The major legal decision in Brown v. Board of Education, rendered in 1954, declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court unanimously concluded that "separate but equal" educational facilities for racial minorities and whites were inherently unequal, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This landmark decision effectively overturned the precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 and mandated the desegregation of public schools across America. Brown v. Board became a catalyst for the civil rights movement, promoting greater legal scrutiny of segregationist policies and practices.