Argued on October 12, 1972, and decided on March 21, 1973, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez stands as one of the major decisions in the history of education reform. Nearly twenty years earlier, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court had asserted that the “separate but equal” doctrine that had upheld discriminatory racism since the 1890s was unconstitutional. If the Brown decision opened a door to ending discrimination based on race in public education, it was feared that Rodriguez would close that door, setting limits to the hard-won freedoms of racial minorities.