The long and winding
road…to
Civil Rights
 In the 1850s a
major political fight
broke out in Boston
over whether the
police department
should be obliged to
hire an Irish officer
Women struggled for the right to vote
from almost the beginning of our
country…took until 1919
 In the 1940s the
U.S. army with the
approval of
President Franklin
D. Roosevelt,
removed all
Japanese
Americans from
their homes in
California and
placed them in
relocation centers
far from the coast
 In all of these cases, some group,
usually defined along racial or ethnic
lines, was denied access to facilities,
opportunities, or services that were
available to other groups
 All of these cases raise the issue of
CIVIL RIGHTS
 Today, we take for granted the rights
of women and blacks to vote for
granted
 In fact since 1990, women have
outvoted men at the polls
 But it wasn’t always this way…
Definition:
Civil rights refers to the positive acts
governments take to protect
individuals against arbitrary or
discriminatory treatment by
governments or individuals based on
categories such as race, sex, national
origin, age or sexual orientation
 The Declaration of
Independence,
written in 1776,
boldly proclaims
“We hold these
truths self-evident,
that all men are
created equal, that
they are endowed
by their creator
with certain
unalienable rights.”
 But the U. S. Constitution, written 11
years later, is silent on the concept of
equality
 Only through Constitutional
amendments, Supreme Court definition
and redefinition of the rights
contained in that document and
legislation passed by the Congress have
Americans come close to attaining
equal rights
 Since the Constitution was written, the
concept of civil rights has changed
dramatically
 The addition of the 14th Amendment,
introduced the notion of equality into
the Constitution by specifying that
states could not deny “any person
within its jurisdiction equal protection
of the laws”
 Reformers called for
change, the women’s
movement gained
momentum and slavery
continued to tear the
nation apart
 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a
novel that showed the
evils of slavery,
further inflamed the
country
 This novel sold more
than 300,000 copies in
1852
“Civil Rights Amendments”
13th Amendment
banned all forms of
slavery and
involuntary
servitude
14th Amendment
This amendment can be broken into three
parts
“all persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States
and the State wherein they reside”
This 1st section of the amendment was
intended to make all Blacks citizens of the
states where they resided and citizens of
the United States
“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”
This 2nd part of the amendment was intended to
EXTEND the Bill of Rights to the STATES (not
just the federal government)
Due Process Clause
this clause is known as the “due
process clause”
Miranda v. Arizona -right to remain
silent-no self incrimination
Gideon v. Wainwright -right to counsel
(attorney)
Nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws”
This 3rd part guarantees that all
citizens are supposed to be treated
EQUALLY
Equal Protection Clause
this clause is known as the “equal protection
clause”
All citizens are to be treated equally and is
the basis for our civil rights Supreme Court
decisions and civil rights legislation
Guarantees equal protection of the laws and
due process to all citizens
th
15
AmendmentBlack Voting Rights
 The 15th
Amendment was
passed by Congress
in 1869 and ratified
in 1870
 It guaranteed the
“right of citizens”
to vote regardless
of their race, color
or previous
servitude
 You can try and change people by
changing laws and even the
Constitution but if people really don’t
buy into them, they will always find a
way around them…and many in the
South did…
 In devising ways to make certain that
African Americans did not vote,
Southerners had to avoid the INTENT
of the 15th Amendment
 This amendment did not guarantee
suffrage; it simply stated that states
could not deny anyone the right to vote
on account of race or color
 But it didn’t say they couldn’t be
denied to vote for other reasons!!!
(literacy tests and poll taxes)
Jim Crow Laws
 Laws which were enacted by Southern
states that discriminated against
blacks by creating “whites only”
schools, theaters, hotels and other
public accommodations
 To exclude African Americans in a
seemingly racially neutral way,
Southern states used two devices
before the 1890s
(1) Poll taxes-small taxes on
the right to vote
(2) “literacy” or
“understanding”
tests-allowed
local registrars
to administer
difficult reading
comprehension
tests
Grandfather Clause
 These literacy or understanding tests
(along with poll taxes) impacted white
voters (all of the sudden southern
states realized they were impacting
poor whites) so states added the
“Grandfather Clause” to their voting
qualifications
 This allowed those whose grandfathers
had voted before Reconstruction to
vote (they didn’t need to pass a
literacy test or pay an tax)
 And because the grandfathers of the
Blacks COULD NOT vote before the
Civil War and the grandfathers of the
Whites COULD VOTE this again was a
way to keep Blacks from having equal
protection of the laws
 And then the Supreme Court
reinforced segregation in the South
when they ruled on a landmark
Supreme Court case…
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
 Distress over the
legal inferiority of
African Americans
was aggravated by
the U.S. Supreme
Court’s decision in
Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896)
 A case that some
commentators point
to as the Court’s
darkest hour
“Separate but equal…”
 This case established
the “separate but equal
doctrine”
 As long as you provide
“equal accommodations”
it was o.k. to separate
blacks from whites
 This became the new
way to discriminate
against African
Americans in the South
 While discrimination was widely
practiced in many parts of the North,
the Southern states passed laws
legally imposing segregation in
education, housing, public
accommodations, employment and most
other spheres of life
 Jim Crow laws were not the only
practices designed to keep African
Americans in a secondary position
 These laws established a way of life
with strong social codes as well
 Journalist Juan Williams noted in
“Eyes on the Prize”…
“There were Jim Crow schools, Jim
Crow restaurants, Jim Crow water
fountains and Jim Crow customs—
blacks were expected to tip their hats
whey they walked past whites, but
whites did not have to remove their
hats even when they entered a black
family's home. Whites were to be
called “sir” and
“ma am” by blacks, who in turn were
called by their first names by whites.
People with white skin were to be given
a wide berth on the sidewalk; blacks
were expected to step aside meekly.”
NAACP-National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
 Founded in 1909 by
a handful of people
active in a variety
of progressive
causes including
woman’s suffrage
 Began working for
the next 50 years
for the rights of
African Americans
 In 1954, the U.S.
Supreme Court
ruled in Brown v.
Board of Education
that statesegregated school
systems were
unconstitutional
 Actually Brown v. Board of Education
was four cases brought from different
areas of the South and border states
involving public elementary or high
school systems that mandated
separate schools for blacks and whites
 NAACP lawyers headed by Thurgood
Marshall, argued that Plessy’s separate
but equal doctrine was unconstitutional
 Under the equal protection clause of the
14th Amendment-Only way to equalize the
schools was to integrate them
 A major component of the NAACP’s strategy
was to prove there was intellectual,
psychological and financial damage when
Blacks were separated from Whites because
of their race
 On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren
delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court
“to separate [some school children] from
others…solely because of their race
generates a feeling of inferiority as to their
status in the community that may affect
their hearts and minds in a way very unlikely
ever to be undone. We conclude,
unanimously, that in the filed of public
education the doctrine of “separate but
equal” has no place.”
 There can be no doubt that Brown was the
most important civil rights case decided in
the 20th century
 It immediately evoked an uproar that shook
the nation
 Some in the South called this decision “Black
Monday”
 The governor of S.C. declared “ending
segregation would mark the beginning of the
end of civilization in the South as we know
it”
 But of course the NAACP lawyers who
argued the case were jubilant
 This victory empowered African
Americans as they sought an end to
other forms of pervasive
discrimination
Shortly after the decision,
bus boycotts and “sit ins”
began
Rosa Parks
 As new groups were
formed, freedom
rides, pressure for
voting rights, and
massive nonviolent
demonstrations
became common
“lobbying tactics”
Civil Rights Act of 1964
 These activities
culminated in the
passage of the (1)
Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the (1)
Voting Rights Act
of 1965
This Act passed by Congress
 Provided for the withholding of
federal funds (money) from
discriminatory state and local
programs
 Prohibited discrimination in
employment on grounds of race, color
religion, national origin or sex
Major Provisions of
this Act
Outlawed arbitrary
discrimination in voter registration
(1)
 but did not abolish literacy tests
sometimes used to disqualify African
Americans and poor white voters; that
would come later with the….
With the 24th Amendment
Signing of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964
(2) Authorized federal government to sue
to desegregate public schools and
facilities
(3) way to hurt states was withhold $$$$$$$$
they needed-so the act provided for the
withholding of federal funds from any state
program that was administered in a
discriminatory manner
(4) It established the right to equality of
opportunity in employment (for minorities
and women)
(5) Outlawed discrimination in hotels,
motels, restaurants, theaters, and all
other public accommodations engaged
in interstate commerce; exempted private
clubs without defining the term "private."
(6) prohibited employment discrimination
based on race, color, religion, sex and
national origin
(7) Established the Equal Opportunity
Employment Commission (EEOC)
At first the power to enforce
this act was pretty weak…but
later it was supplemented
 The bill divided and
engendered a long-term
change in the
demographics of both
political parties.
President Johnson
realized that supporting
this bill would mean
losing the South's
overwhelming support of
the Democratic Party
 For more than a century, white
Southerners had overwhelmingly been
Democrats, but in 1948 many bolted from
the party and supported Strom
Thurmond's third-party candidacy for
president of the United States (Dixicratswho were against desegregation)
 The South indeed started to vote
increasingly Republican after 1964.
However, political scientists Richard
Johnston and Byron Schafer have
argued that this development was based
more on economics than on race
 Brown v. Board
banned racial
discrimination in
public schools and
was gradually
extended to other
public facilities
 But what about
privately owned
places such as
motels, hotels and
restaurants?
 As a result , many of
these “public” places
continued to refuse to
accommodate African
Americans
 Professional baseball
teams, which had
become racially
integrated in 1947,
could do nothing when
their Black players
were not allowed to
register at the same
hotels as their white
teammates
 Civil liberties lawyers
tried to find some
constitutional way to
make these
discriminatory
practices illegal
 First, lawyers first had
to prove federal courts
had jurisdiction over
these places and
 Second, that they
violated the Civil Rights
Act of 1964
 Heart of Atlanta Motel was located in
downtown Atlanta but was accessed by
two interstate highways
 Motel had always solicited guests from
outside of Georgia by advertising in
various national publications
 It also accepted reservations for
conventions from organizations outside
of Georgia
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United
States (1964)
 About 75% of their
business came from
outside of Georgia
 Before the Civil
Rights Act of 1964,
the Motel had
refused to rent to
Blacks
 And of course,
after the Civil
Rights Act of 1964
was passed, the
hotel said they had
no plans to change
their policy
 The motel sued the
United States
Government (since
they were the ones
that were going to
enforce these new
laws)
 Motel claimed the Civil Rights Act was
UNCONSTITUTIONAL because it
exceeded its power to REGULATE
INTERSTATE COMMERCE under the
Commerce Clause of the United States
Constitution (remember Article I,
Section 8 enumerated powers)
 The Supreme Court
had to decide if the
Civil Rights Act
deprived the motel
owners of THEIR
Constitutional
rights
The Supreme Court was
going to decide this case
on
Interstate
Commerce?????!!!
 The Supreme Court ruled against the Heart
of Atlanta Motel
 The Court held that the commerce clause of
the U.S. Constitution permitted Congress to
ban discrimination in places like a motel
 In the Gibbons v. Ogden (back in 1824!) case
the court had defined “interstate
commerce” in such a way as to include
businesses of motels
 It denied that the business of the motel was
purely local since a good portion of its
business was from people from other states
And then right on the heels of Heart of
Atlanta Motel came Katzenback v. McClung
(1964)
 On the same day the Court ruled on Heart
of Atlanta Motel, they also ruled on a closely
related case that dealt with a Birmingham
restaurant that served mostly LOCAL
clientele
 Served Blacks but only at a takeout counter
 BUT HALF THE FOOD COOKED AND
SERVED AT THE TAKE-OUT COUNTER
CAME FROM OUT-OF-STATE
 The court instead
took the stand that
it was
unconstitutional to
deny serving Blacks
because
discrimination in a
public
accommodation such
as a restaurant
severely hindered
interstate travel by
African Americans
 In a concurring opinion (Supreme Court
opinion that agrees but for other
reasons)-Justices William O. Douglas
and Arthur J. Goldberg argued that
the commerce clause was not the only
constitutional support for the Court’s
view of interstate commerce
 They believed the 14th amendment
empowered Congress to impose the
regulations provided by in the Civil
Rights Act of 1964
Voting Rights Act of 1965
 Soon after the
passage of the
Voting Rights Act
of 1965, federal
examiners were
conducting voter
registrations and
black voter
registration began
to sharply increase
 The cumulative effect of the Supreme
Court's decisions, Congress' enactment
of voting rights legislation, and the
ongoing efforts of concerned private
citizens and the Department of
Justice, has been to restore the right
to vote guaranteed by the 14th and
15th Amendments. The Voting Rights
Act itself has been called the single
most effective piece of civil rights
legislation for African Americans
 It outlawed literacy tests
President George W. Bush recently
signed the reauthorization of the
Voting Rights Act as lawmakers
look on.
th
24
Amendment-Elimination
of Poll Taxes (1964)
 ratified in 1964,
outlawed the use of
this tax (or any
other tax) as a precondition in voting in
Federal elections.
 These new laws gave African
Americans and women’s rights groups
two potential weapons in their legal
arsenals
 Our notion of civil rights has changed
profoundly since 1954
 First African Americans and then
women have built upon existing
organizations to forge successful
movements for increased rights
 Brown v. Board of Education served as
a catalyst for change, sparking the
development of the modern civil rights
movement
 Since the passage
of the civil rights
amendments and
civil rights
legislation, there
has been a fairly
consistent pattern
of the expansion of
civil rights to more
and more groups
Equal Rights Amendment (1972)
(actually first introduced in 1921)
 Section 1. Equality of rights under the
law shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any state on account
of sex.
 Section 2. The Congress shall have the
power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.
 Section 3. This amendment shall take
effect two years after the date of
ratification.
 supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment
between 1972 and 1982 lobbied, marched,
rallied, petitioned, picketed, went on hunger
strikes, and committed acts of civil
disobedience
 But the Equal Rights Amendment never was
ratified
 Many felt this amendment might hurt women
more than help them
 Instead, Congress has passed legislation
that has outlawed discrimination on the
basis of sex
Statutory Remedies for Sex
Discrimination
 Because the interpretation of the
Equal Protection Clause applied only to
governmental discrimination, women’s
rights activists began to bombard the
courts with sex-discrimination cases
Title IX
 Title IX of the Educational
Amendments of 1972 is the landmark
legislation that bans sex discrimination
in schools, whether it be in academics
or athletics. Title IX states:
 "No person in the U.S. shall, on the
basis of sex be excluded from
participation in, or denied the
benefits of, or be subjected to
discrimination under any educational
program or activity receiving federal
aid."
 Athletics has created the most controversy
regarding Title IX, but its gains in education
and academics are notable. Before Title IX,
many schools refused to admit women or
enforced strict limits. Some statistics
highlighting the advancements follow:
 In 1994, women received 38% of medical
degrees, compared with 9% in 1972.
 In 1994, women earned 43% of law degrees,
compared with 7% in 1972.
 In 1994, 44% of all doctoral degrees to U.S.
citizens went to women, up from 25% in
1977.
Intercollegiate Athletics
 Title IX governs the overall equity of
treatment and opportunity in athletics while
giving schools the flexibility to choose
sports based on student body interest,
geographic influence, budget restraints, and
gender ratio. In other words, it is not a
matter of women being able to participate in
wrestling or that exactly the same amount
of money is spent per women's and men's
basketball player. Instead, the focus is on
the necessity for women to have equal
opportunities as men on a whole, not on an
individual basis.
Financial Aid
 financial assistance must be awarded
based on the number of male and
female athletes. The test is financial
proportionality. The total amounts of
athletics aid must be substantially
proportionate to the ratio of male and
female athletes.
 all other benefits, opportunities, and
treatments afforded sports
participants are to be equivalent, but
not necessarily identical. Title IX
specifically looks at the following
program components:
 Equipment & Supplies: quality, suitability,
quantity, availability, maintenance, &
replacement.
 Scheduling of Games & Practice Time:
number of competitive events per sport,
number and length of practice opportunities,
time of day competitive events and practice
opportunities are scheduled, opportunities to
engage in available pre-season and postseason competition, the season a sport is
scheduled, & the length of season.
 Travel & Per Diem Allowances: modes of
transportation, housing furnished during
travel, length of stay before and after
competitive events, per diem allowances, &
dining arrangements.
 Opportunity to Receive Academic
Tutoring: availability of tutoring, tutor
qualifications and experience, rates of
pay, & employment conditions.
 Opportunity to Receive Coaching,
Assignment, & Compensation:
availability, assignment, &
compensation of full-time coaches,
assistants, graduate assistants, or
restricted earnings coaches.
 Locker Rooms,
Practice, &
Competitive Facilities:
quality, availability,
exclusivity of use,
maintenance and
preparation of
facilities.
 Medical & Training
Facilities and
Services: quality
and availability of
medical personnel;
athletic trainers;
weight and
conditioning
facilities; training
facilities; & health,
accident, and injury
insurance coverage.
 Publicity: availability and quality of sports
information personnel, access to publicity
resources, & quantity and quality of
publications and other promotional devices.
 Support Services: administrative support,
clerical and secretarial support, office
space, equipment and supplies, & availability
of other support staff.
 Recruitment of Student-Athletes:
opportunities for coaches or other personnel
to recruit, whether financial and other
resources are equivalently adequate, &
treatment of prospective student-athletes.
And then….
Americans with Disabilities
Act (1990)
 Title I - Employment
 Title II - Public Services (and public
transportation)
 Title III - Public Accommodations (and
Commercial Facilities)
 Title IV - Telecommunications
Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990
 The Americans with
Disabilities Act of
1990 (ADA) is the
short title of
United States
Public Law 101-336,
singed into law on
July 26, 1990 by
President George H.
W. Bush.
 The ADA is a wide-ranging civil
rights law that prohibits
discrimination based on disability.
It affords similar protections
against discrimination to
Americans with disabilities as the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, which
made discrimination based on race,
religion, sex, national origin, and
other characteristics illegal. on a
case by case basis
 Disability is defined "a physical
or mental impairment that
substantially limits a major life
activity." The determination of
whether a particular condition
is a disability is made
Casey Martin v. Professional
Golf Association
 The 28 year-old Martin
suffers from a
disorder in his right leg
called KlippelTrenaunay-Weber
Syndrome. The
condition prevents him
from walking long
distances. Doctors say
he may eventually lose
his leg.
Ruling…
The Supreme Court of the United States has
ruled that Casey Martin can use a golf cart
when he plays in PGA (Professional Golf
Association) tour events.
 The 7-2 votes by the country’s highest court
on May 29 changed the world of professional
golf. It could affect other sports, as well.
 The decision means that the 1990 Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA) prevents the
PGA tour from denying Martin equal access
to its tournaments based on his
disability.
And who is next on
this long winding
road to civil rights
for all Americans?