What was the significant outcome of the Brown v. Board of Education case?

The significant outcome of the Brown v. Board of Education case was the ruling that segregation in public schools was inherently unequal, which directly challenged the foundation of the "separate but equal" doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court's decision, handed down in 1954, highlighted that segregated educational facilities were inherently discriminatory and harmful to African American children, violating their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This ruling was pivotal as it not only called for the desegregation of public schools across the nation but also laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement, encouraging further actions against racial discrimination in various aspects of public life. The court stated that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, which helped to dismantle legal segregation in public institutions.

Other options, such as the affirmation of segregation or the endorsement of separate but equal, misrepresent the court's ruling. The ruling explicitly overturned the notion that segregated schools could be equal, directly contradicting those ideas. The establishment of educational standards does not encompass the broader societal and legal implications that the Brown case represented in terms of civil rights and equality.