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.