American Federal Government
Today’s Agenda
– Civil Rights
Quote of the Day
“Freedom is never given; it is won.”
---A. Philip Randolph,
keynote speech,
Second National Negro Congress, 1937
Raldolph was the founder of the railway
porters’union. He was influential in
persuading President Harry Truman that the
armed forces should be integrated.
Civil Rights
• Civil Rights
– legal or moral claims that citizens are entitled to
make upon government
• Question: Should government attempt to
ensure equality of opportunity or equality of
outcome?
• Current issues:
– affirmative action
– protections for various groups from
discrimination (minorities, women,
gays/lesbians)
Civil Rights
The Fourteenth Amendment, “Equal
Protection of the Laws,” and the Post-Civil
War Struggle for African-Americans
– The Slaugherhouse Cases (1873)
– U.S. v. Reese (1876)
– De jure segregation
– Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
– The “black codes,” Jim Crow laws,
impediments to voting, separate schools
•white primaries, poll taxes, literacy tests,
political parties considered “clubs”
Civil Rights
• Pressures for Desegregation in Education
– Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
– McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950)
– Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
– Brown v. Board of Education II (1955)
– Little Rock, 1957
• Busing and de facto segregation
– Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County
Schools (1971)
– Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Civil Rights
• The Civil Rights Movement, 1960s – Martin Luther King and civil disobedience
– President Lyndon Johnson & “Great Society”
•The Civil Rights Act of 1964
•24th Amendment (1964)
•Economic Opportunity Act (1964)
•Voting Rights Act (1965)
•Fair Housing Act (1968)
Civil Rights/
Affirmative Action
• Definition of Affirmative Action:
– government policies or programs that seek to
redress past injustices against specified groups
by making special efforts to provide members
of the groups with access to educational and
employment opportunities
– temporary measures vs. institutionalized
programs?
– greater inclusion or increased “group” conflict?
– “reverse” discrimination?
Civil Rights/Affirmative Action
Views on University Admissions
80
75
60
60
40
40
25
20
0
Preferential
Treatment
Extra Effort
Oppose
Favor
Source: James Kuklinski et al.,
American Journal of Political Science, 1997, pp. 402-419.
Civil Rights/
Affirmative Action
• Higher Education
– Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
(1978)
– Grove City College v. Bell (1984)
– Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988)
– Hopwood v. Texas (1996)
– California Proposition 209
– President Clinton: “Mend it, don’t end it”
Civil Rights/
Affirmative Action
• Employment and other issues
– “Set asides” & strict scrutiny
•Richmond v. Croson (1989)
•Adarand v. Pena (1995)
– Employment
•Johnson v. Transportation Agency of Santa
Clara County (1987)
•Civil Rights Act of 1991
•Piscataway v. Taxman (1997)
Civil Rights/
Affirmative Action
• Women
– Voting
•Minor v. Happersett (1875)
•19th Amendment (1920)
– Sex-based discrimination
•“intermediate” & “skeptical” scrutiny
•Equal Rights Amendment
•U.S. v. Virginia (1996)
[Virginia Military Institute]
Civil Rights/
Affirmative Action
• Disabled Americans
– Americans with Disabilities Act (1991)
• often referred to as ADA
Civil Rights/
Affirmative Action
• Gays and Lesbians
– Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
– Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the
military
– Romer v. Evans (1996)
– The Defense of Marriage Act (1996)
– Constitutional Amendment banning gay
marriage? Failed in House and Senate in late
September 2004