Plessy v. Ferguson is a landmark Supreme Court case from 1896 that upheld state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of ‘separate but equal.’ The case is often cited as an example of judicial restraint because the Court chose to defer to the legislative and state authorities rather than actively interpreting the Constitution to protect individual rights.
In this case, Homer Plessy, who was of mixed race, challenged a Louisiana law that required separate railway cars for white and black passengers. Plessy argued that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, the Supreme Court, in a 7-1 decision, ruled against Plessy, stating that segregation did not inherently imply inequality.
The Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson demonstrated judicial restraint by adhering to the existing laws and societal norms of the time rather than taking a more activist approach to interpret the Constitution in a way that would have struck down segregation. The justices believed that it was not their role to impose social change but rather to interpret the law as it was written. This approach allowed the Court to avoid making a broad, sweeping decision that could have had far-reaching implications for society.
However, the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson was later overturned by the Supreme Court in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, which declared that ‘separate but equal’ was inherently unequal and violated the Equal Protection Clause. This shift in judicial philosophy highlights the tension between judicial restraint and judicial activism in the context of constitutional interpretation.