In the plessy vs Ferguson decision Supreme Court justices claimed that the fourteenth amendment did not protect

Social rights, is the right answer.

Explanation:

Plessy v. Ferguson was a breakthrough judgment of the U. S. Supreme Court, published in 1896. It upheld the legality of ethnic discrimination laws for public facilities as far as the segregated facilities were similar in nature, this very concept came to be recognized as "separate but equal". The Supreme Court justices, in this case, declared that the fourteenth amendment did not protect social rights.

The Plessy vs Ferguson was a decision enacted by the US Supreme Court in 1896, which legimitized the existence of segregated education facilities as long as these were equal in quality. It actually introduced the principle of "separate but equal".

The Plessy v. Ferguson case had considered that, as long as equal quality was provided, segregation was not violating the Equal Protection Clause included in the 14 th Amendment. Fortunately, the Supreme Court in 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education understood it differently, and dismantled segregation forever.

Therefore in the Plessy vs Ferguson decision Supreme Court justices claimed that the fourteenth amendment did not protect against distinctions in terms of race, it just guaranteed equality of the different races before the law.