Chapter 19: Civil Rights The Essentials Mr. Goldstein AP US Government and Politics.
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Transcript of Chapter 19: Civil Rights The Essentials Mr. Goldstein AP US Government and Politics.
Chapter 19: Civil RightsThe Essentials
Mr. Goldstein
AP US Government and Politics
Civil Rights: THE Question
• NOT whether government has authority to treat people differently
• It is whether differences in treatment are reasonable.
Major Court Decisions
• Plessy v. Ferguson
– “Separate but Equal” Doctrine
• Three Steps to Overturn
– Persuade the Court to declare unconstitutional laws creating schools that were separate but obviously unequal
– Persuade the Court to declare unconstitutional laws supporting schools that were unequal in not-so-obvious ways
– Persuade it to rule that racially separate schools were unequal and hence unconstitutional
Desegregation vs. Integration
• Segregation by law (de jure segregation) was unconstitutional
• Segregation by fact (de facto segregation)– All-black and all-white residential segregation– Preferred living patters– Informal social forces– Administrative practices (drawing district
lines)
Civil Rights Legislation
• 1957: Illegal to prevent voting in a federal election
• 1964: public accommodations, schools, employment, federal funds
• 1965: literacy tests
• 1968: Housing
• 1972: Education (sexual discrimination)
• 1988: organization receiving federal aid
Women and Civil Rights
• Fourteenth Amendment– Equal protection clause
• 2 standards used for basing decisions– Reasonableness– Strict scrutiny
Illegal vs. Legal
• Illegal
– Age of adulthood, buy beer, jobs based upon height and weight, mandatory pregnancy leaves, little league baseball teams, membership in business clubs, coaches pay in HS teams
• Legal
– Women and men not similarly situation with respect to sexual relations, all-boy and all-girl public schools (voluntary enrollment), property tax exemption to widows, women can be officers in navy without promotions
Affirmative Action
• Equality of Opportunity– Reverse discrimination: using numerical
“targets” and “goals” (quotas)?– Equal playing field– Bakke vs. California
• Quotas allowed with strict scrutiny
• Quotas can be used if past or present pattern of discrimination
ADA
• Americans with Disabilities Act (1991)
• Extended rights to disabled persons
• Employment: can’t be denied employment or promotion without “reasonable accommodations”
• Govt Programs
• Public Accommodations
• Telephones
• Rights Compared: racial or gender—regardless of cost; disabled – cost taken into consideration.