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Civil Rights Timeline and Cases African-American and other minorities, women, homosexuals

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?

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Civil Rights Timeline and Cases African-American and other minorities, women, homosexuals

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  1. Civil Rights Timeline and CasesAfrican-American and other minorities, women, homosexuals

  2. 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

  3. 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?

  4. 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.

  5. 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

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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

  11. 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. An African American drinks out of a segregated water cooler designated for "colored" patrons in 1939 at a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City. W.E.B. Du Bois Founders of the Niagara Movement, 1905

  12. NAACP Tactics • Fight segregation via lawsuits that challenged earlier civil rights rulings such as Plessey.

  13. 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.

  14. 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 Lloyd Gaines in the late 1930’s. He went missing in March 1939. University of Oklahoma’s accommodations for its first black doctoral student. (1940’s)

  15. 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.

  16. 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.”

  17. 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 cities- example “I have a Dream Speech at DC)

  18. 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

  19. 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.

  20. 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)

  21. 1960’s • Civil Rights movement progresses. • More demonstrations in more areas • Mostly non violent protests about schools, elections, public accommodations, etc.

  22. 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

  23. What got people to change? • Photos of police (white officers) response to Birmingham civil rights demonstrators. • Put in a article in Life magazine.

  24. What got people to change? Use of water hoses to disperse high school age student protestors.

  25. Treatment of elderly protestors and use of police dogs.

  26. What got people to change? Birmingham, AL Children’s March 1963

  27. August 1963 “I have a dream speech’

  28. 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”

  29. 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.

  30. 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

  31. African-American Civil Rights from 1970’s on Forced busing to desegregate publics schools Affirmative Action policies

  32. 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.

  33. 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."

  34. 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.

  35. 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?

  36. 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)

  37. 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?

  38. 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. Grutter5-4 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.

  39. More Recent Affirmative Action Events • June 2006 -Supreme Court Rules Against Considering Race to Integrate SchoolsIn 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.

  40. Women’s Rights Cases

  41. Overview of Women’s Rights20th 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

  42. Overview of Women’s Rights20th 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

  43. 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.

  44. 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.

  45. 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.

  46. Roe v Wade (1973) • See other lessons on this • Women’s right to control her body is ruled as a protective right by SC

  47. 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)

  48. 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”.

  49. 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?

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