Chapter 6
Civil Liberties
Civil Rights: Introduction
• Civil Rights
– Guarantees of equal opportunities,
privileges, and treatment under the law
that allow individuals to participate fully
and equally in American society.
– Generally understood as rooted in the 14th
Amendment
– Describe what government must do to
prevent discrimination.
Civil Rights: Introduction
• Equal Protection Clause
– Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment
stating that states are not to deny any
person equal treatment under the law.
Civil Rights: Introduction
– The Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
prohibits slavery within the United States.
– The Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
established that all persons born in the
United States are citizens and no state
shall deprive citizens of their rights under
the Constitution.
– The Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
established the right of citizens to vote.
Civil Rights: History
• The Civil Rights Acts of 1865 to 1875
– Aimed at the Southern states.
– Attempted to prevent states from passing
laws that would circumvent the
amendments
– Included full and equal enjoyment of
public places, and penalties for interfering
with any right privilege or immunity held
by another citizen.
Civil Rights: History
• The Civil Rights Cases (1883)
- Held that the enforcement clause of the
14th Amendment (no state shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of the citizens)
was limited to correcting official actions
taken by the states, thus meaning
discriminatory actions of private citizens
were legal.
Civil Rights: History
• Jim Crow
– System of laws that separated the races in
schools, public accommodations, and
other aspects of daily life.
Civil Rights: History
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
– The 14th Amendment “could not have been
intended to abolish distinctions based
upon color, or to enforce social…equality”
– Gives us the “Separate But Equal
Doctrine”
Separate but Equal
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
– The 14th Amendment “could not have been
intended to abolish distinctions based
upon color, or to enforce social…equality”
– Gives us the “Separate But Equal
Doctrine”
An end to Separate but
Equal
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
(1954)
– Segregation of races in public schools violates
14th amendment.
– Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (end of separate
but equal)
• “With All Deliberate Speed.”
- Order from the Supreme Court that lower courts
had to ensure African Americans were being
admitted to school districts “with all deliberate
speed”. Lower courts were given the task of
ensuring school districts were designed “on a
non-racial basis”.
Civil Rights: Segregation
• De facto segregation
– racial segregation that occurs because of
past social and economic conditions and
residential racial patterns.
• De jure segregation
– racial segregation that occurs because of
laws or administrative decisions by public
agencies.
Civil Disobedience
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• Civil Disobedience
- “A nonviolent public refusal to obey
allegedly unjust laws”
- Also advocated by Mahatma Gandhi and
Henry David Thoreau.
Civil Rights: Legislation
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
– Outlawed arbitrary discrimination in voter
registration
– Barred discrimination in public accommodations
whose operations affect interstate commerce
(Examples: hotels, restaurants)
– Expanded power of federal government to sue
school systems into desegregation
– Expanded the power of the Civil Rights
Commission
– Withheld federal funds from programs
administered in a discriminatory manner
– Established the right of equal opportunity in
employment.
Civil Rights: Women’s
movement
• Much of the focus of the early women’s
movement focused on suffrage
• Suffrage
- The right to vote.
- Achieved with the 19th amendment in 1920
Civil Rights: Women’s
movement
Civil Rights: Women’s
movement
• Feminism
- The movement that supports political,
economic, and social equality for women.
Civil Rights: Women’s
movement
• Equal Rights Amendment
– “Equality of rights under the law shall not
be denied or abridge by the United States
or by any state on account of sex”
– First introduced in 1923, finally approved
by both chambers in 1972
– 38 states would have to ratify, and the
amendment failed to get the 38 in the
seven years specified by Congress.
Civil Rights: Women’s
movement
• The failure of the ERA led to more
targeted actions aimed at getting rid
of any law or practice that allowed for
gender discrimination
• Gender Discrimination
- Any practice, policy or procedure that
denies equality of treatment to an
individual or to a group because of
gender.
Civil Rights: Women’s
movement
• Wage Discrimination
– Recent figures show a woman earns
76 cents for every dollar made by a man.
– The Equal Pay Act of 1963
– The Glass Ceiling
How Many Women Work, 2006
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Civil Rights: Other Groups
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act
of 1967
– Protects citizens over 40 years of age
– Prohibits discrimination against individuals
on the basis of age unless age is shown to
be a bona fide occupational qualification
reasonably necessary to the normal
operation of the particular business
Civil Rights: Other Groups
• Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA)(1990)
– Public buildings and public services must
be acceptable to persons with disabilities
– Employers must reasonably accommodate
the needs of workers or potential workers
with disabilities.
– Does not require the hiring of unqualified
persons just because they have a
disability.
Civil Rights: Other Groups
• BSA v Dale 2000
• As a private organization, the Court ruled the Boy
Scouts did not have to allow an openly gay man
to become a scout leader.
Civil Rights: Other Groups
• Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
– “The liberty protected by the Constitution
allows homosexual persons the right to
choose to enter upon relationships in the
confines of their homes and their own
private lives and still retain their dignity
as free persons”
– Invalidates all remaining sodomy laws
Civil Rights: Other Groups
• The GLBT Community and Politics
– Gay activists now play a role in both
major parties. Eleven openly gay men or
lesbians sit in the House.
Affirmative Action
• Affirmative Action
- A policy in educational admissions or job
hiring that gives special attention or
compensatory treatment to traditionally
disadvantaged groups in an effort to
overcome present effects of past
discrimination.
- Argument is that past discrimination
makes it impossible for certain groups to
compete, so affirmative action “levels the
playing field”
Affirmative Action
• Reverse Discrimination
- Discrimination against members of a
majority group.
Affirmative Action
• Regents of the University of CA v.
Bakke (1978)
– Supreme Court decision that a rigid quota
plan for admissions violates the
Constitution’s equal protection guarantee
but race could be considered a “plus
factor” in college admissions to increase
study body diversity.
Modern Civil Rights
• Reasonable-Basis Test
- A test applied by courts to laws that treat
individuals unequally. Such a law may be
deemed constitutional if its purpose is held to be
“reasonably” related to a legitimate government
interest.
- Example: The courts have held that the goal of
reducing fatalities from alcohol related involving
young drivers is reason enough to uphold drinking
laws that discriminate on the basis of age.
Modern Civil Rights
• Strict-Scrutiny Test
- A test applied by courts to laws that
attempt a racial or ethnic classification.
In effect, the strict-scrutiny test
eliminates race or ethnicity as a legal
classification when it places a minority
group at a disadvantage.
- A law that treats people different based
on race is assumed unconstitutional unless
government can provide overwhelming
evidence of its necessity.