Which 1973 Supreme Court decision addressed desegregation rights for Latino students in Denver, Colorado?

• A. Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colorado
• B. Brown v. Board of Education
• C. Mendez v. Westminster
• D. Plessy v. Ferguson

Answer: (A)

The key idea here is recognizing how desegregation reached urban, multi-district settings and included Latino students. In 1973, the Supreme Court decision involving Denver, Colorado, held that the pattern of school segregation across the Denver metropolitan area violated equal protection and warranted a metropolitan-wide desegregation plan. This case specifically addressed Latino students in Denver, expanding the reach of desegregation beyond the South and beyond a single district, and showing that segregation can persist across multiple schools and districts in a metropolitan area.

This aligns with why the decision about Denver is the correct one: it is the landmark ruling titled to reflect Denver’s School District No. 1 case, and it directly tackled desegregation rights for Latino students in that city.

To place it in context, Brown v. Board of Education established that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, but it was a nationwide ruling from 1954 and not about Denver. Mendez v. Westminster (1947) dealt with Mexican American students in California and helped pave the way for desegregation, but it was a pre-Brown case and not the Denver 1973 decision. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld segregation under “separate but equal” and was later overturned by Brown.