Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy
Updated with 15th Edition
Edwards/Wattenberg/Lineberry
Introduction
 Civil Rights
 Definition: policies designed to protect people against
arbitrary or discriminatory treatment by government
officials or individuals
 Today, equality debates center on three types of
discrimination


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Racial Discrimination
Gender Discrimination
Discrimination based on age, disability, sexual orientation
and other factors
Two Centuries of Struggle
 Conceptions of Equality
 Equal opportunity: same chances
 Equal results: same rewards
 The Constitution and Inequality
 Equality is not in the original Constitution, nor is it in the
Bill of Rights
 First mention of equality in the 14th Amendment: “…equal
protection of the laws”

One of the “Civil War Amendments” along with 13 and 15
Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 The Era of Slavery
 Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
Case concerns a slave brought into free territory and whether or
not he should be free
 Decision: Slaves had no rights, they were classified as “chattel”
 Invalidated Missouri Compromise, said Congress had no power to
ban slavery in the Western territories

 The Civil War brought about certain changes
The Thirteenth Amendment: Abolition of Slavery
 Fourteenth Amendment: Citizenship, Due Process, Equal
Protection
 Fifteenth Amendment: Black suffrage

Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 The Era of Reconstruction and Resegregation
 Jim Crow or segregational laws

Relegated African Americans to separate facilities, school systems,
even restrooms
Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 Plessy v Ferguson (1896)
 Legally justified segregation through “separate but equal”
ruling
 Homer Plessy was 1/8 black
 Challenged Louisiana state law
 Supreme Court validated the idea of
Separate facilities for the races
 1941 Executive Order outlawed discrimination in
defense industries
 1948, Truman desegregated the Armed Services
Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 The Era of Civil Rights
 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas(1954)
Case was brought to court by the NAACP
 Wanted the SC to rule on whether segregated schools were
inherently unequal and therefore a violation of the EQUAL
PROTECTION CLAUSE of the 14th Amendment
 Overturned precedent set by the Plessy decision (end of separate
but equal)
 School segregation inherently unconstitutional
 Integrate schools “with all deliberate speed”


Busing of students solution for two kinds of segregation:
de jure, “by law”
 de facto, “in reality”

Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 The Era of Civil Rights (continued)
 Civil Rights Act of 1964
Made racial discrimination illegal in hotels, restaurants, and other
public accommodation (Interstate Commerce)
 Forbade employment discrimination based on race
 Created Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to
protect against job discrimination
 Provided for withholding grants from state and local governments
that practiced racial discrimination
 Justice Dept authorized to initiate lawsuits to desegregate schools
and facilities

Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 Getting and Using the Right to Vote
 Suffrage: the legal right to vote
 Fifteenth Amendment: extended suffrage to African
Americans (last of the Civil War Amendments)
 Many attempts were made by states to circumvent the
15th Amendment
Poll Taxes: small taxes levied on the right to vote (outlawed by the
24th Amendment – 1964)
 Grandfather Clause: exempted people whose grandfathers were
eligible to vote in 1860 from having to take literacy tests (found
unconstitutional in 1915)
 White Primary: Only whites were allowed to vote in the party
primaries (declared unconstitutional in 1944)

Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 Getting and Using the Right to Vote
 Voting Rights Act of 1965: helped end formal and
informal barriers to voting; sent federal registrars to
make sure black people in the South could register and
vote
Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 Other Minority Groups
 Asian Americans

Korematsu v. United States (1944)
 Supreme Court UPHELD the internment of the Japanese in
camps during WW2
Women, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 The Battle for the Vote
 Nineteenth Amendment: extended suffrage to women in 1920
 The “Doldrums”: 1920-1960
 Laws were designed to protect women, and protect men from
competition with women.
 Equal Rights Amendment first introduced in Congress in 1923
 Equal Rights Amendment
fails ratification by states (1982)
Women, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 Women in the Workplace
 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned gender
discrimination in employment.
 Wage Discrimination and Comparable Worth
 Lily Ledbetter v Goodyear - ruled against Ledbetter in
her case of gender discrimination
 Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (2009)
 Women in the Military
 Only men may be drafted
 Both men and women can now serve in ground combat.
 Sexual Harassment
 Prohibited by Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964
Newly Active Groups Under the Civil Rights
Umbrella
 Civil Rights and People with Disabilities
 Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Requiring employers and public facilities to make “reasonable
accommodations” for those with disabilities
 Prohibits employment discrimination against the disabled

Newly Active Groups Under the Civil Rights Umbrella
 Gay and Lesbian Rights
 Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
 Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
Overturned Bowers
 Private homosexual acts are protected by the Constitution


Gay marriage
Many state constitutions amended to prohibit practice
 The Defense of Marriage Act (1996) – In Section 3 of DOMA
federal government defines marriage as being between a man and
a woman, thus denying same-sex couples the same federal
protections as heterosexual couples (Social Security survivor
benefits, immigration rights, family and medical leave, tax filing as
a married couple, etc)

Gay Rights at the Supreme Court
 Windsor v US (2013)


ACLU represented Edie Windsor (83 years old) in suing the
federal government for $363,000 in estate taxes she was
forced to pay after the death of her partner, Thea Spyer. They
were married in Canada in 2007 after a 40 year relationship.
Because of DOMA, the federal government did not recognize
their marriage.
In June 2013, the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of
DOMA
Gay Rights at the Supreme Court
 Hollingsworth v Perry (2013)
 California’s Proposition 8, passed in 2009, was a citizen
initiative that stripped same-sex couples of the right to marry,
after the California Supreme Court had legalized same sec
marriage in 2008
 In 2010, a judge found Prop 8 to be unconstitutional and
discriminatory. Supporters of Prop 8 appealed the decision to
the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
 The Court of Appeals agreed that Prop 8 “serves no
purpose…other than to lessen the status and human dignity of
gays and lesbians in California”
 June 2013 the US Supreme Court struck down Prop 8,
restoring the freedom to marry for Californians
Affirmative Action
 Definition: a policy designed to give special
attention to or compensatory treatment of
members of some previously disadvantaged group
 In education
 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
Racial set asides unconstitutional; no more quotas
 Race could be considered in admissions


Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Gratz v Bollinger

Race could be considered a “plus” in admissions
Understanding Civil Rights and Public Policy
 Civil Rights and Democracy
 Equality favors majority rule.
 Suffrage gave many groups political power.
 Civil Rights and the Scope of Government
 Civil rights laws increase the size and power of government.
 Civil rights protect individuals against collective
discrimination.
Summary
 Racial minorities and women have struggled for
equality since the beginning of the republic.
 Constitutional amendments and civil rights
legislation guarantee voting and freedom from
discrimination.
 Civil rights have expanded to new groups.