EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, this week marks the 65th anniversary of the Supreme Court's unanimous decision of Brown v. Board of Education.

In Brown, the Justices recognized a profound, moral wrong tearing at the soul of this country--racial segregation in our Nation's schools.

They held fast to the principle inscribed above the entrance to the Supreme Court, ``Equal Justice Under Law,'' and they appealed to a self-evident truth, but not yet realized by our Founding documents, that equal means equal.

Of course, the Supreme Court's decision in Brown didn't stand alone. We needed civil rights activists like Thurgood Marshall, who had built toward this moment to carry the torch forward. We needed a Congress and a White House that would enshrine protections for civil rights, voting rights, and housing rights into law. We needed courts committed to this principle that racism and White supremacy could no longer hide behind the shield of law.

Most of all, we needed the power of the people fiercely demanding equality--students like the Little Rock Nine, who courageously, in the face of State-sponsored hostility, walked through the doors of Little Rock Central High School to jeers and taunts and threats; people like John Lewis, who marched and bled on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma; folks like Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, who lost their lives together in the pursuit of justice; and leaders like King, who pointed us to the mountaintop.

Brown v. Board of Education isn't confined to the history books. The fight for equality and civil rights still continues to this day. Much of this hard-earned progress, unfortunately, almost tragically, is being rolled back.

Now, staggeringly, many judicial nominees for the Trump administration have refused to say whether they believe Brown v. Board of Education was even rightly decided. They can't even affirm the most basic and fundamental principle of American law.

One judicial nominee is set to receive a floor vote this week--Wendy Vitter. She not only refused to say that Brown was correctly decided but even suggested at the time that it was, perhaps, the wrong decision.

The nominee for the second highest job at the Justice Department, Jeffrey Rosen, refused to say whether Brown was rightly decided, even though he would oversee the Solicitor General in day-to-day operations of our Federal prosecutors.

The principle underlying Brown is more than a foundation of our legal system. It is also the foundation of democracy. It goes to the heart of one of the deepest ideals in our Nation--that we are a Nation where equal means equal.

The principle underlying Brown is sacrosanct. It is not something that we in this era, this day and age, should be leaving up to question or even debate.

So I would like to take a moment today to read from the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

This decision wasn't written just for lawyers or students at law school; it was written for the American people, making the case for equal justice under law.

So here we are--Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court, and I quote:

These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. . . . In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of courts in obtaining admissions to public schools of their communities on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they have been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.

In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three- judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called ``separate but equal'' doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. . . . The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not ``equal'' and cannot be made ``equal,'' and hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. . . . Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education toward democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship.

Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other ``tangible'' factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. . . . To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. . . . We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of ``separate but equal'' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . It is so ordered.

It has been 65 years since the nine Justices of the Supreme Court unanimously gave those words the force of law. Today, for any nominee who would enforce or interpret our laws, it should be far beyond debate that Brown was right--the separate-but-equal doctrine has no place in American society.

Sixty-five years on, it is our duty as Americans to continue to fight for equality and justice in America. We owe this not just to ourselves but we who benefit from the blessings of this democracy, sewn by the hands of our ancestors, we who partake of that fruit from their labors. We must recognize those heroes in the generations who advocated, marched, and insisted that this Nation make good on the promise of equal justice under the law.

I stand here upon the shoulders of those who came before. We as a nation have progressed in every generation toward more inclusion, more equality. Our courts and our activists and our citizens who came before have made this a more perfect union. We still have work to do, but we cannot allow ourselves to see undone the progress of our ancestors. We cannot allow ourselves to call into question those sacrosanct ideas enshrined in our law. This is not the time to go back. We must continue to forge a pathway forward.

Sixty-five years ago, our courts acted in the name of justice and equality. It is our duty and obligation to preserve that progress.

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