The passage below is from the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). "The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either."
What was the impact of the reasoning in this decision?

a. racial segregation was ended in elementary schools but not in higher grades.
b. southern states were required to ensure the economic and social equality of all races.
c. It created the doctrine of separate but equal and legitimized state laws establishing racial segregation
Please explain :)