Akiko Kawamura - Comments on Brown v. Board of Education

We have not achieved racial equality. The truth is, the vestiges of the "separate but equal" doctrine remain with us, and equality will elude us until our community learns that true equality cannot be contained within a framework of separation. On a daily basis, I watch people try to decide how to compartmentalize me. People tell me that I speak English very well for a foreigner. Complete strangers ask me questions about my ethnicity, and others have suggested to me that they fear interracial unions. But despite the subtle and blatant xenophobia that is still with us, our world is evolving. The legacy of Brown is its promise to us that the predominant ideology can be challenged and defeated. Until 1954, this country embraced the belief that equal treatment meant substantially equal, but separate, facilities. Until 1967, 16 states had anti-miscegenation statutes. Linda Brown reminds us that we should always be wary of the prevailing rule. Why, for example, does it make sense to make marriage illegal between any two people who are committed to sharing a life together? Chief Justice Warren, in his analysis, aptly explained, "In approaching [segregation in public education], we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation." Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). The enduring message is that our laws should progress as our civilization advances. As lawyers, I hope you believe, like I do, that one of our duties is to question, and when necessary, challenge those outdated rules.

Akiko Kawamura practices Community Association Law and related civil litigation at Hobbs & Olson, L.C.

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