American American Government and Government and

Politics Today Politics Today

American American Government and Government and

Politics Today Politics Today

Chapter 5Chapter 5

Civil RightsCivil Rights

Civil Rights: Introduction – Refer to those things that the

government must do to provide equal protection and freedom from discrimination for all citizens.

– Traditionally, thought of as rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Slavery in the United States

– Ending servitude• The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) prohibits slavery

within the United States.

• Southern states had to ratify the 13th amendment, but were quick to pass Black Codes that restricted the right to vote, serve on a jury or appear in public places

-arrest unemployed blacks, fine for vagrancy, required service on plantations

• The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) established that all persons born in the United States are citizens and no state shall deprive citizens of their rights under the Constitution. (Equal protection of the law)

• The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) African American males have the right to vote

Early Civil Rights Legislation– The Civil Rights Acts of 1865 to 1875

• Aimed at enforcing amendments in southern states.

• Attempted to prevent states from passing laws that would circumvent the amendments

• Allowed president to enforce laws with military

• Punished those that violated the laws passed to extend rights to all citizens

• Jim Crow Laws

Challenges to Civil Rights Legislation

– Plessy v. Ferguson• Separate-but- Equal Doctrine

– Voting Barriers• White primary, the grandfather

clause, poll taxes, literacy tests– Extralegal Methods of Enforcing

White Supremacy• Southern Blacks were to act subordinate

to whites, they were to move off of the sidewalk and were never to “act familiar” with a white woman.—more of a custom than a law

Typical White School

Typical Black School

The End of the Separate-but-Equal Doctrine

– Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka • Separate is inherently unequal

•Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson – “With All Deliberate Speed.”

•States were ordered to eliminate segregation policies with all deliberate speed but no actual time limit.

School Integration– De facto segregation—racial segregation that occurs

because of past social and economic conditions and residential racial patterns.

– De jure segregation—racial segregation that occurs because of laws or administrative decisions by public agencies.

– Court-Ordered Busing – Swann v. CMS

– The Resurgence of Minority Schools-white flight• Less white population in large cities and increase in minority birth

rates

The Civil Rights Movement

– Martin Luther King’s Philosophy of Nonviolence• Nonviolent marches and

demonstrations= civil disobedience

– Another Approach: Black Power. • Leaders such as Malcolm X advocated a

more forceful approach than King. They also resisted the impulse to cultural assimilation that was implied by the integrationist philosophy.

Civil Rights and the NAACP

• Challenge Jim Crow Laws• Lloyd Gaines (1938) graduated Missouri’s

Lincoln University (all black) and wanted to go to Missouri’s law school– Supreme court said Missouri either had to

admit him or build a school for him.– The court had previously ruled against

economic discrimination, not so much on civil rights and liberties.

The Climax of the Civil Rights Movement: Civil Rights

Legislation– The Civil Rights Act of 1964

• voter registration• public accommodations for issues that included

interstate commerce• Mandatory desegregation of public schools (DOJ)• Equal opportunity employment

– Strom Thurmond SC (D-R) held an eight week filibuster until a cloture was voted and the filibuster ended.

– The Voting Rights Act of 1965• Outlawed discriminatory voter tests, federal

involvement voter registration

Consequences of Civil Rights Legislation– Title VII no discrimination in employment

for race, gender, age, and national origin (in 1978 it was amended to include pregnancy)

– Political Participation by African Americans• 8500 elected African Americans.

– Political Participation by Other Minorities. Civil Rights legislation benefits all minority groups

free rider theory

– Lingering Social and Economic Disparities. – Poor people’s campaign– Racial divide in America

Women’s Struggle for Equal Rights

– Early Women’s Political Movements• Activism for women’s rights began with the

Seneca Falls convention in 1848.

– Women’s Suffrage Associations• This struggle would continue until the

ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that states “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

The Modern Women’s Movement

– The Equal Rights Amendment– Additional Women’s Issues

• domestic violence• abortion rights• pornography (divided the movement

rather than united it).

Gender-Based Discrimination in the

Workplace

– Sexual Harassment• The Supreme Court also has held that Title VII includes

prohibitions on sexual harassment. • Reasonableness standard

– a law that endorses the idea that different treatment “must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest on some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation so that all persons similarly circumstances shall be treated alike.”

– Examples» States can’t set different ages for men and women to buy

beer» Girls can’t be barred from Little League baseball» Public taverns can not cater to men only

– Laws that punish men but not women for statutory rape is permissible and states can give widows a property-tax exemption not given to widowers

Gender-Based Discrimination in the

Workplace (cont.)

– Equal Pay for Equal Work– Wage Discrimination

• Recent figures show a woman earns 76 cents for every dollar made by a man.

• The Equal Pay Act of 1963. • The Glass Ceiling.