In 1883, a twelve-year-old girl attempted to enroll in her Brooklyn neighborhood’s school, public school No. 5. The all-white school denied her application because of her race. Her parents sued and argued that the Black school she was assigned to was inferior. They argued that forcing her to attend an unequal school violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the New York State Civil Rights Act of 1873, which stopped the state from being able to infringe on any person’s full citizenship rights. In a divided opinion, the court ruled that under the common law principle, the local community was given authority when it came to matters concerning individual citizens. They also supported racial separatism by enforcing the idea that “...there must be many social distinctions and privileges remaining unregulated by law and left within the control of the individual citizens.” Overall, they thought that racial equality would have a negative social impact. The court believed in the false and harmful idea that there is a natural and biological distinction between the races and refused to interpret the state’s Civil Rights Act as a tool for integration. In the end, the court upheld segregated schools, and the case was lost. [198 words]