Discussing the 14th Amendment of the Constitution

Equality in the USA

The Fourteenth Amendment

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.

Civil Liberties AND Civil Rights

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Civil Liberties (Bill of Rights)• Individual’s protection of his/her freedoms

• Limits & prohibitions Gov’t actions

Civil Rights (14th Amendment) • Equal protection under the law

• Gov. actions guarantee equality before law

What kind of equality is guarantied?

What are the different types of equality?

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Civil Equality• No discrimination (religion, belief, etc)

Political Equality• Access to authority

• Voting

Social Equality• Opportunity • Privileges

Natural Equality• Natural rights

Economic equality• Wealth

The term “civil rights” includes the equality of rights for the following minorities in varying degrees:

RACE

Gender

ETHNICITY

RELIGION SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Civil Rights applied to who?

“Civil Rights” came about as a result of what contentious & “peculiar” institution in America’s history?

14th Amendment

Court Decisions

US Congress

State Legislatures

Civil Rights

Sources of Civil Rights

Focus

• What is meant by equal protection of the law?

• What civil rights laws were passed after the Civil War, and why did they fail to end segregation?

• How did women fight for and win voting rights?

• What events began to roll back racial and ethnic segregation in the United States?

Main Idea

The Fourteenth Amendment was designed to bolster civil rights by requiring states to guarantee to freed slaves “the equal protection of the laws.” However, African Americans and women still struggled to win equal treatment in American society.

Equal Justice under Law

What is “equal protection”?

• Amendment doesn’t explicitly give a classification, not even racial ones.

• the phrase is intentionally vague or open-ended.

• Who decides what it means, and on what basis?

• Condition

• Def. = circumstances' affecting the way in which people live or work

• Opportunity

• Def. = a set of circumstance that makes it possible to do something

What is the Difference between Equality of condition and equality of opportunity?

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Racial Equality

1857- African Americans not citizens so they are not entitled to civil liberties

1865- Slavery was made illegal

Dred Scott

13th Amendment

Dred Scott and the 13th Amendment

Laws that prevented African-Americans from buying

property, signing contracts, and serving on juries

Granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States“- Equal Protection & Due Process

Black Codes

14th Amendment

Black Codes and the 14th Amendment

15th Amendment

Gave African-American men the right to vote

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1896:Separate but Equal Standard

Plessy v. Ferguson

Getting around Civil Rights:Jim Crow Laws

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• JIM CROW – open the doors for segregation

• De Jure Segregation – laws that establish segregation, targeting specific races to be consider inferior

• De Facto Segregation – the practices that society or communities to segregate themselves

Major Turning Point in Civil Rights

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• Brown v Board of Education

• The Supreme Courts rules that “Separate” schools are not “Equal”

• Thurgood Marshall address the court

• Earl Warren “ Separate educational facilitites are inherently unequal”

• Reveres Plessy v Ferguson

• De Jure Segregation is viewed as unjust

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• Brown v Board of Education II

• Respond to the South’s reaction => massive resistance

• Federal Government’s Response:

• 1957 Little Rock High School

• Ike & National Guard

• 1962 University of Mississippi

• JFK & 82nd Airborne

• 1963 University of Alabama

• JFK forces Governor Wallace to back down

• It would take 15 yrs from Brown I to de-segregate

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The Civil Rights Movement

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• Strategy: Non-violent protest of segregated society

• Civil disobedience

• “Lunch counter sit-in” (1960)

• CORE Freedom Rides

• MLK & Birmingham protest march

• Voter registration drives in South

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Congressional Response

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• Civil Rights Acts (1957-1960)

• Lyndon B. Johnson

• Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Voting Rights Act of 1965 (

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Discrimination Against Ethnic Minorities & Groups

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• Asian Americans – de jure discrimination laws

• California discrimination laws of 1850s

• Exclusion Act of 1882 & 1892 (Anti-Chinese)

• California laws barring land ownership by Asians

• WWII Internment Camps- upheld by Supreme Court-1944

• Educational & economic success in spite of above

• Growing political influence evident

Hispanic Americans

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• Now largest American minority (13+%)

• California & Texas de jure discrimination laws

• Long history of past discrimination

• Bilingual education debate

• (Spanish or English?)

• Immigration Acts & Reforms=>

• continuing concern

• Job discrimination by employers at risk

• Laws against hiring illegal aliens

• Economic demand for labor

American Indians

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• Population decline: (70 million => 210K => 2.2 million)

• (Pre-Columbus => following European Colonization => today)

• Brutal history of past discrimination & repression

• Trail of Tears & regular relocation

• Treaty violations to take Indian lands

• Indian Wars (1864 & 1890)• “Battle” of Wounded Knee (1890)- massacre of prisoners

• Supreme Court decision of 1884 =>

• Indians not citizens

• American Indian Movement (AIM)

• Alcatraz Island occupation (Treaty entitlement)

• Wounded Knee Hostage crisis (1973) => violence & death

• Gradual improvement with time?

Gradual improvements

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• Indian Citizenship Act of 1924

• Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (applied Bill of Rights)

• Supreme Court rulings favor Indian claims recently:

• $17.1 M + interest for claims against Federal Gov.

• Special hunting & fishing rights upheld

• Special status for gambling for California tribe

• Congress: Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (States)

• If state allows gambling=> must give Indians same rights

Today

• After 9/11

• Patriot Act

• NSA

• Trayvon Martin

• Racial Profiling

• Paula Dean

• The use of racial slang

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Gender Equality

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Discrimination Against Women

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• 19th Century view

• Campaigning for the Right to Vote:

• Women’s movement – Seneca Falls Declaration

• Suffrage campaign for women

• Struggle for right to vote (1860 -1920)

• Finally culminating in what Amendment?

• 19th Amendment

Women’s Fight for Equal Rights on Capitol Hill

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• NOW => Equal Pay Act of 1963 (with mixed results)

• Congress enacts key legislation against discrimination

• Title IX of Higher Education Act of 1972 =>

• Other Legislation advancing women’s rights:

• Equal Opportunity Credit Act of 1974- loans in own name

• 1978: Congress prohibited job discrimination – for pregnancy

• Family & Medical Leave Act (1993) (Clinton’s support)

• Violence Against Women Act (1994) – anti-domestic violence

• ERA Amendment falls short of ratification

Age Discrimination

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Children in labor and education

• Education• 1821 first public school• 1864 Indian schools• 1840 – Women training schools

• New York’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SPCC) in 1874

• Progressive Era• Child labor laws• 1900 – 30 compulsory schools in the country • Save the Children Movement (1919)

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• Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1924 • A child’s right to “nutrition, survival, shelter,

proper healthcare, humanitarian relief, protection from abuse and exploitation and the right to grow up in a safe environment that nurtures development”

• the Rights of the Child (CRC)• legally protects the rights of children. • law in 1990.

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Others

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Extending Civil Rights

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• People with Disabilities

• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

• People with Age Claims

• Age Discrimination Act of 1975

• Exceptions (discussed later) & application to states (TBD)

• Gays and Lesbians

• Don’t Ask don’t Tell

• Gay Marriage and/or Civil Union issue

KEY TERMS – Civil Rights

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• Affirmative action: Programs designed to take positive actions to increase the number of women and minorities in jobs and educational programs.

• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990: An act of Congress that seeks to minimize job discrimination, to maximize access to government programs, and ensure access to public accommodations for people with disabilities.

• Brown v. Board of Education: The landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision holding that separate was not equal and that public schools must be desegregated.

• Brown v. Board of Education II: The 1955 Supreme Court decision that stated that the nation’s entrenched system of segregated schools should desegregate with “all deliberate speed.”

• Civil disobedience: Nonviolent refusal to obey laws perceived to be unjust. • Civil rights: The equality of rights for all people regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, religion, and

sexual orientation. Civil rights are rooted in the courts’ interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment and in laws that Congress and the state legislature pass.

• Civil Rights Act of 1964: An act of Congress that outlaws racial segregation in public accommodations and employment and prevents tax dollars from going to organizations that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

• Civil rights movement: The mobilization of people to push for racial equality.• De facto segregation: Segregation that results from the actions of individuals rather than the

government.• De jure segregation: Government-imposed laws that required African Americans to live and work

separately from white Americans.• Equal Pay Act of 1963: An act of Congress that banned wage discrimination to people based on

sex, race, religion, or national origin.

Key Terms (continued)

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• Intermediate scrutiny: A legal standard for judging whether a discriminatory law is unconstitutional. Intermediate scrutiny lies somewhere between the rational and strict scrutiny standards. It requires the government to show that a discriminatory law serves important governmental interests and is substantially related to the achievement of those objectives, or a group to show that the law does not meet those two standards.

• Jim Crow laws: Laws that discriminated against African Americans, usually by enforcing segregation.

• Lynching: The unlawful killing, usually by hanging, of a person by a mob.

• Massive resistance: The policy many southern states followed in the wake of the first Brown decision of fiercely resisting desegregation.

• Rational scrutiny: A legal standard for judging whether a discriminatory law is unconstitutional. Rational scrutiny requires the government only to show that a law is reasonable and not arbitrary.

• Reverse discrimination: Laws and policies that discriminate against whites, especially white males.

• Separate-but-equal standard: The now-rejected Supreme Court doctrine that separation of the races was acceptable so long as each race was treated equally.

• Strict scrutiny: A legal standard for judging whether a discriminatory law is unconstitutional. Strict scrutiny requires the government to show a compelling reason for a discriminatory law.

• Suffrage: The right to vote.

• Voting Rights Act of 1965: An act of Congress which bars states from creating voting and registration practices that discriminate against African Americans and other minorities.

• Women’s movement: The mobilization of people to push for equality between the sexes.