Education

Milestones

February 03, 1993 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Retired Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court, one of the foremost legal architects of the civil-rights movement and the first black Justice on the Court, died of heart failure Jan. 24 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He was 84.

Justice Marshall, who formally retired from the High Court in October 1991, had a legal career that spanned six decades. (See Education Week, July 31, 1991.) Appointed by President Johnson in 1967 to a liberal-majority Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, he later carved out a role as one of the great dissenters to the Court’s increasingly conservative rulings.

But he made his most lasting mark in the field of education as the legal director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for 23 years before he became a federal judge. He spearheaded the civil-rights group’s assault on the doctrine that allowed the separation of blacks and whites in schools, colleges, and elsewhere.

After winning Supreme Court victories in the realm of higher education, he argued for the plaintiffs in five consolidated cases that challenged the constitutionality of racially “separate but equal’’ schools that the High Court had upheld in 1896.

In its unanimous 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.’'

Justice Marshall wrote vigorous dissents in a 1974 decision barring a desegregation plan that would have crossed the Detroit city lines into the suburbs and in a 1983 decision upholding a Minnesota law granting tax credits to parents who send their children to private schools.

In a statement, President Clinton called Justice Marshall “a giant in the quest for human rights and equal opportunity.’'

A version of this article appeared in the January 27, 1993 edition of Education Week as Milestones

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: March 13, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 21, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 7, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: January 31, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read