Constitutional LawEqual protection
Bolling v. Sharpe
Supreme Court of the United States · Decided May 17, 1954 · Core case
Full citation
Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954).
VerifiedQuotes, pinpoints and citation checked word for word against the opinion; facts checked against the opinion before publication. October 20, 2026.
Bolling et al.
minor schoolchildrenpetitioners
Sharpe et al.
respondentsrespondents
Brief
Facts
The petitioners were minors of the Negro race in the District of Columbia. They were refused admission to a public school attended by white children. The opinion says the refusal rested solely on their race. They alleged that this segregation in the District's public schools deprived them of due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. They asked the District Court for the District of Columbia to help them obtain admission. The opinion gives no further facts about the children or the school. The Court decided the case alongside a ruling issued the same day. In that ruling, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public schools. The Fourteenth Amendment applies only to the states. The Fifth Amendment applies in the District of Columbia, but it has no equal protection clause. The legal problem in the District was therefore somewhat different. The question was whether the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, standing alone, forbids racial segregation in the District's public schools.
Issue
Does racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia deny the petitioners due process of law under the Fifth Amendment, even though that Amendment has no equal protection clause?
Holding
Racial segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia denies the due process of law guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. It is not reasonably related to any proper governmental objective, so it arbitrarily deprives Negro children of liberty.
IRAC
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