Chapter 6

Civil Rights

AP U.S. Government and Politics

Important Terms

• Civil Rights- The rights of people to be treated without unreasonable or unconstitutional differences (Usually denied on racial, ethnic, or gender lines.)

• Suspect classifications- Classifications of people on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

• Strict scrutiny- A Supreme Court test to see if a law denies equal protection because it does not serve a compelling state interest and is not narrowly tailored to achieve that goal.

The History

• In 1942, only 30 percent of whites thought black and white children should attend the same school.

• In 1956 (2 years after Brown v. Board of Education), only 49 percent.

• Jim Crow laws

• Denied rights even after passage of 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

The Fourteenth Amendment

• How do you read it?– Broadly, “equal protection of the laws” means

the Constitution should be regarded as color-blind.

– Narrowly, equal protection can mean blacks and whites have fundamental legal rights in common, but they can otherwise be treated differently

Supreme Court in the late 1800s

• The Supreme Court took the narrow view

• 1880- West Virginia law requiring juries to be made up of only white males- Unconstitutional

• 1883- Unconstitutional for Congress to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations such as hotels

• What is the difference?

Plessy v. Ferguson

• Homer Adolph Plessy violated a Louisiana law requiring that blacks and whites had to ride in separate cars on railroad trains

• Arrested, convicted, appealed to Supreme Court• Said the law violated the 14th Amendment• SCOTUS said the equal protection clause

guaranteed political and legal, but not social equality• “Separate but equal facilities” are constitutional

because if “one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane.”

Separate-but-equal Doctrine

• SCOTUS applied this to schools in Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education.– Georgia community could close a black high

school while keeping the white school open because blacks could always go to private schools

• To fight this doctrine, the NAACP was established in 1909.– Lobbied Congress– Published grievances in The Crisis, a magazine

edited by W.E.B. DuBois– Biggest role was in the courtroom

NAACP’s Legal Strategy

• First, persuade the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional laws creating schools that were separate but obviously unequal

• Second, persuade it to declare unconstitutional laws supporting schools that were separate but unequal in ways that weren’t so obvious

• Third, persuade the Supreme Court to rule racially separate schools to be inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.

The Legal Strategy Played Out- First Step

• 1938- SC rules that a black student must be admitted to all-white law school in Missouri because no black law school of equal quality existed in the state

• 1948- All-white University of Oklahoma law school required to admit a black student even though the state planned to build a black law school later. Education must be equally available to be equal.– Could still be separate. The student was

required to attend classes in a section of the state capitol, roped off from other students where she could meet with professors

The Legal Strategy Played Out- Second Step

• 1950- Student at Texas law school was admitted to the all-white school, but placed in a separate building.

• The Supreme Court unanimously said this was unconstitutional because imposing racially based barriers on the black students at the law school having access to professors, libraries, and other students, created unequal educational opportunities.

The Legal Strategy Played Out- Third Step

• BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION– Supreme Court rules 9-0 that “separate educational

facilities are inherently unequal”– Overturns Plessy v. Ferguson– The case said segregated education is bad because

it “has a detrimental effect upon the colored children” by generating “a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community” that may “affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone”

– Conclusion was supported by a reference to social science studies of the apparent impact of segregation on black children.

What does “unseparate” look like?

• Does this mean desegregation or integration?

• De jure segregation (by law) now clearly unconstitutional. What about de facto segregation (by patterns of residential settlement or tradition)?– In the North, segregation existed because of

residential segregation, living patterns, informal social forces, and drawing school district lines to produce single-race schools.

Civil Rights in Congress

• To get anything achieved in Congress with civil rights, you had to convince the people something needed to be done (sway public opinion)– Sit-ins– Freedom rides– Montgomery Bus Boycott– All of these are forms of civil disobedience.

Breaking the Deadlock in Washington

• Four things happen to break the Congressional deadlock on civil rights

• 1. Public opinion was changing

• 2. Violent reactions by whites in the South to black demonstrators were shown vividly on television (Attack dogs and fire hoses being used on African-Americans marching peacefully.

Breaking the Deadlock in Washington

• 3. JFK’s assassination helped build support for LBJ to get passage of a strong civil rights bill as a type of memorial to JFK

• 4. The 1964 elections sent a huge Democratic majority to the House and maintained the Democratic margin in the Senate (Northern Democrats could outvote southerners in the House.)

Major Civil Rights Laws

• 1957- Federal Crime to try to prevent a person from voting in a federal election. Creation of Civil Rights Commission

• 1960- Attorney General can appoint federal “referees” to gather evidence about African-Americans being denied the right to vote.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Barred discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in restaurants, hotels, lunch counters, gasoline stations, movie theaters, stadiums, arenas, etc.

• Attorney general can bring suits to force the desegregation of public schools on behalf of citizens

• Outlawed discrimination in hiring, firing, or paying employees on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.

• Discrimination is barred in any activity that receives federal assistance.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Authorized federal examiners in elections

• Suspended the use of literacy tests and other devices to prevent African Americans from voting.

More Civil Rights Acts

• 1968- Banned discrimination in sale or rental of most housing. (Excludes private owners who sell or rent homes without using a realtor.

• 1972- Sex discrimination prohibited in education programs receiving federal aid.

• 1988- If any part of an organization receives federal aid, no part of that organization may discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, or physical handicap.

Women and Equal Rights

• 1908- Muller v. Oregon- Supreme Court upholds Oregon law limiting female laundry workers to a 10 hour workday.

• “The two sexes differ in structure of the body, in the functions to be performed by each, in the amount of physical strength, in the capacity for long-continued labor, particularly when done standing…the self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in the capacity to maintain the struggle for subsistence. This difference justifies a difference in legislation and upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens which rest upon her.

Women and Equal Rights

• 1920- Passage of the 19th Amendment

• Following World War II and the writing of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, Congress passed new laws that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in employment and in schools or universities receiving federal funds.

Supreme Court and Women’s Rights

• Two standards the SC had to choose between:– Reasonableness standard

• When the government treats some classes of people differently, the different treatment must be reasonable and not arbitrary. (Statutory rape laws)

– Strict scrutiny standard• Some instances of drawing distinctions between

groups are inherently suspect

The Supreme Court adopted a middle line between the two standards.

Examples of Illegal Discrimination

• States cannot set different ages at which men and women legally become adults

• States cannot set different drinking ages for men and women

• Women cannot be barred from jobs by arbitrary height and weight requirements

• Employers cannot require women to take mandatory pregnancy leaves

• Girls cannot be barred from Little League baseball teams

Illegal Discrimination

• Businesses and service clubs cannot exclude women from membership

• Though women as a group live longer than men, an employer must pay them monthly retirement benefits equal to those received by men

• High schools must pay coaches of girls and boys sports the same amount

• Important cases on pg. 138

Decisions Allowing Differences Based on Sex

• A law that punishes males but not females for statutory rape is permissible; men and women are not “similarly situated” with respect to sexual relations

• All-boy and all-girl public schools are permitted if enrollment is voluntary and quality is equal

• States can give widows a property tax exemption not given to widowers

• The navy may allow women to remain officers longer than men without being promoted

Important discrimination cases• 1976- Craig v. Boren

– Sex discrimination can only be justified if it serves “important governmental objectives” and be “substantially related to those objectives”

• 1981- Rostker v. Goldberg– Congress may require men, but not women to register for

the draft without violating the due-process clause of the Constitution

• 1996- U.S. v. Virginia– The state may not finance an all-male military school.– The state could not just provide an all-female training course

at another college– The state must supply an “exceedingly persuasive

justification” for excluding females from enrollment

Sexual Harassment (pg. 139)

• Sexual harassment can take two forms– Illegal for someone to request sexual favors as a

condition of employment or promotion.– Illegal for an employee to experience a work

environment that has been made hostile or intimidating by a steady pattern of offensive sexual teasing, jokes, or obscenity

EMPLOYERS can only be held liable for the harassment if they were negligent- knew about the hostile environment and did nothing to change it.

Privacy Rights

• States have traditionally been given police powers: effecting laws to promote health, safety, and morals

• 1965- Griswold v. Connecticut– States cannot prevent the sale of contraceptives

because doing this invades the “zone of privacy.”– Privacy not mentioned in the Constitution, but the

Court argued it can be the penumbras (shadows) cast off by different parts of the Bill of Rights

1973- Roe v. Wade

• The right to privacy is broad enough to encompass a woman’s right to choose whether or not she can terminate a pregnancy.

• First trimester- unfettered right to abortion• Second trimester- states may regulate

abortions, but only to protect the mother’s health

• Third trimester- states might ban abortions

Other Abortion Cases

• Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)– Allowed states to ban abortions from public hospitals.

Doctors may test to see if fetuses are viable.

• Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)– Roe v. Wade upheld, but certain restrictions are

allowed. Pennsylvania case (pg. 140)

• Gonzales v. Carhart (2007)– Federal law may ban forms of partial birth abortion

Affirmative Action

• Equality of results vs. equality of opportunity

• Making sure people achieve the same result or giving people an equal chance to succeed?

• What does it mean to give people an equal chance to succeed?

• Do people in this country have an equal chance to succeed?

Affirmative Action

• Programs that are designed to help increase minority participation in institutions by taking steps to appoint more minority members.– This is not just minorities. Women are

included in affirmative action programs as well, in some cases.

Two Competing Views

• You can only overcome racism and sexism by taking race and sex into account when creating remedies. Life is a race, and everyone must be brought to the same starting line (Or the finish line?)

• It is wrong to give minorities and women preferential treatment over other groups. This is reverse discrimination. The Constitution should be color-blind and gender-neutral.

Important cases with affirmative action

• Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)- Diversity is a legitimate goal that can be pursued by universities by taking race into account. BUT, quotas are unconstitutional

• Look at the general standards on pg. 144• Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger

(2003)- University of Michigan cases• Undergraduate affirmative action policy struck

down and law school policy upheld

Affirmative Action

• Adarand case (Colorado)– Any discrimination based on race must be

subject to strict scrutiny.– To serve a compelling governmental interest,

any racial preference will have to remedy a clear pattern of past discrimination

Gay Rights

• Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)– (5-4) decision that found that there was no reason in

the Constitution to prevent Georgia from having a sodomy law

– There is a right to privacy, but that is designed simply to protect “family, marriage, or procreation”

• 1996- Colorado state constitutional amendment that says gays cannot have specific legal protection given to racial and ethnic minorities declared to violate equal protection clause

• Lawrence v. Texas (2003)– State law may not ban sexual relations between same-

sex partners

Gay Rights

• Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000)– Boys Scouts may ban gays from its

membership– PRIVATE organization