Cite as: 505 U. S. 717 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. In 1954, this Court held that the concept of " 'separate but equal' " has no place in the field of public education. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 495 (Brown I). The following year, the Court ordered an end to segregated public education "with all deliberate speed." Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 301 (1955) (Brown II). Since these decisions, the Court has had many occasions to evaluate whether a public school district has met its affirmative obligation to dismantle its prior de jure segregated system in elementary and secondary schools. In these cases we decide what standards to apply in determining whether the State of Mississippi has met this obligation in the university context.
I
Mississippi launched its public university system in 1848 by establishing the University of Mississippi, an institution dedicated to the higher education exclusively of white persons. In succeeding decades, the State erected additional postsecondary, single-race educational facilities. Alcorn State University opened its doors in 1871 as "an agricultural college for the education of Mississippi's black youth." Ayers v. Allain, 674 F. Supp. 1523, 1527 (ND Miss. 1987). Creation of four more exclusively white institutions followed: Mississippi State University (1880), Mississippi University for Women (1885), University of Southern Mississippi (1912), and Delta State University (1925). The State added two more solely black institutions in 1940 and 1950: in the former year, Jackson State University, which was charged with training "black teachers for the black public schools," id., at 1528; and in the latter year, Mississippi Valley State Univer-Murphy; and for Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer III, Governor of the State of Louisiana, et al. by John N. Kennedy, Joseph J. Levin, Jr., Margaret E. Woodward, and W. Shelby McKenzie.
Joseph A. Califano, Jr., pro se, and David S. Tatel filed a brief of amicus curiae for Joseph A. Califano, Jr., et al.
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