The House of Earl

If Chief Justice John Marshall was the impetus for the Supreme Court's current high stature, Earl Warren was its securing weapon. A courageous, forthright soldier for justice, Mr. Warren was simply, the greatest of all time.

Earl Warren was born in 1891 in Los Angeles. A graduate of the University of California school of law, he was admitted to practice in 1914.

He held several local offices and was state attorney general from 1939 to 1943. Mr. Warren ran unsuccessfully for vice-president on the republican ticket in 1948 (Tom Dewey was the presidential candidate on the same ticket). Remember "Dewey defeats Truman," and all of that?

In 1943, Earl Warren became governor of California, and he served his state until 1953. The year 1953 was also a historic one - for it was the year that Dwight Eisenhower appointed him Chief Justice of the United States. His predecessor, Fred Vinson, had died in office.

From tragedy, sometimes a silver lining takes a bow. And Earl Warren was about to steal the show.

As Chief Justice, Earl Warren exhibited persistent courage in his decisions and leadership...

In 1954, Linda Brown was denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because she was black. Several other cases were combined with Linda's case when it went up to the Supreme Court -- about the same time Earl Warren was settling in.

It was literally a stroke of genius that the new Chief Justice convinced the entire Court to abandon nearly sixty years of precedent (Plessey v. Ferguson), to hold that legally imposed (dejure) segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

"Separate but equal" was inherently unequal and in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Chief Justice declared.

It's almost easy to take for granted now, but Justice Warren worked hard, persuasively and undeterred, to get all eight Justices to sign on to this decision.

He would not release an opinion with anything less than the full force of the Supreme Court behind it.

Of course, the most difficult task that lie ahead was how to implement desegregation. After the parties had once again argued before the Court, the Justices crafted a "with all deliberate speed" standard.

I don't really know what that means, but it only applied to legally imposed segregation (as opposed to defacto) and it applied mainly to southern schools. Not surprising.

Needless to say, there was strong resistance to the ruling, as evidenced by old governor Orval Faubus, down in Arkansas (I mean, up in Arkansas). He was determined that the federal government would not tell him how to run his state, certainly not the United States Supreme Court.

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