<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Overruled by </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> (de facto) Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 (1954) </Td> </Tr> <P> Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896 . It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1, with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the lone dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan . </P> <P> Plessy has never been explicitly overruled . However, a series of decisions, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, have severely weakened it to the point that it is usually considered to have been de facto overruled . In Brown, the Supreme Court ruled that Plessy's "separate but equal" doctrine was unconstitutional in the context of schools and educational facilities . </P>

What was the supreme court ruling on plessy versus ferguson