 Although her dissertation research remains unpublished, her work appropriated by other researchers were used in the debated leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1954, which argues that segregated schools were inherently unequal, thereby mandating integration in the nations public schools.Her works on the educational and identity development of Black students were not only influenced by her teaching and administrative experience, but by her only experiences at a "colored" school in Texas.While Prosser is frequently referred to as the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in Psychology, others believe that Ruth Winifred Howard (1900–1997) was the first.