In brown v. board of education, the supreme court ruled that: a) schools should remain segregated because they are equal b) schools should no longer be segregated because they are unequal c) schools should be allowed to do whatever they want

 B) Schools should no longer be segregated because they are unequal.

Details/explanation:

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, decided by the US Supreme Court in 1954, ruled that all Americans are entitled to the same civil liberties and protections in regard to access to education. Until that decision, it was legal to segregate schools according to race, so that black students could not attend the same schools as white students.  An older Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), had said that separate, segregated public facilities were acceptable as long as the facilities offered were equal in quality.  In the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that standard was challenged and defeated.  Segregation was shown to create inequality, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled segregation to be unconstitutional.

The ruling was important in advancing civil rights because it affirmed that the 14th Amendment applies to all rights and privileges of citizens, including access to  education.  This was being violated by states whose laws supported the segregation of schools.  Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads as follows:

the growing interconnectedness of the world through communication, trade, and the exchange of ideas is an important theme in the history of the 20th and 21st centuries.

explanation:

it foreshadows the theme of the paragraph and hints the topic that will be discussed in the paragraph!