Transcript File

Chapter 6
Civil Rights
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To Accompany Comprehensive, Alternate, and Texas Editions
American Government: Roots and Reform, 10th edition
Karen O’Connor and Larry J. Sabato
 Pearson Education, 2009
Slavery Before the Civil War
 Slave trade banned in 1808.
 South remains dependent on slave labor.
 1820 Missouri Compromise line at 36 degrees latitude.
 Development of American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.
 Women meet at Seneca Falls in 1848.
 Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852.
 Dred Scott decision in 1857 condones slavery.
The Aftermath of the Civil War
 Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery.
 South uses Black Codes to restrict rights.
 Fourteenth Amendment gives equal protection.
 Fourteenth Amendment also grants due process of law.
 Fifteenth Amendment gives blacks right to vote.
 Women are still excluded from suffrage.
Civil Rights after Reconstruction
 Southern defiance leads to 1875 Civil Rights Act.
 Courts still uphold discriminatory Jim Crow laws.
 Supreme Court agrees in Civil Rights Cases (1883).
 South also uses poll taxes to block black voters.
 Grandfather clauses added to allow poor whites to vote.
Black Equality, 1890-1954
 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upholds segregation.
 NAACP founded in 1909.
 Full legal attack on segregation begins in 1930s.
 NAACP LDF uses test case litigation to win rights.
 Gradual success in law schools and colleges.
 Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
 Importance of the equal protection clause.
Women’s Equality, 1890-1954
 Women first work for wage laws and prohibition.
 National Consumers’ League plays key role.
 Later, the suffrage movement is the central focus.
 Led by National American Woman Suffrage Association.
 Achieve success with the Nineteenth Amendment.
The Civil Rights Movement
 Segregated schools must be dismantled.
 Some states try to resist; Arkansas as example.
 Rosa Parks challenges segregated busses.
 Formation of SCLC (rallies) and SNCC (sit-ins).
 Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.”
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
 Outlaws segregation in public facilities.
 Bans discrimination in employment, education, voting.
 Provides for federal intervention.
 Creates Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
 Applies to race, color, religion, origin, and sex.
 Attempt to eliminate de jure discrimination.
 Could do little about de facto discrimination.
Women’s Rights Movement
 Formation of National Organization for Women.
 Publication of The Feminine Mystique.
 ACLU’s efforts to litigate for equal rights.
 Congress adopts Equal Rights Amendment.
 Amendment never ratified.
 Now known as Women’s Equality Amendment.
Equal Protection Clause
 Part of Fourteenth Amendment.
 Three different standards of review.
 Most laws subject to rational basis test.
 Intermediate standard applied to gender.
 Suspect classifications subject to strict scrutiny.
 Level of scrutiny is crucial to constitutionality of laws.
Statutory Remedies
 Equal Pay Act of 1963.
 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
 Title IX of Education Amendments of 1972.
Hispanic Americans
 Largest and fastest growing group in the U.S.
 High levels of activism and rallies begin in 1960s.
 United Farm Workers, National Council of La Raza.
 Use of litigation by LULAC and MALDEF.
 Voting, education, and immigration are major issues.
American Indians
 Unique status under U.S. law.
 History of isolation and then assimilation.
 Native American Rights Fund handles litigation.
 Major issues are hunting, fishing, and land rights.
 Also have had struggles about religious freedom.
 Growth of Indian casinos.
Asian Pacific Americans
 Difficulty finding Pan-Asian identity.
 History of restrictions on immigration and employment.
 Internment of Japanese Americans in World War II.
 Korematsu v. U.S. (1944).
 Increasing mobilization and efforts to elect leaders.
Gays and Lesbians
 Major gains have been made in recent years.
 Lambda Legal, Lesbian Rights Project, GLAD.
 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” considered failure.
 Lawrence v. Texas (2003).
 Success in states with gay marriage.
Americans with Disabilities
 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
 Requires employers to accommodate the disabled.
 Tennessee v. Lane (2004) binds states to law.
 American Association of People with Disabilities.
 Often work with right to life groups.
Affirmative Action
 Gives special advantages to disadvantaged groups.
 Bakke decision lays groundwork for 1980s battle.
 Supreme Court plays major role.
 2003 Grutter and Gratz decisions.
 Quotas not acceptable, some preference is okay.
Workplace Discrimination
 Equal pay suits at Wal-Mart.
 Ledbetter decision sets time limit for pay equity suits.
 Concern about hiring illegal immigrants.
 Violations of immigrants’ rights after 9/11.
Figure 6.1- Opinion on Affirmative Action
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Table 6.1- Standards of Review
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Table 6.2- Asian Pacific Americans
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Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott was a slave to a military doctor who was PCSed
from Missouri to Wisconsin around 1854. This doctor
taught Scott how to read and write and much of his
medical skills. The doctor died suddenly, without giving
Scott the promised “Freedom Papers”. Scott remained in
Wisconsin and actually helped the locals with their medical
problems.
He was captured by bounty hunters and taken back to
Missouri against his will. He sued the state stating that it
was illegal to search him out in another (Free) state to
bring him as a servant of another. He lost the case, though
in local and state appellate he was his own lawyer.
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Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude,
except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by
the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House on January
31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865.
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Black Codes
The Black Codes were laws in the United States
after the Civil War with the effect of limiting the civil
rights and civil liberties of blacks.
Examples of Codes in Alabama:
* Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any
white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in
hospitals, either public or private, in which *****
men are placed.
* Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated
by any motor transportation company shall have
separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket
windows for white and colored races.
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Fourteenth Amendment
Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local
governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or
property without certain steps being taken to ensure
fairness. This clause has been used to make most of the
Bill of Rights applicable to the states.
Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide
equal protection under the law to all people within its
jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board
of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which
precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in
United States education. In Reed v. Reed (1971), the
Supreme Court ruled that laws arbitrarily requiring sex
discrimination violated the Equal Protection Clause.
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Fifteenth Amendment
Prohibits each government in the United States from denying
a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color,
or previous condition of servitude" (for example, slavery). It
was ratified on February 3, 1870.
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Jim Crow Laws
state and local laws in the United States enacted between
1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation
in all public facilities in Southern states of the former
Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal"
status for African Americans. These laws replaced the
Black Code laws declared unconstitutional.
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Civil Rights Cases
The Civil Rights Cases, were a group of five similar
cases consolidated into one issue for the United States
Supreme Court to review. The Court held that Congress
lacked the constitutional authority under the enforcement
provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to outlaw racial
discrimination by private individuals and organizations,
rather than state and local governments.
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Poll Taxes
Southern states enacted poll tax laws as a means of
restricting eligible voters; such laws often included a
grandfather clause, which allowed any adult male
whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year
prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying
the tax. These laws, along with unfairly implemented
literacy tests and extra-legal intimidation, achieved the
desired effect of disfranchising African-American and
Native American voters, as well as poor whites
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Grandfather Clause
A grandfather clause is a situation in which an old
rule continues to apply to some existing situations,
while a new rule will apply to all future situations
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Plessy v. Ferguson
a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the
jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the
constitutionality of state laws requiring racial
segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of
"separate but equal”
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Brown v. Board of Education
United States Supreme Court case in which the Court
declared state laws establishing separate public schools for
black and white students unconstitutional.
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Equal Protection Clause
part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws."
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Nineteenth Amendment
prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right
to vote based on sex
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Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
a federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws
against workplace discrimination
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De Facto segregation
it often means "in practice but not necessarily
ordained by law"
De jure segregation
designates what the law says,
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The Feminine Mystique
nonfiction book by Betty Friedan first published in
1963. It is widely credited with sparking the
beginning of second-wave feminism in the United
States
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Women’s Equality Amendment
proposed amendment to the United States Constitution
designed to guarantee equal rights for women.
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Title IX
No person in the United States shall, on
the basis of sex, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits
of, or be subjected to discrimination
under any education program or activity
receiving federal financial assistance...
The real hit on this bill was that it
extended into sports. Men sports teams.
cannot outnumber female sports teams
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Korematsu v. U.S.
ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps
during World War II regardless of citizenship.
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Lawrence v. Texas
struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by
extension, invalidated sodomy laws in thirteen other
states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every
U.S. state and territory
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Tennessee v. Lane
The plaintiffs were disabled Tennesseans who could not
access the upper floors in state courthouses. They sued
in Federal Court, arguing that since Tennessee was
denying them public services because of their disabilities,
it was violating Title II of the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA). Under Title II, no one can be denied access to
public services due to his or her disability; it allows those
whose rights have been violated to sue states for mone
damages
This is why wheel chair access is mandatory these days
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Bakke v. Regents
ruled unconstitutional the admission process of the
Medical School at the University of California at Davis,
which set aside 16 of the 100 seats for "Blacks,"
"Chicanos," "Asians," and "American Indians" (and
established a separate admissions process for those 16
spaces).
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Grutter v Bollinger
upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the
University of Michigan Law School. Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor, writing for the majority in a 5-4 decision, ruled
that the University of Michigan Law School had a compelling
interest in promoting class diversity.
Gratz v. Bollinger
ruled the University's point system's "predetermined point
allocations" that awarded 20 points to underrepresented
minorities "ensures that the diversity contributions of
applicants cannot be individually assessed" and was
therefore unconstitutional
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Ledbetter
Ledbetter felt she was receiving disparaging pay
and was being discriminated against because of
her color. Whereas the Supreme Court agreed
she was being discriminated against they also
said she couldn’t claim back pay for many years
because she had cashed those paychecks
without any claim at the time. She could only
claim back pay from the time she filed her
complaint.
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