The problem with Brown is that the justices employed social science to justify their decision: the Doll Test comes to mind.
However, Plessy was flawed for the reason Harlan stated. The Court had an opportunity to settle the issue then. Harlan’s dissent provided the constitutional rationale for that path. Brown explicitly rejects Harlan’s dissent and opts for equality of results not equality properly understood. Indeed, they give constitutional sanctions to “feelings” in their resoning. Brown is thus a further departure from constitutional jurisprudence.
Peter Kirsanow is correct if he means that the American ideal as expressed today: it has become egalitarian to the extreme. That ideal is not the true ideal of America.
However, he is incorrect if he means the Brown encompassed, or expressed, the American ideal of the Founding (the only ideal worth preserving)–which is the idea expressed in the Declaration. Brown was just as much a rejection of that as Plessy, as Brown, & yes, as Dred Scott.
