Talk:Brown v. Board of Education

Good Article Reassessment

Brown v. Board of Education

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: No consensus. Good articles are not even required to have one citation per paragraph, as this article has general references (see WP:GACN). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

A GA from 2007. The biggest problem is the massive amount of unsourced material in the article that, if not taken care, will result in the article's delisting. Hopefully someone can work on this. Onegreatjoke (talk) 03:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Also a Vital Article (L5) and should be promoted there. Gusfriend (talk) 10:54, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I placed a 'catch all' notice on the talk page. There are a large number of Vital articles being reassessed and it wouldn't be worth cluttering their talk page. 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 03:29, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

It's hard to say and I believe that the article could be better. There are citations at the end of most paragraphs but usually high quality essays will have a citation at the end of each statement. I do not know if it should be delisted by Wikipedia standards but it could use some additional work. Jorahm (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

@Jorahm: if everything in the paragraph supported by the citation given, that's fine by Wikipedia standards. You do not need to repeat the same citation multiple times within a paragraph. That if is a big if for some articles; some people put a citation at the end of the paragraph that only supports the last sentence, and forget to put a citation needed tag for the rest of the paragraph. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:21, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I am just unclear on how much research is needed for a good article. Citing an entire paragraph to a single source might not be enough in my opinion. It's an area for potential improvement but I am not sure if it would trigger a full review process. Jorahm (talk) 18:17, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why does the article say "**was** a landmark decision?"

On other SCOTUS decision articles, it usually uses "is" to describe currently active decisions, and "was" to describe overruled decisions. Why is this one saying "was," when Brown v. Board of Education is still active and was never overruled? DocZach (talk) 18:36, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Here's the November 7, 2007 edit that introduced the change, without any explanation. Fabrickator (talk) 04:30, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Many major SCOTUS decision articles use "was", such as Marbury v. Madison, Loving v. Virginia, McCulloch v. Maryland, Miranda v. Arizona, and others. I go back and forth on which is better. "Was" is useful because it emphasizes that the decisions really are "decisions" which took place on certain dates. "Is" is useful because they have continuing applicability until they are overruled, but "is" also introduces the problem of requiring editors to decide when a decision has been overruled, which in my opinion would be a bad idea for many reasons.  White Whirlwind  05:49, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Brown wasn't overruled though. DocZach (talk) 02:56, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Obviously not. But neither were any of the others I mentioned. The potential problem is a general one, as I indicated.  White Whirlwind  15:35, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

need for unanimous decision

In the edit of 23 May 2010, it is stated

... the Court must overrule Plessy ... unanimously to avoid massive Southern resistance ...

I take exception to this claim. First off, the phrase "massive resistance" is recognized as a description of subsequent efforts by various southern states to avoid actual compliance with desegregation orders from the Federal courts. But more specifically (as stated in the prior revision), a less than unanimous decision would provide opponents of desegregation with a "legitimizing counterargument". I believe the existing text should be reverted to reflect this explanation. Fabrickator (talk) 06:18, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

GA concerns

I am concerned that this article does not meet the good article criteria anymore. Some of my concerns are listed below:

• There is a lot of uncited text, including uncited paragraphs.
• The "Other comments" section should be better defined and integrated to other sections of the article.
• There are sources listed in the "Further reading" section that should be investigated for their inclusion as intext citations or removed.
• The "External links" section needs to be trimmed. WP:ELNO will help with this.

The 2023 GAR identified these concerns, and the closer at the time mentioned that a citation per paragraph was not needed at that time. However, GA has added this to the criteria (2b) so this will need to be reevaluated.

Is anyone interested in fixing up this article? If not, should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 17:25, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Brown v. Board of Education

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:01, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

There is a lot of uncited text throughout the article, including entire paragraphs. This was brought up in the 2023 GAR, and uncited text seems to have been brought back into the article. Also, the "Other comments" section should have a heading that describes the text more effectively or have the information moved to more appropriate places in the article. There are several sources listed in "Further reading" that should be evaluated for their inclusion as inline citations or removed, and too many external links listed. The "Legal criticism and praise" section is quite long, and I think lots of that information and block quotes can be more effectively summarised. Z1720 (talk) 20:51, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify, but the reason why it was kept originally mainly has to do with it being okay for GAs to have general references back then. However, with updated quality expectations I'm not sure if this article would pass reassessment now. Onegreatjoke (talk) 20:54, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Plaintiff assertion of inferior accommodations

Here is the current wording:

The plaintiffs in Brown asserted that the system of racial separation in all schools, while masquerading as providing separate but equal treatment of both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans.

My understanding is that the plaintiffs, rather than asserting that the accommodations were inferior, actually stipulated that the accommodations were substantially equal, resulting in the court ultimately ruling that the "separate but equal" doctrine did not apply in this situation. Can someone please clarify?

See also Talk:Brown v. Board of Education/Archive_2#Proposed removal of claim added in 2006. Fabrickator (talk) 16:48, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Historical Context

The background section currently notes that state policies varied. Because this article focuses on the U.S. Supreme Court case that found school segregation unconstitutional, it would be useful to acknowledge the first state supreme court that ruled the same, 86 years before the Brown decision. After the current "Racial segregation in education varied widely from the 17 states that required racial segregation to the 16 in which it was prohibited" I would add ", with Iowa having the first state supreme court to rule that racial segregation of the public schools was unconstitutional in the case Clark v. Board of School Directors. Karenlwallace (talk) 16:28, 17 December 2024 (UTC)