September 29, 1958

In the wake of the uproar over the 1957 desegregation of Central High School, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion under the name of Cooper v. Aaron, in which the Court placed responsibility for the “unfortunate and distressing sequence of events” on the actions of legislators and executive officials resisting the mandate of Brown v. Board of Education, which in turn brought about “violent resistance to that decision in Arkansas.” The Fourteenth Amendment requires states to provide the equal protection of the law to all. The Court refused to sacrifice the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs, pointing out that no state elected official can “war against the Constitution” without violating his or her oath to support it.