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The 14th Amendment • Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The 14th Amendment • After the Civil War, Congress wanted to make sure that states respected the rights of former slaves. It required state and city governments to provide equal protections under the law to all people, and to apply federal rights (such as those under the Bill of Rights) to states. • It was ratified in 1868, and since then Supreme Court has ruled on cases and interpreted exactly what the 14th Amendment does and does not do.
Do these violate Equal Protection? • A state only allows white men to serve on juries, even though defendants are of all races and both genders. • A city establishes co-educational (boys and girls) schools and girls-only schools. There are not enough interested students to have boys-only schools. • Public university admission requires standardized tests that African-Americans consistently test better at. • The Federal government punishes smaller amounts of crack cocaine more harshly than larger amounts of powder cocaine. Crack is seen as a poor black drug, and cocaine as a rich white one.
