Whitewater Scotus Updates

Hello and welcome back to yet another week at the Supreme Court! This week we will be discussion some remarkably important cases that the Supreme Court has decided over the years and what they mean. First up is Brown v. Board of Education (1954). This is likely a case that many of you are familiar with, but what exactly is it and what does it mean? The question being asked of the Court was whether or not segregation based exclusively on race violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment. The key there is the Equal Protection Clause. A Clause is a single statement or sentence within amendments to the Constitution (Think Right to Free Speech in the 1^st amendment). It is quite simple, basically no state or federal law can deprive citizens of their rights of liberty and freedom. The Court determined that separating black and white citizens based solely on color violated black Americans Constitutional rights, and thus enforced segregation was destroyed. Another famous case that many might be familiar with is United States v. Nixon. In light of the Watergate scandal, President Nixon attempted to use one of the powers given to the president called “Executive Privilege”. Executive Privilege is the President’s ability to classify information that he does not want disclosed to the public. In this case, President Nixon attempted to lock information pertaining to his connection to the Watergate scandal behind Executive Privilege which would prevent the Supreme Court or any other court from using that information as evidence in a case. The Supreme Court ruled that the separation of powers does not allow for the President to restrict information in regard to the Due Process (process of being given a fair trial) and that Nixon could not avoid the Court by using the Executive Privilege. In short, he tried to use his powers as the President to hide that he was guilty. That’s all for this week, next week we pick up right here discussing more landmark cases.