Bolling v. Sharpe’s Empirical Analysis
1954
Citation profile
2,257 federal appellate · 911 district · 439 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,577 later decisions (238 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972), Roe v. Wade (1973)
2,257 federal appellate · 911 district · 439 state decisions — followed in 39 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Steele v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad · Hirabayashi v. United States · Chas Steward Mach Co v. Davis
Cited together with Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. · Shapiro v. Thompson · Dandridge v. Williams · Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 5,577 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.”
94 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(I)f a classification would be invalid under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is also inconsistent with the due process requirement of the Fifth Amendment.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]t would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the Federal Government.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.