Civil Rights

• Race
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Age
• Sexual orientation
• 14th Amendment: “No State shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
• Suspect Classifications: Race, Ethnicity, Religion
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): “Separate but equal”
  [web extra: PBS, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow]
• Separate, yes. Equal?
• NAACP strategy: build precedents
  [web extra: timeline on civil right movement]
  • Gaines v. Canada (1938): Missouri Law School
  • Sweatt v. Painter (1950): Texas Law School
• Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
  [web extra: NPR, The Supreme Court and 'Brown v. Board of Ed.']
  [web extra: NPR, Thurgood Marshall and 'Brown v. Board of Ed.']
  • Is segregation inherently  unequal?
  • Unanimous Court: YES!
• 1960s:
  • resistance...
    [web extra: NPR, Wallace in the Schoolhouse Door]
    [web extra: "Massive Reistance"]
    [web extra: the "Southern Manifesto"]
  • and new laws:
    • 1964, 1968 Civil Rights, 1965 Voting Rights
• Other Groups
  • Women
    [web extra: timeline on women's rights]
    • 19th Amendment (1920): right to vote
    • Equal Pay Act of 1963; Civil Rights Act of 1964
    • Reed v. Reed (1971): parental control of child's assets
    • Equal Rights Amendment: 1972, failed to ratify
    • Title IX of 1972 Education Act: Education
  • Language minorities, Native Americans, Disabled, Elderly, Gays and Lesbians
    • Each have won some form of Civil Rights recognition

Affirmative Action
[web extra: timeline on affirmative action]

• 14th Amendment + Brown = government must fight segregation
  • “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains...and then say you are free to compete with all the others, and...believe you have been completely fair”  – Pres. Lyndon Johnson
• Courts do not allow strict use of race, but do allow consideration...
  • Regents v. Bakke (1978): quotas are unconstitutional, but race may be considered.
  • Adarand v. Peña (1995): “strict scruitiny”
• Recent decisions support Bakke:
• 2003 University of Michigan admissions cases:
  • Grutter v. Bollinger: Law School
    • upheld "critical mass" plan
  • Gratz v. Bollinger: undergraduate
    • overturned point system plan
• 2013, 2016: Affirmative Action Revisited:
  • Fisher v. University of Texas
• 2022: Affirmative Action struck down by Supreme Court
  • Students for Fair Admissions cases (Harvard & UNC)
  • Is Affirmative Action gone?

[web extra: Affirmative Action Milestones between Bakke and Bollinger]
[web extra: After Supreme Court axes affirmative action, Biden offers colleges tips on diversity]