Pearson Longman PoliticalScience Interactive

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iveShea, Green, and SmithLiving Democracy, Second

Edition

Chapter 6:Civil Rights

Shea, Green, and Smith, Living Democracy, Second Edition Copyright 2009 Pearson Longman

Chapter 6: Civil Rights

The Ideal of Equality

The Founders believed in political equality. But for whom?




Equality of Condition

The government takes direct action to reduce economic

disparities between citizens.

Equality of Opportunity

The government seeks to eliminate some discriminatory

barriers to education, employment, and public

accommodation.




The drive for civil rights focused on

– Equal access to voting– Prohibition of certain forms of “categorical discrimination”

Categorical Discrimination

Exclusion by reason of race, gender, or disability from public education,

employment, housing, and public accommodations.



Equal Protection of the Law

Race-based slavery and the years of racial

discrimination that followed laid the

foundation for contemporary racial

disparities in wealth, housing patterns,

employment opportunities, and education.



Equal Protection of the Law

Freed slaves and their descendents had no accumulated or inherited assets.

Because of the visibility of their skin color, African Americans were easy to exclude from institutions dominated by whites.



The Controversy over Affirmative Action

How does affirmative action in universities differ from other preferential criteria in admissions?

University of California v. Bakke (1978) was one of the earliest challenges to affirmative action in universities.



The Fourteenth Amendment and Reconstruction

Black Codes

Denied blacks equality before the law and political rights, and imposed on them mandatory year-long labor contracts, coercive apprenticeship regulations, and criminal penalties for breach of

contract



The Fourteenth Amendment and Reconstruction

Three constitutional amendments were aimed at providing

protection for African AmericansThirteenth Amendment (1865)Fourteenth Amendment (1868)Fifteenth Amendment (1870)



The Rise and Persistence of Racial Oppression

President Hayes withdrew federal occupation troops from the South in 1876.

White-dominated governments in the South did everything possible to keep African Americans from voting.




Jim Crow laws were enacted that mandated rigid racial segregation throughout southern society.




Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court ruled that there was no violation of the constitutional right to

equal protection when states had “separate but equal” facilities and services for

people of different races.



De Facto Segregation

Segregation and discrimination enforced through informal and semi-

formal norms and practices


De Jure Segregation

Segregation and discrimination

mandated by state and local laws



Litigation Strategies The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sought to use the court-centered pathway to challenge segregation and discrimination.

NAACP created at a moment when African Americans faced their greatest hostility from American society.



In 1953, the Supreme Court heard the case of Brown v. Board of Education, argued by NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall.

Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson.

JFK Speaks on Civil Rights

Litigation Strategies



Pathways Profile: Fred Korematsu

During WWII, Japanese Americans ordered into detention camps.

Korematsu challenged the order and refused to report for detention.



Clarifying the Coverage of the Equal Protection Clause

The Supreme Court’s 1873 Bradwell v. Illinois decision upheld a statute prohibiting women from becoming licensed attorneys in Illinois.

The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood.

–Justice Joseph P. Bradley



Clarifying the Coverage of the Equal Protection Clause

Cases alleging discrimination by race or national origin

Cases alleging gender discrimination

Strict Scrutiny

The government must show a compelling

justification for any

laws, policies, or practices that result

in racial discrimination.

Moderate Scrutiny

The government need only show a substantial

justification, rather than a compelling

reason, to explain the differential treatment

of men and women.



Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) struck down the enforcement of restrictive government.

Showed the power of the court process to advance civil rights, but also the limitations of the courts in fighting discrimination.

Pathways of Action: Restrictive Covenants



President of Black Student Union at Kansas State University

In 2007, began protest against hate crimes, and how such crimes may be publicized or ignored by the media

Student Profile: Byron Williams



African Americans and Civil Rights

1. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

2. Murder of Emmett Till in 1955 by several white men

Several events in the 1950s served to mobilize and divide the nation around the issue of equal

rights for African Americans.

The Emmett Till jury




3. Rosa Parks is arrested after she refuses to give up her bus seat in 1955.

•NAACP enlists Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a boycott.



You may well ask, ‘Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?’ You are quite right in calling for negotiations. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.




1963 March on Washington– 250,000 participants

1964 Civil Rights Act passed

1965 Voting Rights Act enacted

MLK – I Have A Dream







Women and Civil Rights

Fifteenth Amendment did not bar denial of the vote on the grounds of gender.

Women had to fight for universal suffrage.




Strategies used by suffragists

Lobbying– Formed organizations like the National Woman Suffrage AssociationEducation through publications and speechesCivil disobedienceState-wide ballots




[1] The right of citizens in the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

[2] Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Nineteenth Amendment



Latinos and Civil Rights

Latinos have suffered discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and education, and have faced harsh treatment from police and other government officials.

Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association to organize Latinos.



Pathways of Change From Around the World:

Sri Lanka

Protest against treatment of Tamil students

Use of nonviolence versus force used by police



Contemporary Civil Rights Issues

Many other groups have fought for civil

rights over the last 30

years: people with disabilities,

homosexuals, and Native Americans.



Contemporary Civil Rights Issues

Emerging GroupsGays and Lesbians– Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000)

Native American advocacy – Cobell v. Kempthorne (2008) determined that Native Americans had lost billions because of U.S. Department of Interior mismanagement

Documents

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