Civil Rights

• The rights of people to be

treated without unreasonable
or unconstitutional differences
 The Black Predicament
• Unable to vote in many areas in the South
• Segregated schools & public places
• Lynching becoming serious
• Most favored segregation, as showed by polls
 Campaign in Courts
• 14th Amendment – “equal protection of the
laws”
– Not necessarily “equal respect”
• Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)
– Equal-protection clause guaranteed political and
legal, but not social equality
 Separate-but-equal doctrine
• Cumming vs. Richmond County Bd. Of Ed.
– Black school closes, white remains open
– Judges -“Blacks could always attend private
school”
• NAACP fought for blacks’ rights
 Taking Action
• 1938- Courts ruled that Lloyd Gaines, a black
student be admitted to a white law school
• 1948- Ada Lois Sipuel admitted to all-white
law school
– Sectioned off from other students by ropes
 A Further Step
• 1950- Supreme Court ruled that black
students Heman Sweatt & George McLaurin
be allowed same opportunities as white law
students at Univ. of Texas & Univ. of
Oklahoma
 Climax
• NAACP argued racially separate schools are
unconstitutional
• Would separate-but-equal doctrine be
overruled?
• States spent money to build equal facilities for
blacks in order to adhere to to Courts
 Brown v. Board of Education
• Plessy v. Ferguson
• New path
 Implementation
• “All deliberate speed”
• National Guard
• Funds
 Rationale
• Social Science
– Segregation is detrimental
• Constitution
– 14TH Amendment intent
– How it was to be applied to schools?
 Desegregation vs. Integration
• Southern Schools
– De june segregation
• Northern Schools
– De facto segregation
• Freedom of choice plan
– 85% of Blacks remained
 School Segregation Violations
• Rules/regulation discriminating in any form
• All white/black schools with history of
segregation …discriminating
• Swan v. Charlotte Mecklenburg (1971):
remedies may include racial quotas, redrawn
district lines, and court-ordered busing
• “White Flight”
 Altering interpretation of Constitution

• Convincing Whites
• Confrontations
• White Control
 What Changed?
• Public opinion
• Vivid Imagery
• JFK`s death
• LBJ`s re-election
 Racial Profiling
• Crack cocaine
• “driving while black”
• 9/11 attacks, Middle Eastern descent
Women & Civil Rights!

(1848)Seneca Falls
Convention
• first national women's
rights
convention
• Elizabeth Stanton
&Lucretia Mott

Muller vs. Oregon

 "That woman's physical structure and the
performance of maternal functions place her
at a disadvantage in the struggle for
subsistence is obvious. This is especially
true
when the burdens of motherhood are upon
her. Repeating this from day to day, tends
to
have injurious effects upon the body, and as
healthy mothers are essential to vigorous
offspring, the physical well-being of woman
becomes an object of public interest and
care in order to preserve the strength and
vigor of the race."
 (1920) 19TH Amendment: voting rights of citizens of the
United States shall not be denied on the basis of sex.

World War II

1970’s < Reasonableness standard

(when a group is treated
differently with reason.
< Strict scrutiny standard

Illegal Sexual Discrimination vs. Allowed Differing Decisions Based on Sex

 Landmark Cases

(1971) Reed vs. Reed: gender (1965) Griswold vs. Connecticut:

discrimination violates the found a “right to privacy” in the
equal Constitution that would ban any
protection clause of the state law against selling
Constitution Contraceptives

(1981) Rostker vs. Goldberg: (1973) Roe vs. Wade: state laws
Congress can draft men without against abortion were
drafting women unconstitutional

(2007) Gonzales vs. Carhart:

(1996) U.S. vs. Virginia: state federal
may
law may ban certain forms of
not finance an all military partial
school
birth abortion
Sexual Harassment
“quid pro quo” -something
for something

Hostile Environment
• discussing sexual activities
• telling off-color jokes
• unnecessary touching
• commenting on physical attributes
• displaying sexually suggestive
pictures
• using demeaning or inappropriate
terms, such as "Babe"
• using indecent gestures
 Equality of Result
v.
Equality of Opportunity

• Equality of Opportunity: • Equality of Result: making

Giving people an equal certain that people achieve
chance to succeed. the same result.
– Supporters tend to have – Supporters have more
orthodox beliefs; favor progressive belief; insist that
letting private groups private clubs meet the same
standards as schools or
behave the way they want business firms
(e.g. Men’s club excluding
– prefer greater freedom of
women).
choice in lifestyle questions
– attach great importance to and so take the opposite
traditional models of the position on daycare and
family abortion.

Affirmative action in this case can mean either looking

hard for qualified women and minorities and giving them a
fair shot at jobs or “setting a numerical goal for the
number of women and minorities that should be hired and
insisting that that goal be met”- quota or target.
 The Courts and Quotas
Between 1978 and 1990 the Supreme Court has been
deeply divided on the matter of Affirmative
Action and the “quotas” that go along with them.

The courts will subject any Quotas or preference systems

quota system created by cannot be used by state or local
state or local governments governments without first showing
to “strict scrutiny” and that such rules are needed to
will look for compelling correct an actual past or present
justification with it. pattern of discrimination.
Quotas that are created by federal
In proving that there has laws will be given greater
been discrimination, it is deference because Section 5 of the
not enough to show that 14th Amendment gives Congress
minorities are statistically powers not given to states to
underrepresented among correct the effects of racial
employees, contractors, or discrimination.
union members; you must Even when you can justify special
identify that actual preferences in hiring workers, the
practices that have had this Supreme Court is not likely to allow
discriminatory impact. racial preferences to govern who gets
It may be easier to justify laid off. A worker laid off to make
in court a voluntary room for a minority worker loses more
preference system than one than a worker not hired in preference
that is required by law. to a minority applicant.
Reverse Discrimination
• Another view is that if it is
wrong to discriminate against
women and blacks, then it is
equally wrong to give them
preferential treatment over
other groups.
• Reverse Discrimination: using
race or sex to give
preferential treatment to
some people.
• For example allowing children
to attend the school of their
choice is okay; busing them
to attain a certain racial
mixture is wrong.
– Eliminating barriers to job
opportunities is right; using
numerical “targets” and “goals”
to place minorities and women
in specific jobs is wrong.
 …
• In 1991 a bill was
passed and signed by
President Bush
– “This particular
legislation would put
the burden of proof on
the employer, not the
employee, to show that
the underrepresentation
of minorities in the
firm’s work force was
the result of legitimate
and necessary business
decisions and not the
result of
discrimination. If the
employer could not prove
this, the aggrieved
employee would be able
to collect large damage
awards.”
 What is Affirmative
Action??
• It is not enough to give
rights to people; they must
be given benefits.
• The Constitution is not and
should not be color-blind or
sex-neutral.
• In the work force this means
Affirmative Action: programs
designed to increase
minority participation in
some institution by taking
positive steps to appoint
more minority group members.
• For example, women should
not simply be free to enter
the labor force; they should
be given material
necessities (free day care)
that help them enter it.
 Compensatory Action
v.
Preferential Treatment

• Compensatory Action: helping

disadvantaged people catch
up, usually by giving them
extra education, training, or
services.
• Preferential Treatment:
giving minorities preference
in hiring, promotions,
college admissions, and
contracts.
• Large majorities agree more
with compensatory action than
with preferential treatment.
• “Nobody should get something
without deserving it” and
“somebody who is suffering
through no fault of his or
her own deserves a helping
hand”.
 Affirmative Action
Landmark Cases
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978): In a
confused set of rival opinions, the decisive vote was cast by
Justice Powell, who said that quota-like ban on Bakke’s
admission was unconstitutional but that “diversity” was a
legitimate goal that could be pursued by taking race into
account.
United Steelworkers v. Weber (1979): Despite the ban on racial
classifications in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, this case upheld
the use of race in an employment agreement between the
steelworkers union and the steel plant.

Richmond v. Croson (1989): Affirmative action plans

must be judged by the strict scrutiny standard that
requires any race-conscious plan to be narrowly
tailored to serve a compelling interest.
Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (2003): Numerical
benefits cannot be used to admit minorities into college, but
race can be a “plus factor” in making those decisions
Pg 145
 Gay Rights
Initially the Supreme Court left gay rights up to the
states.
In Georgia, a law was passed banning sodomy (fellatio and
anal intercourse). Though the law applied to all persons,
homosexuals sued to overturn it.

In Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court decided that there

was no reason in the Constitution to prevent a state from
having such a law.
Ten years later voters in Colorado adopted a state
constitutional amendment that made it illegal to pass any
law to protect persons based on their “homosexual, lesbian,
or bisexual orientation.”
The law said that gays and lesbians could not become the
object of specific legal protection of the sort that had
traditionally been given to racial or ethnic minorities.

The Supreme Court struck down the Colorado constitutional amendment because it
violated the equal protection clause of the federal constitution.
 …
• The matter was finally put to rest in the
2003 Lawrence v. Texas case.
• The court overturned a Texas law that banned
sexual contact between persons of the same
sex.
• Many states have passed laws banning same sex
marriages , and in 1996 Congress enacted a
bill, signed by President Clinton, called the
Defense of Marriage Act. Under it, “no state
would have to give legal status to same sex
marriage performed in another state, and it
would define marriage as a lawful union of
husband and wife.”
• Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000): A
private organization may ban gays from its
membership.
• The mayor of San Francisco, against state
law, began issuing marriage licenses to gay
and lesbian couples. In August 2004
California Supreme Court struck down his
actions as inconsistent with existing law.
• In MA the Supreme Judicial Court tried to
allow gays and lesbians the right to marriage
but the law was later struck down in 2007.