summary

Holly

“Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The significance of the role of the social scientists in this important social and constitutional issue would seem to have been demonstrated by the Court’s acceptance of some of the findings summarized in that brief, and by the Court’s statement that segregated schools deprived the plaintiffs “of the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,” a view amply supported by modern social science research. Cagn’s criticism: social science data and interpretations presented by the expert witnesses at the trial level and in the social science brief submitted to the Supreme Court were irrelevant, flimsy, and not taken at the time that he seemed primarily - even if unconsciously disturbed by the fact that the upstarts of the new social sciences should have been involved at all in these important cases which belonged exclusively to lawyers and students of jurisprudence. Criticism: US Supreme Court did not depend on the attempt of the social scientists to detect and prove the psychological inquiries by “scienfic tests” - so flimsy as to discredit the conclusion.