Professional Responsibility and Constitutional Doctrine

Abstract

On May 17, 1974, the United States will observe the twentieth anniversary of the announcement of the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The occasion will be marked, I am sure, by appropriate ceremonies and by a torrent of writings in many disciplinesby historians, educators, sociologists, philosophers, economists, psychologists, and legal academicians. The Civil Rights Commission, for example, is now at work on an elaborate and ambitious attempt to use the technique of oral history to scan the twenty-year impact of Brown on our society. All this attention is, of course, altogether fitting, for it is hard to think of a single domestic event in the United States or, for that matter, in any nation, that has led to more profound political and social changes.