Separate But Equal (1991) on Netflix

Plot summary

The Supreme Court takes up Brown v. Board of Education and the companion case Briggs v. Elliott. The question before the justices is whether the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause obliges the states to desegregate their public schools, or whether the separate but equal doctrine still stands. Thurgood Marshall, an NAACP attorney, argues that the clause reaches the states and forbids segregated schools. John W. Davis, for the opposing side, answers that the states keep authority over their schools and that the amendment was never written to cover them. Some of the justices find segregation morally wrong yet struggle to justify that view in law. The Court takes the case under advisement.