Civil Rights and Public Policy
Chapter 5
I. Introduction

Civil Rights:
– Definition: Policies designed to protect people
against arbitrary or discriminatory treatment
based on certain characteristics in such settings
as employment, schools, access to voting,
transportation, etc.

Types of Discrimination:
– Racial, gender, age, disability, sexual
orientation, wealth and other factors
– More than just rights for African Americans
Equality

Conceptions of Equality
– Equal opportunity
– Equal results

Declaration of Independence
– All men are created equal

The Constitution
– 14th Amendment, 1868
– “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
– Equal protection clause
II. African Americans
Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857

Scott sued for his freedom because
he lived in free territory
 Court ruled that he was not free
and had no standing to sue
 Court ruled that the African
Americans were not citizens and
the Constitution did not apply to
them
 Later overturned with the 14th
Amendment that defined all people
born in the US were citizens
Dred Scott
Justice Taney
Civil War & Reconstruction
Amendments



13th Amendment
– Ended slavery
14th Amendment
– Defined citizenship
– Equal protection and Due Process clauses
– At first, the SCOTUS did not use it to protect African
American rights or to nationalize (incorporate) the Bill
of Rights
15th Amendment
– Granted all males suffrage regardless of race
– States soon found a way around its intent
Mississippi Last


http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/du89xz/t
he-last-amender
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/26o8rd/t
he-supreme-court---the-voting-rights-act
 Voting Rights Act
African American
Suffrage
Blocked despite the 15th
Amendment
 African Americans were not
allowed to fully exercise it until
the late 1960s

– Jim Crow de jure segregation
– Poll Tax
– Literacy Tests
– Grandfather clauses
– White Primaries
– Violence
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896

Homer Plessy sued after he was arrested
for violating a Louisiana segregation law
 Argued that segregation was illegal
under the 14th Amendment
 Court ruled that "separate but equal"
laws did not imply one race's inferiority
to another
 Decision meant that not only private
segregation could occur but so could
state sponsored as well.
 Provided constitutional sanction for the
adoption of the Jim Crow laws
Brown v. Board of
Education, 1954





Thurgood Marshall, NAACP
Declared state laws establishing
separate public schools for black
and white students unconstitutional
and ordered them to be integrated
Overturned the Plessy case
"separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal."
The Supreme Court was the
institution most responsible for
advancing the African American
Civil Rights Movement
Percentage of Black Students
Attending School With any
Whites in Southern States
Civil Rights Movement




Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.
– Montgomery bus
boycott
– Birmingham March
– March on Washington
– Civil disobedience
Woolworth sit-ins
Freedom Summer
– Voting Rights
Militant Movement
– Malcolm X, Nation of
Islam, separatist
– Black Panthers
Landmark Civil Rights
Legislation

24th Amendment: (1964)
– Banned Poll Taxes

Voting Rights Act of 1965
– Banned Literacy Tests
– Allowed federal intervention in
counties where voter registration
was less than 50%

Civil Rights Act of 1968
– Banned racial discrimination in
housing (steering) and mortgage
lending.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
– Outlawed arbitrary discrimination in voter registration
within the states (ended the white primary)
 15th Amendment used to justify Congressional
Action
– Made racial discrimination illegal in hotels, restaurants,
and other public accommodation including government
agencies— ended Jim Crow laws
 Commerce Clause used to justify
– Title VII established the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which forbid
employment discrimination based on inherent
characteristics (race, national origin, religion, gender)
and established a standard of equal opportunity in
employment.
 14thAmendment equal protection clause used to
justify

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7lrS0s
LrVE&safe=active
III. Women and Equal Rights

Seneca Falls Convention,1848
– beginning of women’s rights movement
 Muller v. Oregon (1908)
– 10 hour work day limit for women
 19th Amendment, 1920
– Women’s suffrage
 Women had trouble using the 14th Amendment to get Equal
Protection under the law
– Reasonableness standard
– Allowed women to be treated different if there was some rationale basis
for it, easy to do

Craig v. Boren, 1976
– Court abandoned rationality test for the heightened scrutiny test where
classifying individuals based on gender must be related to an important
government objective

Equal Rights Amendment
(ERA) 1972
– “Equality of rights under the
law shall not be denied or
abridged by the US or any
State on account of sex.” –
did not pass

Rostker v. Goldberg (1981)
– Court upheld the
requirement men to
register but not women for
draft, ended ERA push
 Roe v. Wade (1973) –
women’s freedom to
choose abortion

Civil Rights Act (1964)
– Title VII – prohibits gender
discrimination in
employment, extended to
sexual harassment
– Comparable worth – “equal
pay for equal work”
Title IX – provide equal
funding for all programs
that receive federal funding
 Women were allowed to
enter all male military
schools, VMI case

Ratio of Pay between Women
and Men in 2005 was 77:100
IV. Other minority groups:
Homosexual Rights



1993 – “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – gay rights to be in the military
– DADT policy ended in September, 2011
Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
– law forbidding sodomy was constitutional
Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
– law against sodomy action violated due process of 14th Amendment –
“life, liberty, and property”
Boy Scouts v. Dale (2000) –
– Ruled that private organizations may
discriminate (in this case the Boy
Scouts denied homosexuals
membership (revoked an Eagle
Scout award and assistant
scoutmaster was removed).
Gay Marriage
– State issue, legal in some states
– Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prevents the Full Faith and
Credit Clause in the Constitution making states recognize gay
marriages
US v. Windsor

SCOTUS ruled that U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage"
and "spouse" to apply only to heterosexual unions, by
Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is
unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
Amendment.
 Background
– Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a same-sex couple residing in New
York, were lawfully married in Ontario, Canada in 2007.
– Spyer died in 2009, leaving her entire estate to Windsor.
– Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for
surviving spouses.
– She was barred and had to pay $363,053 in estate taxes.
Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015

Court held that the fundamental right to marry
is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both
the Due Process Clause and the Equal
Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
 Requires a State to license a marriage
between two people of the same sex and to
recognize a marriage between two people of
the same sex when their marriage was
lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/lzbwpn/d
efending-your-wife

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/9ec0d8/j
udgment-gay
Rights for Older Americans

Age discrimination illegal
 Age Discrimination in
Employment Act raised the
general compulsory
retirement age to 70
 AARP – interest group –
large influence
Rights for Disabled Americans

17% of Americans have a
disability
 Rehabilitation Act of 1973 illegal to discriminate based on
disability
 Education for All Handicapped
Children Act of 1975 – gave all
handicapped children free
education
 Americans with Disabilities Act
of 1990 – protect disabled rights –
SC has somewhat limited this act
Asian Americans

Korematsu v. United States (1944)
– People of Japanese descent during
WWII can be held in detention camps
because of their ancestry
– “all legal restrictions which curtail the
CIVIL RIGHTS of a single group are
immediately suspect. That is not to say
that all such restrictions are
unconstitutional. It is to say that courts
must subject them to the most rigid
scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may
sometimes justify the existence of such
restrictions; racial antagonism never
can.”
Is racism/ sexism/ classism /
ageism over?
Ratio of Pay between Women
and Men in 2005 was 77:100

Definition:
– A policy designed to give
special attention to or
compensatory treatment of
members of some
previously disadvantaged
group in access to
education or employment.
 A move towards equal results?
 Is this reverse discrimination?
 Do civil rights require the
absence of discrimination OR
require racial balance?
 Does this violate the equal
protection clause?
 LBJ started the process
through executive order in
government contracts
V. Affirmative
Action
Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke (1978)

Bakke was denied admission to medical school
at UC Davis twice despite having higher grades
and test scores than every minority applicant
 Court ruled that strict quotas (like 10% of a class
must be African American) are unconstitutional
because it violates the 14th Amendment equal
protection clause
 Does not say affirmative action itself is
unconstitutional
 Still, race can be a criteria for admission to a
public institution because a diverse student body
is a “legitimate educational goal”
Gratz v. Bollinger & Grutter v.
Bollinger, 2003




Two students Gratz (undergraduate in 1995) and
Grutter (Law School in 1997) applied to the University
of Michigan. Both were denied admission.
The University admits that it uses race as a factor in
making admissions decisions because it serves a
“compelling interest in achieving diversity among its
student body.”
SCOTUS upheld using race in admission decisions but
it required the school to change its undergraduate
admissions program that awarded points to minority
applicants
The court held that a race-conscious admissions process
that may favor "underrepresented minority groups," but
that also took into account many other factors evaluated
on an individual basis for every applicant, did not
amount to a quota
Male Affirmative Action
Needed?

Women in 2006 made up 56% of
undergrads, up from 54.8% in 2000
 There are more men than women ages 1824 in the USA, 15 million vs. 14.2 million
 Nationally, the male/female ratio on campus
today is 43/57
VI. Summary

Civil Rights and Democracy
– Constant pursuit of equality
– Equality favors majority rule.
– Suffrage gave many groups political power.
– Enforcing civil rights laws greatly increase the
size and scope of government.
– EVERYONE will be a part of some minority
group during their lifetime
Practice Test Civil Rights
C
2. E
3. C
1.
Practice Test Civil Rights
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
C
E
C
B
D
B
E
D
Practice Test Civil Rights
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
C
E
C
B
D
B
E
D
D
C
11. B
12. B
10.
Practice Test Civil Rights
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
C
E
C
B
D
B
E
D, SKIP
D
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
C
B
B, SKIP
A
C
A

Many scholars and observers have argued that the ratification of
the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution has become the
single most important act in all of United States politics.
– Identify which provision of the Fourteenth Amendment was
applied in one of the following Supreme Court cases. For
the case you select, explain the significance of the decision
in United States politics:
 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)
 Baker v. Carr (1962)
 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
– Identify which provision of the Fourteenth Amendment was
applied in one of the following Supreme Court cases. For
the case you select, explain the significance of the decision
in U.S. politics.
 Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
 Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
 Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
All the equal protection clause
All the Equal Protection
Clause

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)
– Ended Plessy v. Ferguson and the separate but equal doctrine
– Ordered schools to be integrated

Baker v. Carr (1962)
– One man, one vote
– Gerrymandering, redistricting issues, equal population

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
– Affirmative Action issue
– Reverse discrimination
– Quotas are unconstitutional
– Led to controversies over Affirmative Action, Michigan cases, California
Proposition 209

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account
of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
– Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 1870

Despite the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, voter turnout
among African American citizens was very low throughout the first
half of the twentieth century. Over the past 50 years, civil rights
policies have changed substantially, along with a significant
increase in African American voter turnout.
A. Explain how two measures taken by some states prior to
the1960s affected voter turnout among African Americans.
B. Facing discrimination at the voting booth, many African
American citizens turned to alternative forms of political
participation. Describe two alternative forms of participation
that helped bring about changes in civil rights policies.
C. Choose one of the forms of participation you described in (b)
and explain why it was effective in changing civil rights
policies.
Explain how two measures taken by some states prior to
the1960s affected voter turnout among African Americans.

Literacy tests.
 Poll taxes
 Grandfather clauses
 Dilution of voting strength through
redistricting
 White primaries
 Election procedures (notification, access)
Facing discrimination at the voting booth, many African
American citizens turned to alternative forms of political
participation. Describe two alternative forms of participation
that helped bring about changes in civil rights policies.

Demonstrations/protests/public rallies/civil
disobedience
 Organized interest-group activity (e.g.,
NAACP)
 Courts/litigation
 Boycotts
 Election activities other than votinc
(campaigning, donating)
Choose one of the forms of participation you described in (b)
and explain why it was effective in changing civil rights
policies.

One point is earned for a correct explanation of
why an alternative form of participation was
effective in changing civil rights policies based on
the response in (b).
 The response must explain how or why policy
outputs or outcomes result from participation,
including the following three elements:
– Participation
– Linkage mechanism
– Policy output or outcome
Party Planning Committee
Tuesday,
be here
Bring 2$ or 3$ for Papa John’s Pizza
 Bring drinks, chips, desserts… sign up is
coming around
 I will bring the entertainment: Judge Judy
