Civil Rights and Public Policy

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Civil Rights and Public Policy

• Are we really equal?

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Learning Objectives

• Understand how civil rights have been used to
  extend more equality to groups that historically
  have been subject to discrimination.
• Identify provisions of the Bill of Rights that
  have implications for equality.
• Explain how the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of
  equal protection of the laws have been applied
  to the idea of equality.
• Examine how the Supreme Court has used different
  levels of judicial scrutiny for racial, ethnic,
  and gender classifications.
• Explain how the Supreme Court provided a
  constitutional justification for segregation in
  the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson/
• Summarize the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of
  Education and contrast it to the previous Plessy
  case.

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Learning Objectives - 2

• Explain the distinction between de jure and de
  facto segregation. How has that been blurred by
  past practices?
• Explain how sit-ins, marches, and civil
  disobedience were used as key strategies of the
  civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
• Show the significance of the Civil Rights Act of
  1964. Explain why efforts for civil rights
  legislation were finally successful in the
  mid-1960s.
• Determine the ways in which Americans with
  disabilities have become the successors to the
  civil rights movement.
• Evaluate the opposing positions of those who
  favor affirmative action and those who claim that
  these policies simply create reverse
  discrimination.

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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

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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.

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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)

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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

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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 used to pay for
  elections- if you paid them, you could vote.
• White Primary Only whites were allowed to vote
  in the party (Democratic) primaries.

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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.

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Race, the Constitution, and Public Policy

• Other Minority Groups
• Native Americans
• Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978)
• Hispanic Americans
• Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
• Asian Americans
• Korematsu v. United States (1944)

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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)

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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
• Women in the Military
• Sexual Harassment

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Newly Active Groups Under the Civil Rights
Umbrella

• Civil Rights and the Graying of America
• Are the Young a Disadvantaged Group, Too?
• Civil Rights and People With Disabilities
• Gay and Lesbian Rights

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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)
• Adarand Constructors v. Peña (1995)

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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.

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Internet Resources

• Landmark Equal protection cases
• Civil Right Division- DOJ
• ADA at DOJ
• NAACP