Civil Rights and Public Policy

1. Civil Rights and Public Policy Chapter 6

2. Introduction • Civil Rights • Definition: Policies designed to protect people against arbitrary or discriminatory treatment by government officials or individuals. • Racial Discrimination • Gender Discrimination • Discrimination based on age, disability, sexual orientation and other factors

3. Two Centuries of Struggle • Conceptions of Equality • Equal opportunity • Equal results • Early American Views of Equality • The Constitution and Inequality • 14th Amendment: “…equal protection of the laws.” • Strict scrutiny- must be compelling purpose for the discrimination to be constitutional

4. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy • The Era of Slavery • Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) • The Civil War • The Thirteenth Amendment • The Era of Reconstruction and Resegregation • Jim Crow laws • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

5. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy

6. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy

7. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy • The Era of Civil Rights • Brown v. Board of Education (1954) • Court ordered integration and busing of students • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Made racial discrimination illegal in many areas • Created EEOC • Strengthened voting right legislation

8. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy • Percentage of Black Students Attending School With Whites in Southern States (Figure 5.1)

9. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy • Getting and Using the Right To Vote • Suffrage: The legal right to vote. • Fifteenth Amendment: Extended suffrage to African Americans • Poll Taxes: Small taxes levied on the right to vote. • White Primary: Only whites were allowed to vote in the party primaries.

10. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy • Getting and Using the Right To Vote • Smith v. Allwright (1944): ended white primaries. • Twenty-fourth Amendment: Eliminated poll taxes for federal elections. • Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966): no poll taxes at all. • Voting Rights Act of 1965: Helped end formal and informal barriers to voting.

11. Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy • Other Minority Groups • Native Americans • Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978) • Applied Bill of Rights to tribes • Hispanic Americans • Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund • Texas v. Hernandez (1954)-Mexican Americans were a "special class" entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. • Asian Americans • Korematsu v. United States (1944) • Finding Executive Order 9066- to be constitutional

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13. Women, the Constitution, and Public Policy • The Battle for the Vote • Nineteenth Amendment: Extended suffrage to women in 1920. • The “Doldrums”: 1920-1960 • Laws were designed to protect women, and protect men from competition with women. • The Second Feminist Wave • Reed v. Reed (1971) • Supreme Court ruled that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. • Title IX Act of 1972- prohibits gender discrimination in federally subsidized education programs, including athletics

14. Women, the Constitution, and Public Policy • The Second Feminist Wave, continued • Craig v. Boren (1976) • Draft is not discriminatory • Women in the Workplace- • Wage Discrimination and Comparable Worth-Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923): In this case, the Supreme Court held that a federal law establishing a minimum wage for women was unconstitutional. • Women in the Military • United States v. Virginia (1996): The Supreme Court ruled 7-1 against the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy. • Executive order to look into allowing women to fight (2012) • Sexual Harassment-

15. Newly Active Groups Under the Civil Rights Umbrella • Civil Rights and the Graying of America • Civil Rights and People With Disabilities • Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 • Gay and Lesbian Rights • Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) Georgiasodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals - upheld in court • Lawrence v. Texas (2003) • Texas law was unconstitutional-right to privacy due process clause-overturned Bowers v. Hardwick

16. Newly Active Groups Under the Civil Rights Umbrella

17. Affirmative Action • Definition: • A policy designed to give special attention to or compensatory treatment of members of some previously disadvantaged group. • A move towards equal results? • Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) • It bars quota systems in college admissions but affirms the constitutionality of affirmative action programs giving equal access to minorities. • Adarand Constructors v. Pena (1995) • Can companies be given preferential treatment if fall under racial or gender equality?

18. Understanding Civil Rights and Public Policy • Civil Rights and Democracy • Equality favors majority rule. • Suffrage gave many groups political power. • Civil Rights and the Scope of Government • Civil rights laws increase the size of government. • Civil rights protect individuals.

19. California Issues with Civil rights Mendez v. Westminster (1947)- schools cannot segregate students based on racial/national origins (brown vs. board of education) Perez v. Sharp (1948)- their should be no state law that bars people of different national/racial origins from marriage (loving v. Virginia

20. Current issues up for debate Due process of law Gender discrimination Sexual orientation Disabilities Right to privacy-due process