In the only recorded instance in history, the unanimous opinion was authored jointly by all nine Justices on the Court. In the opinion, the Court held that the Little Rock School Board must comply with federal court orders to integrate their public schools. The Court acknowledged that the school board had made substantial efforts to do so and that the Governor and legislature of Arkansas were responsible for their failure. However, they stated that “regardless of the Board’s good faith, the actions of the other state agencies responsible for those conditions compel us to reject the Board’s legal position. . . The constitutional rights of respondents are not to be sacrificed or yielded to the violence and disorder which have followed upon the actions of the Governor and Legislature.”

In response to the school board’s argument that the delay of their integration plan was necessary to maintain law and order, the Court reasoned that the solution to maintaining law in order is not to deprive the rights of other citizens. Furthermore, the Court asserted that just as state actors were responsible for the chaos surrounding school integration, they too were responsible for bringing its end. The Court continued, writing “the constitutional rights of children not to be discriminated against in school admission on grounds of race or color declared by this Court in the Brown case can neither be nullified openly and directly by state legislators or state executive or judicial officers, nor nullified indirectly by them through evasive schemes for segregation whether attempted ‘ingeniously or ingenuously.’”

The Court also spoke directly on the actions of the Arkansas General Assembly and Governor Faubus to subvert their ruling in Brown, stating that “[i]t is necessary only to recall some basic constitutional propositions which are settled doctrine.” The Court asserted that Article VI of the Constitution clearly establishes the document as “the supreme Law of the Land”. In addition, they explained that the precedent set in Marbury v. Madison (1803) established “the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system.” They contended that “[n]o state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war against the Constitution without violating his undertaking to support it.”

The Court explained that since public education is primarily a concern of the states, that responsibility must be exercised in accordance with the Constitution. They reasserted their holding in Brown, stating that the right of children in schools not to be segregated is “so fundamental and pervasive that it is embraced in the concept of due process of law.” The Court ultimately concluded that “[t]he principles announced in [Brown] and the obedience of the States to them, according to the command of the Constitution, are indispensable for the protection of the freedoms guaranteed by our fundamental charter for all of us. Our constitutional ideal of equal justice under law is thus made a living truth.”