Chap 5 - Civil Rights
Chap 5 - Civil Rights
Chap 5 - Civil Rights
1-Roots of suffrage:1800-1890
-civil rights are the government-protected rights of individuals against arbitrary or discriminatory
-The due process clause prohibits the government from depriving a person of life, liberty, or
-civil liberties are rights that we are born with and the govt has to protect them
-North became more and more industrialized as the south relied on slaves, Missouri applied for
admission as a slave state, Missouris admission would have weighted the senate in favor of
slavery and therefore opposed northern senators—- to resolve they passed the Missouri
compromise of 1820 which allowed the union to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine was
-Garrison and Frederick Douglas left the popular anti-slavery society because they saw women
as second-class citizens and shouldn't be allowed to vote so they went women didn't have the
right to divorce their husbands, keep their wages and inheritances and coulcouldn'te
In -1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia mott noticed how women were not much better off
than slaves and called a convention for women's rights, 300 men and women including Fredrick
-attendees passed resolutions demanding the abolition of legal, economic, and social
-women's suffrage was the only one that failed to get unanimous approval
-Dredd Scott v Sanford supreme court case ruled that the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional, then the court added that slaves were not us citizens and could not bring suits in
automatically free on Jan 1, 1863, but it did not free all slaves, only in the confederacy, all were
-the 13th amendment is one of the three civil war amendments that specifically bans slavery in
the us
-black codes are laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves passed by southern states
-an outrageous Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to invalidate some state black
codes, President Andrew Johnson vetoed but for the first time in history, congress overrode it
-14th amendment is another one of the three civil war amendments as it guarantees equal
-the equal protection clause is a part of the 14th amendment that guarantees all citizens receive
-15th amendment also one of the three civil war amendments specifically enfranchised (right to
-national woman suffrage association made by Susan b Anthony and Elizabeth cady stanton
-civil rights act of 1875 which granted equal access to public accommodations such as theaters,
restaurants, and transportation and prohibited the exclusion of african americans from jury
service
-jim crow laws are laws enacted by southern states that required segregation in public schools,
-civil rights cases 1883 is name attached to five cases brought under the civil rights act of 1875,
in 1883 the supreme court decided that discrimination in a variety of public acconomdatons
could not be prohibited by the act because such discrimination was private, not state,
discrimination
- Southern states used this to be racially neutral when it came to authorization for voting 1) poll
tax which is a tax levied in many southern states that had to be paid before an eligible voter
-these tests had an impact, by the late 1890s black voting dropped by 62%
0southerners added a grandfather clause which is voter qualification provision that allowed only
those citizens whose grandfather had voted before reconstruction to vote unless they passed a
-known as the progressive era and was a concerted effort to reform political, economic, and
social affairs
-Plessy v Ferguson, Plessy sits in train and doesn't want to move, he's not treated equally because
he was asked to move train cars, is a supreme court case that challenged a Louisiana statute
requiring that railroads provide separate accommodations for blacks and whites. The court found
that separate but equal accommodations did not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th
amendment
-the new women's movement was called the suffrage movement and asked if African American
-NAACP opted first to challenge the constitutionality of jim crow law schools
in dramatic ways. It has been widely recognized that the court, led by the liberal bloc, has created
appotining him
-brown v board of education is us Scotus decision holding that school segregation is inherently
-court proclaimed that separate but equal would no longer pass constitutional muster
-the court placed the enforcement of the ruling the brown v board of edu in the federal district
court judges
-in arkansas governor orval faubus did not stop the troops from segregating little rock high
school and don't allow the 9 african american students in, but the president sent federal troops to
-rosa parks, the local NAACP youth council adviser tried the segregated bus system after they
-dec 1 1955 she made history whens he refused to leave her seat in from of the colored section to
make room for white male passenger with 0tb a seat and was arrested for violating alamzeb law
banning integration of public facilities then they boycotted public transportation, in 1956 a
federal court ruled that segregated bus system violated equal protection clause
-MLK launched southern chistain leadership conference and had a southern base and was rooted
more closely in black religious culture — reflected kings ideals on nonviolence protest
-feb 1 1960 few students at all black north carolina agricultural and technical college
participated in first sit in for civil rights–they went to local cafe and got coffee they were not
served but stayed until closing and more and more people did it until they were arrested
-student nonviolent coordination committee was formed and also became what were called
-while SNCC sponsored sit ins and freedom rides mlk launched massive nonviolent
to show solidarity and lots of violence was brought upon the protesters
-the shockign scenes convinced president JOhn F Kennedy to prompose important civil rights
legislation- civil rights act of 1964 was passed due to combination of all stated above, followed
-in 1963 JFK requested that congress pass a law banning dicrimination in public
accommodations and MLK called for a march on washington then many heard his i have a
dream speech and determined national legislation was the only way for change to stick
-lyndon b johnson was vice then became president and made civil rights reform top priority
-civil rights act of 1964 was wide ranging legislation passed by congress to outlaw segregation in
public facilities and discrimination in employpment, education, and voting created the equal
-many southerners felt that the civil rights act of 1964 was unconstitutional because it went
beyond the scope of the constitution but the supreme court said it's conditionality is upheld due
-de jure discrimination is racial segregation that is a direct result of law or offical policy
-de facto discriminaiton is racial discrimination that results from practice private such as housing
-dicrimiantion of race, sex age and orgion is nto allowed when it came ot employment as
outlined in title VII of the act and business necsisty type tests used ot weed out african americans
-1961 JFK created the presidents commission on the status of women head is elenor roosevelt.
American women is a commission report writing in 1963 and the feminine mystique
-national orgization for women, NOW took closley after NAACP goal was to achieve passage of
an equal rights amendment to consition or broadened scope of the equal protection clause
-equal rights amendment stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or
-1973 roe v wade decieded that women were consituinally protected to temrinate a pregnency
-suspect classification category or class such as race that triggers the highest standard of scrutiny
-strict scrutiny is a heighnted standard of review used by the scotus to determine the conditional
-males benefit from ERA but the courts upheld draft registration provisions for males only, state
statutory rape only for female victims, different requirments for chilfs aqquisition of citizenship
-equal pay act of 1963 legislation that requires comployers to pay men and women equal money
-title IX is provision of the education amendments fo 1972 that cars educational institutions that
-as large numbers of immigrants from mexico and puerto rico entered the states they became a
source of cheap labor and pushed for rights in similar ways that african americans did with sit ins
-mexican american legal defense and educational fund and has a 2.2 million dollar startup grant
for the ford foundation to force school disitricts to allocate more funds to schools with low
decade after the 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law. The 1975 extension of the VRA
leads to the establishment of bilingual ballots and other efforts to ease disenfranchisement of
Latinos.
-indian americans are considered indian tribes a dinsicnt govts according to the us constitution
-during 18th and 19th century it isolated indians on reservations as it confiscated their lands and
-dawes act of 1887 gave each indian family land within a reservation and mandating sending
-the native american rights find became the NAAVP of the american indian rights movement
-indians got billions in revenue due to use their land rights to host gamblign casinos across the
country
-indian tribes still found themselves in trouble w the dpe tof the interior over indian trust finds
not white and not entilted to full citizenship and led to internment camps after the attack on pearl
harbor
-the us govt offered chinese immigrants the oppurtintity to apply for us citizenship and at the end
-today myriad asaina nd pacfic island americans are the fastest growning minority group
-gays and lesbians have far higher houslhold incomes and educational levels then any othe
rminority group
-GLAD gay, lesbian advocates and defenders have won improtant legal victoeies concerning hiv
-dont ask dont tell policy where the miltary would not longer ask gays if they were gay , and in
-2008 courts in claifornia and ct and mass legalized same sex marriage
-americans with diablities act which defines a disabled person as someone with a physical or
metntal impairment that limits one or more life actviteies or who has a record of such impairment
-largest national nonprofit organization lobbying for expanded civil rights for the disabled os the
-For federal contractors and subcontractors, affirmative action must be taken by covered
employers to recruit and advance qualified minorities, women, persons with disabilities, and
covered veterans. Affirmative actions include training programs, outreach efforts, and other
positive steps.
-eliminating oppression - as a justification for affirmative action programs. The Supreme Court
has upheld this idea in several cases, including Adarand Constructors v. Pena and Grutter v.
Bollinger
DUE PROCESS:
Law must be a reasonable Law must be substantially Law must be the least
measure designed to achieve related to the achievement of restrictive means available to
a legitimate set purpose an important govt purpose achieve a compelling govt
purpose
Burden is on the plaintiff, not Sex disc; gender orientation Burden is a govt to prove I.
on govt R. M. begins w a presumption
that the law is
unconstitutional
Age ex. Driver's license, Ex. draft, child support and Racial discriminations,
voting, military service. custody fundamental rights- speech,
press, voting laws, etc
Religion alienage-
noncitizens
Korematsu v. US:
(1944), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court to uphold the exclusion of
Japanese Americans from the West Coast Military Area during World War II.
In the aftermath of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing the U.S. War Department to
create military areas from which any or all Americans might be excluded. Subsequently, the
Western Defense Command, a U.S. Army military command charged with coordinating the
defense of the West Coast of the United States, ordered "all persons of Japanese ancestry,
including aliens and non-aliens" to relocate to internment camps. However, a 23-year-old
Japanese-American man, Fred Korematsu, refused to leave the exclusion zone and instead
challenged the order on the grounds that it violated the (Fifth Amendment- due process
clause, inherent equal protection)
In a majority opinion joined by five other justices 6-3, Associate Justice Hugo Black held that the
need to protect against espionage by Japan outweighed the rights of Americans of Japanese
ancestry. Black wrote that "Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of
hostility to him or his race", but rather "because the properly constituted military authorities ...
decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry
be segregated from the West Coast" during the war against Japan.
The Korematsu opinion was the first instance in which the Supreme Court applied the strict
scrutiny standard of review to racial discrimination by the government; it is one of only a
handful of cases in which the Court held that the government met that standard. Korematsu's
conviction was voided by a California district court in 1983 on the grounds that Solicitor
General Charles H. Fahy had suppressed a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence that held
that there was no evidence that Japanese Americans were acting as spies for Japan. The
Japanese-Americans who were interned were later granted reparations through the Civil
Liberties Act of 1988. Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly repudiated the Korematsu decision
in his majority opinion in the 2018 case of Trump v. Hawaii.
Obergefell v. Hodges:
(2015) the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is
guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 5–4 ruling
requires all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the Insular Areas to perform and recognize
the marriages of same-sex couples on the same terms and conditions as the marriages of
opposite-sex couples, with all the accompanying rights and responsibilities.
After all district courts ruled for the plaintiffs, the rulings were appealed to the Sixth Circuit. In
November 2014, following a series of appeals court rulings that year from the Fourth, Seventh,
Ninth, and Tenth Circuits that state-level bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, the
Sixth Circuit ruled that it was bound by Baker v. Nelson and found such bans to be
constitutional. This created a split between circuits and led to a Supreme Court review.
Court deemed marriage as a fundamental right, therefore can't treat people differently based on
same-sex or opposite, and can't say one fundamental right negates another fundamental
right-marriage
Decided on June 26, 2015, Obergefell overturned Baker and requires all states to issue
marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages validly performed
in other jurisdictions.
Brown v. Board of Education:
(1954), equal protection clause of the 14th amendment the Court ruled that U.S. state laws
establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated
schools are otherwise equal in quality. The decision partially overruled the Court's 1896
decision Plessy v. Ferguson, which had held that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S.
Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that had
come to be known as "separate but equal". The Court's decision in Brown paved the way for
integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement, and a model for many future
impact litigation cases.[4]
The underlying case began in 1951 when the public school system in Topeka, Kansas, refused to
enroll local black resident Oliver Brown's daughter at the elementary school closest to their
home, instead requiring her to ride a bus to a segregated black school farther away. The Browns
and twelve other local black families in similar situations filed a class-action lawsuit in U.S.
federal court against the Topeka Board of Education, alleging that its segregation policy was
unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas
rendered a verdict against the Browns, relying on the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson and its
"separate but equal" doctrine. The Browns, represented by NAACP chief counsel Thurgood
Marshall, then appealed the ruling directly to the Supreme Court.
In May 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Browns. The
Court ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal", and therefore laws that
impose them violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution. However, the decision's 14 pages did not spell out any sort of method for ending
racial segregation in schools, and the Court's second decision in Brown II (349 U.S. 294 (1955))
only ordered states to desegregate "with all deliberate speed".
In the Southern United States, especially the "Deep South", where racial segregation was deeply
entrenched, the reaction to Brown among most white people was "noisy and stubborn". Many
Southern governmental and political leaders embraced a plan known as "Massive Resistance",
created by Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd, in order to frustrate attempts to force them to
de-segregate their school systems. Four years later, in the case of Cooper v. Aaron, the Court
reaffirmed its ruling in Brown and explicitly stated that state officials and legislators had no
power to nullify its ruling.