Civil Rights – Chapter 5 “Equal Protection”
Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 The Era of Slavery
 Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) –
 The Civil War
 The Thirteenth Amendment Fifteenth Amendment: specifically gives black men the right to vote
 Shortly after ratification the Southern states devised ways around these amendments by
passing laws –
de jure segregation (by law) and de facto segregation (by reality)
 To avoid the intent of the Fifteenth Amendment, Southerners moved to exclude African
American voters with:
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Alternative forms of participation that helped bring about changes in civil rights policies:
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 Courts/litigation
 Boycotts
 Election activities other than voting (campaigning, donating)
How did these forms change Civil Rights Policies?
 Participation –
 Linkage mechanism –
 Policy output or outcome – The March on Washington led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy
 The Era of Reconstruction and Resegregation
 Jim Crow laws Separate But Equal Doctrine
 The Supreme Court ruled in Plessy that the Louisiana law was constitutional and that separate
but equal facilities for blacks did not violate the Equal Protection Clause.
 The high-court Plessy ruling –
 By 1914 every Southern state had passed laws that created two separate societies--one black,
the other white.
The Era of Civil Rights
 Rosa Parks began the African American -(modern) Civil Rights movement
 Brown v. Board of Education (1954) started the Civil Rights movement
 Court ordered integration and busing of students (
)
 Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
The NAACP argued that the intellectual, psychological, and financial damage that befell black
Americans precluded any finding of equality under the separate but equal policy.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964:
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 Outlawed arbitrary discrimination in voter registration.
 Authorized the U.S. Justice Department to initiate lawsuits to desegregate schools and public
facilities.
 Allowed the federal government to withhold funds from discriminatory state and local
programs.
 Prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.
 Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to monitor and enforce bans
on employment discrimination.
The Impacts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
 Southerners argued that the Act violated the Constitution and was an unwarranted use of
federal power.
 The Court ruled that state-imposed (de jure) segregation must be eliminated at once.
 A full decade after Brown, less than -less than ________ of African American children in the
South attended integrated schools.
 Over time, these rulings and laws opened up numerous occupations to minorities and women.
Getting and Using the Right To Vote
 Suffrage  Poll Taxes –
 White Primary - Only whites were allowed to vote in the party (Democratic) primaries.
 Smith v. Allwright (1944):  Twenty-fourth Amendment: Eliminated poll taxes for federal elections.
 Voting Rights Act of 1965: Helped end formal and informal barriers to voting.
Native Americans
 2 million people live on “reservations”
 Push for more sovereignty on their land
 Ex. –
 Art. 1, Sec. 8 – commerce clause give Congress right to regulate Indian tribes
Latino/Latina Rights
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 Mexican – 15 million-rights issues include Bilingual education programs, immigration
 Puerto Rican – 2.7 million-PR is a commonwealth of US, citizens can move freely back and
forth, not represented in Congress, don’t have to pay federal tax
Asian American
 8 million in US, 40% of immigrants
 Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 – lasted through WWII
 WWII – Japanese racism – internment
 Korematsu v. US (1944) – court ruled placement in internment camps
 1980s reparations for internment
Women and Equal Rights
 Seneca Falls Convention – 1848 – beginning of women’s suffrage movement
 Muller v. Oregon (1908) –
 19th Amendment – 1920 –
 1970s – “reasonableness standard” – all legal circumstance must be treated equal
Example: Cannot set different age limits for driving, but can set laws on rape that punish
man only
 Women and Equal Rights
 Reed v. Reed (1971) – – for the first time upheld a claim of gender discrimination.
 Craig v. Boren (1976) – established the medium scrutiny standard for gender
discrimination
 Draft is not discriminatory
 Women in the Military Women and Equal Rights
 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.”
 Rostker v. Goldberg (1981) – Court upheld the requirement men to register but not women for
draft, ended ________push
 Title VII – prohibits gender discrimination in employment, extended to sexual harassment
 Comparable worth –
 Title IX – provide equal funding for all programs that receive federal funding
Rights for Older Americans
 Age discrimination illegal
 Age Discrimination in Employment Act raised the general compulsory retirement age to ______
 AARP – interest group – large influence
Rights for Disabled Americans
 ________ 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 –
 Homosexual Rights
 1993 – “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – gay rights to be in the military
 Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) – law forbidding homosexuality was constitutional
 Lawrence v. Texas (2003) – law against homosexual action violated due process of 14th
Amendment – “life, liberty, and property”
Reverse Discrimination
 Equality of opportunity vs. equality of results – Do civil rights require the absence of
discrimination OR require racial balance?
 University of California v. Bakke 1978 –
race can be a criteria for admission to a public institution
,
 Richmond v. Croson 1989 – city of Richmond could not guarantee that 30% of companies that
received subcontracts were owned by minorities
Supreme Court Rulings - Classifications by race and ethnicity have now been ruled by the Court
to be acceptable only in laws seeking to remedy previous discrimination.