In 1896, the U. S. Supreme Court held in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, that equal treatment of diff erent races is provided when public and semipublic facilities, even though separate, are substantially equal in quality. For years, railroad cars, buses, schools, and other facilities had separate and supposedly equal facilities for blacks. In 1954 black plaintiff s in Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia sought admission for their children to public schools on an integrated basis. Does the doctrine of stare decisis bar the U. S. Supreme Court from changing the law declared in Plessy v. Ferguson