State officials in Arkansas resisted the Supreme Court’s mandate, issued in Brown v. Board of Education and Brown II, to end the racial segregation of public schools. When the U.S. district court acceded to Little Rock school officials’ request for a delay in implementing desegregation due to fears of violence, the NAACP appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court reversed the lower court’s action, holding that any delay in desegregating would violate black students’ constitutional rights. Moreover, the Court ruled that Arkansas state officials could not evade the Court’s holding in Brown through legislative, executive, or judicial action because the Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment was the supreme law of the land and was binding on the states, regardless of any state law or constitutional provision to the contrary.