s began. His replacement, former California governor Earl Warren, was a skilled politician who brought renewed authority to the court. Moreover, Warren believed that segregation was fundamentally wrong. He successfully persuaded all of the other eight justices to support a single opinion to end segregation. Warren himself wrote the statement of the court's decision, a document known as the opinion of the court. Warren's opinion explained the context of the law in regards to the case, and detailed the reasons why the court reached its judgment. It was his first major judicial opinion since joining the court that year. The question before the court was simple: "Was segregated education unconstitutional?" In the first half of his opinion, Warren did not answer that question, and he gave no hint of the decision the court would make. Reading the opinion in a courtroom packed with news reporters, he simply explained the facts of the cases before him and the history of the American doctrine of "separate but equal." Warren acknowledged that the history of the law regarding segregation was inconclusive, particularly as it was addressed in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, requires that every state give equal protection under the law to all persons, without regard to race. Warren reviewed the histories of the 14th Amendment, public education, and segregation. Then, speaking for a unanimous court, Chief Justice Warren concluded, "In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation."Warren stressed the importance of education to a democratic society, claiming that education is "perhaps the most important function of state and local governments." He emphasized, "It ...
