Download Chapter 5

Chapter 5
Civil Rights:
Equal Protection
Civil Rights
• All rights rooted in the Fourteenth
Amendments’ guarantee of equal
protection under the law
• what the government must do to
ensure equal protection
• what the government must do to
ensure freedom from discrimination
The Constitution and
Slavery
• In apportioning congressional representation
based on population, the constitution refers
to free persons and “other persons” (or
slaves)
• For purposes of representation, a slave was
equal to 3/5 of a free person
• Supreme Court confirms constitutionality of
slavery in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1847)
The Civil War Amendments
• 13th Amendment (1865) – neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude shall exist in the United
States
• 14th Amendment (1868) – all persons born or
naturalized in the United State are citizens
– states cannot abridge the privileges or immunities
of citizens
– all persons (whether or not they are citizens) are
entitled to due process
– all persons are entitled to equal protection
• 15th Amendment (1870) – the right to vote
shall not be denied because of race, color or
previous condition of servitude
Key Points of the Civil Rights
Acts of 1865 to 1875
• The First Civil Rights Act
– extended citizenship to anyone born in the
United States
– gave African Americans full equality before
the law
– authorized the president to enforce the act
through use of force
Key Points of the Civil Rights
Acts of 1865 to 1875
• The Enforcement Act of 1870
– set out specific penalties for interfering
with the right to vote
• The Anti-Ku Klux Klan Act (1872)
– made it a federal crime to deprive an
individual of his or her rights
Key Points of the Civil Rights
Acts of 1865 to 1875
• The Second Civil Rights Act (1875)
– everyone is entitled to equal enjoyment of
public accommodation and places of public
amusement
– imposed penalties for violators
The Civil Rights Act were
nullified through…
• The Civil Rights Cases (1883)
– the Supreme Court rules that the 14th amendment
only prevents official discriminatory acts by
states, not by private individuals
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
– stated that segregation did not violate the 14th
amendment
– established the separate-but-equal doctrine
– paved the way constitutionally for a system of
racial segregation developed, especially in the
South
Barriers to voting by
African Americans
• the white primary – a state primary election in which
only whites may vote
– allowed because Southern politicians claimed political parties
were private entities
– was outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1944 (Smith v.
Allwright)
• grandfather clause – restricting voting to individuals
who could prove that their grandfathers had voter
prior to 1867
– was used to exempt whites from poll taxes
– was used to exempt whites from literacy tests
Barriers to voting by
African Americans (cont.)
• poll taxes – required the payment of a fee to
vote
– intended to disenfranchise poor African Americans
– was outlawed in national elections by the 24th
amendment
– was outlawed in all elections by the Supreme
Court in 1966
• literacy tests -- required potential voters to
read, recite or interpret complicated texts
– intended to disenfranchise African Americans
Ending Legal Segregation
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
(1954) – Supreme Court rules public school
segregation violates the 14th amendment
– overturns Plessy v. Ferguson
• Brown v. Board of Education (1955) – orders
desegregation “with all deliberate speed”
• Court –ordered busing – transporting African
American children to white schools and white
children to African American schools
Modern Civil Rights
Legislation
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
– forbade discrimination on the basis of race, color,
religion, gender and national origin in
• voter registration
• public accommodations
• public schools
– expanded the power of the Civil Rights
Commission
– withheld funds from programs administered in a
discriminatory way
– established the right to equality of opportunity in
employment (created the EEOC)
Modern Civil Rights
Legislation (cont.)
• Civil Rights Act of 1968
– forbade discrimination in housing
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
– outlawed discriminatory voter registration tests
– authorized federal registration and administration
of voting where discrimination took place
– resulted in massive voter registration drives of
African Americans in the South
Women’s Struggle for
Equal Rights
• Women’s Suffrage Movement
– was connected to the abolition movement
– suffragists organized the first women’s right
convention at Seneca Falls, NY in 1848
– established women’s suffrage associations
– finally won passage of the Nineteenth Amendment
in 1920
Women’s Struggle for
Equal Rights (cont.)
• The Modern Women’s Movement
– spurred in by the publication of Betty Friedan’s
The Feminine Mystique ( 1963)
– connected to the Civil Rights Movement of the
1960’s
– argued for ratification of the Equal Rights
Amendment
– failed to win the necessary states for ratification
– has targeted gender discrimination by challenging
policies and laws in federal courts
– has advocated and encouraged an increasingly
prominent role for women in government and
politics
“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.”
Gender Based
Discrimination in the Work
Place
• gender discrimination – any practice, policy or
procedure that denies equality of treatment
to an individual or group because of gender
• prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964
• applies even to “protective policies,” policies
designed to protect women of child-bearing
age
Gender Based
Discrimination in the Work
Place (cont.)
• sexual harassment – unwanted physical or verbal
conduct or abuse of a sexual nature that
– interferes with a recipient’s job performance OR
– creates a hostile environment OR
– carries and implicit or explicit threat of adverse employment
consequences
• wage discrimination – women earn 76 cents for every
$1.00 earned by men
• the glass ceiling – the phenomenon of women
holding few of the top positions in professions or
businesses