Photo: Ken McCown
One day my friend was cutting a piece of delicious cheesecake when it was proposed to do a “you cut, I choose” method to split it evenly. I took it a step further and told him to “Plessy v. Fergurson it” – meaning I wanted the pieces separate but equal. Of course no one understood what I was talking about, no one laughed, and I myself was not even sure I quoted the correct Supreme Court case.
So I went online to verify my dorky joke and found the Supreme Court information available to be quite underwhelming. You can find articles dozens of pages long about each particular case, but no concise summaries. Here are some of the famous cases ruled upon by the Supreme Court and a short description of why it was so significant to the United States.
Famous Supreme Court Cases
1st tier
- Roe v. Wade (1973) — Outright abortion bans are unconstitutional
- Marbury v. Madison (1803) — Judicial review (for Supreme Court)
- Plessy v. Fergurson (1896) — Separate but equal (segregation)
2nd tier
- Miranda v. Arizona (1966) — Rights to counsel and to remain silent
- Regents of CA v. Bakke (1978) — Affirmative action
- Tinker v. Des Moine (1969) — Freedom of speech of students in public schools
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954) — Segregated schools is unconstitutional
- McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) — Constituation is supreme law of the land
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) — Slave is not a citizen but property of his owner
3rd tier
- Slaughter-House Cases (1873) — Limits privileges and immunities of state citizens
- Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) — Right to court appointed attorney if unable to afford one
- Griswold v. Conneticut (1965) — Individual’s right to privacy
- Mapp v. Ohio (1961) — Evidence procured by illegal search or seizure is not permissible in court
- Greg v. Georgia (1976) — Death penalty in not unconstitutional