Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991.

He participated in numerous landmark Supreme Court cases involving civil rights, including Smith v. Allwright, Morgan v. Virginia, Shelley v. Kraemer, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, Sweatt v. Painter, Brown, and Cooper v. Aaron.

His most influential contribution to constitutional doctrine, the "sliding-scale" approach to the Equal Protection Clause, called on courts to apply a flexible balancing test instead of a more rigid tier-based analysis.

[2]: 43  The mischievous Marshall was suspended for two weeks in the wake of a hazing incident, but he earned good grades in his classes and led the school's debating team to numerous victories.

[6]: 477  When Lloyd Lionel Gaines's application to the University of Missouri's law school was rejected on account of his race, he filed suit, arguing that his equal-protection rights had been violated because he had not been provided with a legal education substantially equivalent to that which white students received.

[2]: 12, 94  In an opinion by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Court held that if Missouri gave whites the opportunity to attend law school in-state, it was required to do the same for blacks.

Also, in contrast to most of the Board, Marshall charged that the prosecution of thirty-two right wing opponents of Roosevelt's pre-war foreign policy in the Sedition Trial of 1944 violated the First Amendment.

[5]: 1501  Together with his Inc Fund colleagues, he devised a strategy that emphasized the inherent educational disparities caused by segregation rather than the physical differences between the schools provided for blacks and whites.

[2]: 142–145  The Supreme Court ruled in favor of both McLaurin and Sweatt on the same day; although the justices did not overrule Plessy and the separate but equal doctrine, they rejected discrimination against African-American students and the provisions of schools for blacks that were inferior to those provided for whites.

[5]: 1505 President John F. Kennedy, who according to Tushnet "wanted to demonstrate his commitment to the interests of African Americans without incurring enormous political costs", nominated Marshall to be a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on September 23, 1961.

[12]: 19  Marshall argued in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966) that conditioning the ability to vote on the payment of a poll tax was unlawful; in a companion case to Miranda v. Arizona (1966), he unsuccessfully maintained on behalf of the government that federal agents were not always required to inform arrested individuals of their rights.

I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.As the Court became increasingly conservative, Marshall found himself dissenting in numerous cases regarding racial discrimination.

[5]: 1511  When the majority held in Milliken v. Bradley that a lower court had gone too far in ordering busing to reduce racial imbalances between schools in Detroit, he dissented, criticizing his colleagues for what he viewed as a lack of resolve to implement desegregation even when faced with difficulties and public resistance.

Croson Co., he rejected the majority's decision to strike down an affirmative-action program for government contractors, stating that he did "not believe that this Nation is anywhere close to eradicating racial discrimination or its vestiges".

[1]: 286  He favored a strict interpretation of the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement and opposed rulings that made exceptions to that provision;[23]: 112  in United States v. Ross, for instance, he indignantly dissented when the Court upheld a conviction that was based on evidence discovered during a warrantless search of containers that had been found in an automobile.

[2]: 318  He was the only justice with considerable experience defending those charged with capital crimes, and he expressed concern about the fact that injustices in death-penalty cases could not be remedied, often commenting: "Death is so lasting.

[5]: 1515  When the Court in Gregg v. Georgia upheld new death-penalty laws that required juries to consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances, he dissented, describing capital punishment as a "vestigial savagery" that was immoral and violative of the Eighth Amendment.

"[1]: 317  In Amalgamated Food Employees Union Local 400 v. Logan Valley Plaza, he wrote for the Court that protesters had the right to picket on private property that was open to the public—a decision that was effectively overruled (over Marshall's dissent) four years later in Lloyd Corporation v.

[4]: 378 [1]: 326–327 Marshall joined the majority in Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, two cases in which the Court held that the First Amendment protected the right to burn the American flag.

[1]: 332–333  He favored the total separation of church and state, dissenting when the Court upheld in Lynch v. Donnelly a city's display of a nativity scene and joining the majority in Wallace v. Jaffree to strike down an Alabama law regarding prayer in schools.

[1]: 343–346  On the issue of the free exercise of religion, Marshall voted with the majority in Wisconsin v. Yoder to hold that a school attendance law could not be constitutionally applied to the Amish, and he joined Justice Harry Blackmun's dissent when the Court in Employment Division v. Smith upheld a restriction on religious uses of peyote and curtailed Sherbert v. Verner's strict scrutiny standard.

[1]: 351–353  In the view of J. Clay Smith Jr. and Scott Burrell, the justice was "an unyielding supporter of civil liberties", whose "commitment to the values of the First Amendment was enhanced from actually realizing the historical consequences of being on the weaker and poorer side of power".

[11]: 323  He joined Blackmun's opinion for the Court in Roe v. Wade, which held that the Constitution protected a woman's right to have an abortion,[2]: 342  and he consistently voted against state laws that sought to limit that right in cases such as Maher v. Roe, H. L. v. Matheson, Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, and Webster v. Reproductive Health Services.

His clerks included future Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, U.S. circuit judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, and legal scholars Cass Sunstein, Mark Tushnet, and Martha Minow.

[28] Marshall was an active member of the Episcopal Church and served as a delegate to its 1964 convention, walking out after a resolution to recognize a right to disobey immoral segregation laws was voted down.

[29]: 1217–1218 Marshall did not wish to retire—he frequently said "I was appointed to a life term, and I intend to serve it"—but he had been in ill health for many years, and Brennan's retirement in 1990 left him unhappy and isolated on the Court.

[4]: 398 According to the scholar Daniel Moak, Marshall "profoundly shaped the political direction of the United States", "transformed constitutional law", and "opened up new facets of citizenship to black Americans".

[33]: 411  For Tushnet, he was "probably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century";[5]: 1498  in the view of the political scientist Robert C. Smith, he was "one of the greatest leaders in the history of the African-American struggle for freedom and equality".

[37]: 20  Marshall posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1993,[41]: 253  and the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in his honor in 2003.

[42] He was depicted by Sidney Poitier in the 1991 television movie Separate but Equal,[43]: 335  by Laurence Fishburne in George Stevens Jr.'s Broadway play Thurgood,[44] and by Chadwick Boseman in the 2017 film Marshall.