Transcript Civil Rights Timeline, Groups, and Terms

Civil Rights Timeline and
Cases
African-American and other
minorities, women,
homosexuals
Dred Scott Case(1857)
• Scott sued for his freedom because he lived in
states where slavery was illegal based on
Missouri Compromise of 1820
• Question: Was Dred Scott free or slave?
• SC rules that no person of African-American
descent could be a citizen of the US and the
Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional
• Catalyst for Civil War
• Freed Blacks all over the country “lost”
citizenship, right to vote, etc
Civil War Era
• 13-15 “Civil War” or “Civil Rights”
amendments passed in (1865,68,70)
• If the intention was for the federal
government to protect freed slaves why
did the history of century that followed
these amendments happen?
Late 1800’s after the Civil War
• Black Codes emerged in the South States
– Designed by the South to limit legal rights of freed
slaves. Laws against blacks for:
• Appearing in public places
• Sitting on juries
• voting
• Civil Rights Acts of 1866 & 1875
– Designed by national government to overturn
black codes and grant equal access to voting,
juries, public accommodations in theaters,
restaurants, and transportation.
– Civil Rights Act of 1866 was first vetoed bill to
get an override vote.
Weakening Federal Power in South
• 1877
– Federal occupation of South ended
– Federal troops no longer there to
enforce protection of freed slaves
– States quickly started to limit African
Americans’ access to voting
– Jim Crow laws which separated races in
public and private establishments and
were created by southern states began
to be upheld by federal courts
Civil Rights Cases 1883
5 cases involving violations of Civil Rights
Act of 1875 in public accommodations
• Supreme Court Ruling:
US Congress could only prohibit local
and state governments from discrimination,
not privately held companies including
theaters, rest. etc. This severely limited the
influence of first Civil Rights Act of 1866 as
well as the intent of the 13-15 amendments.
Miscegenation Laws
• Laws banning interracial marriages in the
south also began to emerge in late 1800’s.
• Case Loving v Virginia (1967) overturned
this type of state law regarding marriage.
Methods to Disenfranchise African
Americans
• 15th Amendment does not state that
it specifically guarantees suffrage. It
just says states can’t deny vote based
on race or color.
Methods to Disenfranchise African
Americans
• Southern states used these to limit the African
American vote
– Poll taxes
– Some form of property ownership
– Literacy tests
– Grandfather clause added in to protect poor
whites- if grandfather could vote prior to
Reconstruction then you could vote even if
you failed literacy tests.
* By 1890’s black voting fell by 62% so these
methods were effective.
Plessy v Ferguson 1896
• African-Americans in Louisiana tested the racial
segregation laws in this case and lost.
• Question: Is Louisiana's law mandating racial
segregation on its trains an unconstitutional
infringement on both the privileges and
immunities and the equal protection clauses of
the Fourteenth Amendment?
• Ruling: Segregation is legal as
long as it is “equal”.
• Impact on spreading of Jim Crow
laws was massive in the South
NAACP – Major interest group
• Formed in 1909 to try to help fight the
problems of African-Americans after the
set-backs of the late 1800’s.
W.E.B. Du Bois
An African American drinks out of a
segregated water cooler designated for
"colored" patrons in 1939 at a streetcar
terminal in Oklahoma City.
Founders of the Niagara
Movement, 1905
NAACP Tactics
• Fight segregation via lawsuits that
challenged earlier civil rights rulings such
as Plessey.
School segregation
• By 1935 all southern states (and northern
states) had fully segregated elementary
and secondary schools.
• Colleges and Universities were also
segregated (meaning blacks could not
attend white schools) but many states did
not have black universities, or the
universities were not of equal quality of the
white colleges.
Early School Desegregation Cases
• Focused on graduate and law schools
• NAACP tested laws with cases involving
– Lloyd Gaines to get into all-white Un. of Missouri Law
School.
– H. M. Sweatt at Un. of Texas Law School
– George McLaurin at Un. of Oklahoma doctoral
education program
• Other challenges followed through NAACP
University of Oklahoma’s accommodations
for its first black doctoral student. (1940’s)
Lloyd
Gaines in
the late
1930’s. He
went
missing in
March
1939.
Hedgepath-Williams Case
New Jersey Supreme Court
case which desegregated
public schools in New Jersey
in 1944.
Predecessor to the Brown case because the
New Jersey Supreme Court found the
separate but equal doctrine unfair.
Brown v Board of Topeka (I and II)
• Brown I (1954)
– Question: Is segregation legal under equal protection
clause of 14th amendment?
– Ruling: No it is inherently unequal and therefore
unconstitutional. (Overturned Plessy)
• Brown II (1955)
– Question: What means should be used to
implement the principles announced in Brown I?
– Ruling: Varied solutions developed by local school
districts and governments. Plans should be
implemented “with all deliberate speed.”
Nonviolent Tactics for Civil Rights
Movement
• Sit-ins (restaurants and such)
• Boycotts (buses, businesses, etc)
• Lawsuits to challenge Jim Crow laws(NAACP
Legal and Educational Fund – Thurgood
Marshall was the first to head this.)
• Freedom rides (students from north go south to
ride segregated buses together, worked to get
African-Americans registered to vote.)
• Protest marches (in DC and southern citiesexample “I have a Dream Speech at DC)
1950’s - Increase in Civil
Rights Action
• Rosa Parks
– NAACP local youth coordinator in Alabama
• Alabama bus boycotts led by King
• Brown and Brown II
• New groups formed
– Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC) with Martin Luther King – used
nonviolent civil disobedience
– Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) whites and blacks
A Toddle House in Atlanta has the distinction of being occupied during a sit-in
by some of the most effective organizers in America when the SNCC staff and
supporters take a break from a conference to demonstrate.
What happened in the North?
• Housing Laws created segregation in the
north
• Racism was “alive and well” in the north as
well.
– Levittown Video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELW9eQAYcY
– Former George Washington Swim Club in
Lower Providence
• Busing became a court ordered solution to
desegregate in the north. (started in the 70’s)
1960’s
• Civil Rights movement progresses.
– More demonstrations in more areas
– Mostly non violent protests about schools,
elections, public accommodations, etc.
Birmingham Alabama
Demonstrations 1963
• “Project C” or project confrontation by
SCLC and King.
• King gets arrested and writes his famous
“Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
16th Street Baptist Church
What got people to change?
• Photos of police (white officers) response
to Birmingham civil rights demonstrators.
• Put in a article in Life magazine.
What got people to change?
Use of water hoses to disperse high school age student protestors.
Treatment of elderly protestors and use of police dogs.
What got people to change?
Birmingham, AL Children’s March 1963
August 1963
“I have a dream speech’
What got people to change?
• Alabama Church bombing September of 1963
set by Klu Klux Klan member
• Killed four little girls
• 18 days after King’s March
on Washington 1963
“I have a dream speech”
Major Civil Rights Legislation
• Civil Rights Act 1964 – see page 203 in new text
– Protection in voting, public places, education, etc
• Voting Rights Act 1965
– Hired more poll workers to monitor elections in south
– Enforce voting laws in the south and increase voting drives in the south,
targeting blacks
• Americans with Disabilities Act 1990
– Forced private businesses and public buildings to be accessible for
people with disabilities.
– Created changes to safeguard employment and education opportunities
for people with disabilities
– Accommodations need to be reasonable and deal with fundamental
rights or access to public places.
• All of these are enforced by the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice or Dept of Education.
Major Civil Rights Legislation
• Title IX of the Education Amendments of
1972
• "No person in the United States shall, on the
basis of gender, 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."[1]
• Used for gender equity in all educational
programs but has gotten more attention for
sports
African-American Civil Rights
from 1970’s on
Forced busing to desegregate
publics schools
Affirmative Action policies
Swann v Charolette/Mecklenburg
(1971)
– Question: Were federal courts constitutionally
authorized to oversee and produce remedies for
state-imposed segregation?
– Ruling: 9-0 Federal gov’t can order districts to use
quotas and force busing for racial proportion if the
segregation was originally state-imposed (de jure
segregation) instead of segregation by choice (de
facto segregation)
Black students board a
school bus in this September
12, 1974 photo outside
South Boston High School
as a police officer stands
guard.
Affirmative Action Overview
What is it?
• Affirmative action policies are used primarily for hiring and
advancement for jobs and entrance to schools
• Many educational and job programs designate African-Americas,
Native-Americans, and Hispanics as minorities.
How did it start?
• Mentioned by Pres. Kennedy in one of his executive orders in 1961.
• Based on Civil Rights Act 1964
• Pres Johnson puts it into action. Mentions concept in a graduation
speech at Howard University.
“You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: 'now, you are free
to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you
please.' You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by
chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'you
are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have
been completely fair . . . This is the next and more profound stage of the
battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity—not just
legal equity but human ability—not just equality as a right and a theory,
but equality as a fact and as a result."
Affirmative Action Overview
Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 enforces
affirmative action for the first time
. . .the executive order requires government
contractors to "take affirmative action" toward
prospective minority employees in all aspects
of hiring and employment. Contractors must
take specific measures to ensure equality in
hiring and must document these efforts. On
Oct. 13, 1967, the order was amended to
cover discrimination on the basis of gender.
Regents of Univ. of Cal. v Bakke
(1978)
• Background: for Bakke- 35 yr old man twice
rejected by school. 16 spots (quota) guaranteed
for minorities even if minorities were less
qualified than other candidates
• Question: Did the University of California violate
the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection
clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by
practicing an affirmative action policy that
resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke's
application for admission to its medical school?
Ruling for Bakke
• Ruling (5-4)
– Use of specific quotas illegal
– Bakke should be admitted
– Race can still be used as permissible
admission criteria to create a “diverse learning
environment” but specific quotas can’t
(limiting affirmative action)
Gratz v Bollinger and Grutter v
Bollinger (2003)
• Two separate affirmative action cases involving
the University of Michigan
• Questions: Does the University of Michigan's
use of racial preferences in undergraduate/law
school admissions violate the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Title VI
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
Gratz v Bollinger and Grutter v
Bollinger (2003)
• Ruling: Gratz 6-3 If racial minorities get too
large of a % of points towards admission (in this
case 20%) then it would violate the 14th
amendment equal protection clause because
non-minorities are treated unequally.
Grutter 5-4 Race can be used as a
compelling factor for admission by the state to
create a diverse educational environment but no
specific points were awarded to make minority
applicants superior to non-minorities.
More Recent Affirmative Action
Events
•
June 2006 -Supreme Court Rules Against Considering Race to
Integrate Schools
In Parents v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson, affirmative action suffers a
setback when a bitterly divided court rules, 5–4, that programs in Seattle
and Louisville, Ky., which tried to maintain diversity in schools by
considering race when assigning students to magnet schools, are
unconstitutional.
•
November 2008 –present Ballot Measure to Ban Affirmative Action in
government educational and other institutions.
States and cities are individually banning the use of affirmative action
policies.
•
Ricci v DeStefano 2009– case about promotion of fire fighters based on
test. The ruling was really unclear.
•
Recent polls suggest the majority (around 75%) do not approve of this
policy anymore. Most African-Americans support this policy however.
Women’s Rights Cases
Overview of Women’s Rights
20th century
• Many concerns of the African-American
community were reflected in women’s rights
movement
– Access to voting (resolved with 19th amendment)
– Fair juries with women included (many states did not
mandate females be on juries)
– Access to educational institutions and treatment in
those institutions (curriculum and after school
activities)
– Equal treatment in hiring and pay
• Concerns specific to wemen -Access to
contraceptives and other reproduction rights
Overview of Women’s Rights
20th century
• 19th amendment – states can’t deny women the right to vote
• 1960’s – A new focus on the status of women in the US from
several high profile publications.
– 1963 Report American Women documented pervasive
discrimination against women in all walks of life.
– 1963 The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan caused many
women to rethink their roles in society
• Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act covered discrimination based
on gender.
– When the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed to
enforce this law, the feminist interest group NOW was formed.
– NOW fashioned itself after the NAACP. Its two goals?
• Equal rights amendment
• Judicial decisions that created equality
Supreme Court Cases
• Originally the Supreme Court case did not
apply the equal protection clause of the
14th amendment to gender discrimination.
• Finally in 1971 it did with the case Reed vs
Reed.
Reed v Reed
(1971)
• Idaho law stated males are preferable to
females in settling estates of deceased children.
• Question: Does Idaho law violate 14th
amendment equal protection law?
• Ruling: Yes. Unanimous decision. First time
gender was applied to equal protection clause
of 14th amendment.
Equal Rights Amendment
• Passed Congress in 1972 by large margins.
States had 10 years to ratify it.
• Within a year 22 states voted in favor of it.
• Roe v Wade happens in 1973 and stalls it.
• 35 states ended up ratifying it (needed 38)
• Rokster case in 1981 further stalls it.
• Never got 38 states to ratify it within the 10 year
limit.
• A new ERA has been introduced every year
since.
Roe v Wade (1973)
• See other lessons on this
• Women’s right to control her body is ruled
as a protective right by SC
Standards of Review Under the Equal
Protection Clause of 14th Amendment.
• See Table 6.1 in new text for more details
• Lowest Level – minimum rational standard
– Age, wealth, mental retardation, sexual orientation
• Intermediate Standard – Does classification serve an
important gov’t objective and is it substantially related to
those ends
– Gender
• Strict Scrutiny – Is the classification necessary to
accomplish a permissible state goal? Is it the least
restrictive way to reach that goal?
– Race, alienage, and national origin(suspect classification),
fundamental freedoms such as speech, religion, assembly, press
(strict scrutiny)
Craig v Boren (1976)
• Background- Oklahoma passed a law
that allowed a low alcohol beer could be
sold to 18 year-old women but men had to
be 21.
• Ruling- Selling this beer to men and
women at two different ages was
unconstitutional as it served no legitimate
state goal. Created new review standard
for gender discrimination – “intermediate
review”.
Rostker v. Goldberg (1981)
• Background- In 1980 Jimmy Carter reactivated
the registration of draft and wanted women
included. Congress went against his wishes
regarding women. Men challenged the decision
of Congress to not include women.
• Question: Did the MSSA's (Military Selective
Service) gender distinctions violate the Due
Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment?
Rostker v. Goldberg
• Ruling: 6-3 The Court found that men and
women, because of combat restrictions on
women, were not "similarly situated" for the
purposes of draft registration. The Court also
upheld Congress's judgment that the
administrative and military problems that would
be created by drafting women for noncombat
roles were sufficient to justify the Military
Selective Service Act.
Important laws Involving Gender
Equity
• Equal Pay Act 1963
• Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964
– Prohibits discrimination by private and public
employers
– Include sexual harassment as discrimination
• Title IX
– Bars educational institutions who receive
federal funds from discriminating based on
gender.
Gay Rights Cases
Boys Scouts of America v Dale
(2000)
• Background: Dale was an Eagle Scout and
scout master who was also a gay rights activist.
The scouts took away his eagle scout status and
membership. Dale sued the Scouts saying they
violated a New Jersey law banning
discrimination based on sexual orientation in
public accommodations. New Jersey’s Supreme
Court ruled in favor of Dale. Boys Scouts
requested the Supreme Court hear the case.
Boys Scouts of America v Dale
(2000)
• Question: Does the application of New Jersey's
public accommodations law violate the Boy
Scouts' First Amendment right of expressive
association to bar homosexuals from serving as
troop leaders?
• Ruling: In a 5-4 ruling, the court said yes and
sided with Boy Scouts saying that private
organizations have the right to determine who
is in their group. They have the right to
expressive association.
Lawrence v Texas (2003)
• Background: Police responded to
“neighbors’” reports of gunshots at the home of
two men -Lawrence and Garner. Police forced
their way in to their home and found them to be
“getting busy.” They were arrested under Texas
sodomy laws. Lawrence and Garner sued
Texas over the law for which they were arrested.
• Questions: Does the Texas sodomy law
violate the 14th amendment due process clause?
Lawrence v Texas (2003)
• Ruling: 6-3 Yes. There is no legitimate state
interest that is justified by the law which invades
the privacy of adults in their own home. It
denies adults of their due process. It overturned
a related ruling from 1980’s on the same subject
(Bowers v Hardwick)
• States (around 14 still had them) had to get rid
of sodomy laws.
Garner on left,
Lawrence in middle,
and their lawyer on the
right
Disability Case Example
Tennessee v Lane (2003)
• Background: Lane, a disabled person who needs a
wheel chair, was unable to access the court room in the
state court house in TN. He sued TN for not being
compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act .
State of TN said they could not be sued under the
immunity doctrine of the 11th amendment.
• Question: Did the Americans with Disabilities Act
violate the sovereign immunity doctrine of the
11th Amendment when, based on Congress's
14th Amendment enforcement powers of the
Due Process clause, it allowed individuals to sue
states for denying them services based on their
disabilities?
Tennessee v Lane
• Ruling: 5-4 Individuals with disabilities can sue
the states for equal access to fundamental rights
such as access to court rooms- especially if the
accommodation can be reasonably be done. In
this case – put in an elevator.
• * SC has not ruled in favor for disabled people
who have sued the state gov’t for employment
discrimination.
– Example – Wheelchair bound people can be denied
employment for state police because they don’t meet
the physical fitness test.