All Cases ; Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. City of Philadelphia, Civil Action No. 03-CV-950, see flags on bad law, and search Casetext's comprehensive legal database.The other, Catholic Social Services (CSS), sued the city, claiming the Constitution gives it the right to opt out of the nondiscrimination requirement. This dual timeline of key civil rights events reveals, what happened in Philadelphia carried national significance and vice versa. City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Board of Elections, et al. Most of these cases are filed in federal court under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C 1983. Board of Education and congressional civil rights acts of the 1950s and 1960s that systematic segregation under state law was ended. The 1950s and 60s witnessed an unprecedented push for desegregation in the United States. In 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v.