This was the chain the court snapped in the _School Segregation Cases_. Six months after the case had been reargued, on May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Warren spoke for a unanimous court in overruling and discarding this uniform interpretation of more than eighty years. The text of the court’s opinion appears in the Appendix, along with its companion decision in the _Bolling_ case from the District of Columbia. Here it will be seen that the court blandly dismissed the massive evidence of “intent” with a regal hand: The evidence was “inconclusive.” Then, disdaining every rule of jurisprudence which says that law cases should be decided on points of law, the court delivered itself of some homilies on the importance of education: “Today, education is perhaps the most important function of State and local governments.” Everyone must have an education: “It is the very foundation of good citizenship. It is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values.” Said the court: We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. That was the key paragraph. The court went on to assert that the “intangible considerations” it had found to be important in graduate-school instruction apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. “To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of _Plessy_, said the court, “this finding is amply supported by modern authority.” And the court inserted its famous Footnote 11 to prove it.