Do you think brown v. board of education (1954) served its purpose of societal desegregation well? or, do you think that that lack of legal justification in the decision created a more litigious environment for civil rights law suits? think about and justify your position. do americans change their positions just because the supreme court rules a certain way? what negative externalities does public policy, particularly judicial policy create?

It both did and didn't serve it well, it's somewhere in the middle. They made it illegal to segregate students but there was no specific way to enforce it so many opposed throughout the coming decade. The negative externality that it caused was the rise of extremism, especially in the south where people were dissatisfied, so it brought something like the renaissance of the Ku Klux Klan since people started grouping up again to think of ways to prevent African-Americans from being involved in the society. Americans most definitely do change their minds based on the court because the Supreme Court decides based on the constitution. Since for the United States the constitution is the greatest legal document ever and nothing is above it, then when the Supreme Court decides that something is against the constitution it has weight and people start supporting it because it's like supporting the constitution itself. Of course, in the long run the desegregation case served its purpose well because in the modern times there's no such thing as racial segregation and any African-American can go to any school or public institution.