lessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1, with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the lone dissent written by Justice John .
Plessy has never been explicitly overruled However, a series of decisions, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, have severely weakened it to the point that it is usually considered to have been de facto overruled In Brown, the Supreme Court ruled that Plessy's "separate but equal" doctrine was unconstitutional in the context of schools and educational facilities.
