiana law defined him as an “octaroon”, one eight of black heritage. Plessy did not consider himself black, but Louisiana did and therefore made him sit in the segregated area for blacks.
Plessy did not agree and challenged the Jim Crow laws by breaking the law intentionally and sitting in an area of the train that Louisiana law said he was prohibited to sit in, in which case caused him to be arrested and charged with criminal violation of the state law.
What issues is the court addressing? What is the legal problem?
At the time, the legal issues the court is addressing, were the 13th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment that addressed Plessy’s plea on sitting in a “non” segregated area due to his grandparent (1) being black, making him of bi-racial race. Plessy did not agree and filed a complaint to the State Supreme Court, who in returned denied his claim of Equal Protection Clause, Plessy then decided to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. Plessy thought that the Louisiana Law of segregated seating due to race violated his “equal protection rights,” as well as segregated facilities violated The Equal Protection Clause and that it was his constitutional right to sit with the other train riders. Louisiana’s Laws “separate but equal” facilities assumed that 14th Amendment was not breaking The Equal Protection Clause. Plessy was a full citizen in that state and thought he should not be denied any rights as a citizen of Louisiana.

What law is the court applying?
The State of Louisiana stated that each state has the right to make rules to protect the general public and its citizens, and at this time area, that included protection of races mixing together for their safety. The “separate but equal” still feel into requirements that the 14th Amendment at the time stated and satisfied demands of the white population, when in reality, fast forward today’s Equal Protection Clause, this was a clear violation of an individual’s constitutional rights based on the grounds of racial discrimination.
What is the court’s decision, analysis, and rationale?
The Supreme Court stood behind the Louisiana’s decision and upheld the required segregation rules in that state. The Supreme Court noted that the 13th Amendment applied only to slavery and the 14th Amendment was never intended to give blacks, ( slavery decedents), any form of social, political, and or civil equality. The Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana Law was a reasonable law promoting the safety of the general public. In the “ separate but equal” seating, provided everyone with “constitutional rights, meaning, that all still could sit, but all could not sit together. Sad but true, Legislation

Using a line of reasoning that would echo across the next 60 years of political debate and Court opinion, Brown wrote that “Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences….” In other words, legislation cannot change public attitudes, “and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation,” Brown wrote. Reflecting the common bias of the majority of the country at the time, Brown argued that “If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.” The Court declared the Louisiana law a reasonable exercise of the State's “police power,” enacted for the promotion of the public good.
In the key passage of the opinion, the Court stated that segregation was legal and constitutional as long as “facilities were equal.” Thus the “separate but equal doctrine” that would keep America divided along racial lines for over half a century longer came into being.
Somewhat ironically, while Brown, a Northerner, justified the segregation of the races, Justice John Marshall Harlan, a Southerner from Kentucky, made a lone, resounding, and prophetic dissent. “The Thirteenth Amendment…struck down the institution of slavery [and]…decreed universal civil freedom,” Harlan declared. “Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” Harlan's dissent became the main theme of the unanimous decision of the Court in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
No great national protest followed in the wake of the Plessy decision. Segregation was an issue shunted off to the corner of our national life, and would remain so for nearly 60 years.

Read more: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar29.html#ixzz3VqQqGroc

Read more: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar29.html#ixzz3VqH67AFn