Modern Civil Rights

I. Introduction: Most influential Supreme Court cases from the later 20 th century dealt with the equal protection clause of the 14 th Amendment that forbids any state to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.” The one institution most responsible for putting civil rights goals on the nation’s policy agenda has been the courts.

This clause has not been interpreted to mean that everyone is to be treated the same, but that certain divisions in society (sex, race, age, and disability) are suspect categories, and laws that make distinctions will be subjected to especially strict scrutiny.

II. Women: In the 18 th century, the legal doctrine known as coverture, was the legal doctrine that deprived married women of any identity separate from that of their husbands. Circumstance began to change in the mid-19 th century.

African-Americans began the civil rights movement in our society. During the 1800s they were helped by white women. Over time, these women began to desire more rights in society. The women’s rights movement began in 1848 with the signing of the Seneca Falls Declaration. The declaration, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, called for among other things the right to vote.

Suffrage refers to the legal right to vote. Suffrage rights would not be granted to females until the passage of the 19 th Amendment (1920) giving women the right to vote. After gaining the right to vote, the feminist movement went into hibernation from about With the exception of Alice Paul, who authored and pushed passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1920s, very few women worked for equality.

Reasons for the hibernation of the feminist movement: 1.Many supporters of the right to vote accepted the traditional model of the family. 2.Winning the right to vote did not automatically give women equal rights, pay, and status. 3.Many state laws continued to enshrine the traditional view of the family in public policy. 4.Gaining the right to vote did not eliminate many of the challenges facing women.

Most public policy towards women was based on the idea of protectionism. Protective laws were enacted to protect women from certain occupations. Women were considered more vulnerable than men in factories and sweatshops. Muller v. Oregon; justified sex discrimination by upholding an Oregon law that restricted working hours for women, in order to protect their health. The child-bearing physiology and social role of women provided a strong argument to reduce their working hours.

The feminists movement was finally reborn during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, encouraged many women to question traditional assumptions and to assert their rights.

Finally in 1971, in the case of Reed v. Reed, the Supreme Court held that any arbitrary sex-based classification violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since then, the Supreme Court has voided the following sexual discrimination laws: 1.Providing for alimony payments to women only. 2.Set a higher age for drinking for men than for women. 3.Closing state nursing schools to men. 4.Providing child support for women only.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned gender discrimination in employment. But the issue is not always clear. In the case of Craig v. Boren (1976), the Supreme Court ruled that it would employ a “medium scrutiny” standard: sex discrimination would be treated as neither valid nor invalid.

In considering gender discrimination in employment and business activities, the Supreme Court has used the reasonableness standard when ruling on sexual discrimination. Any prerequisites based on gender or appearance must have a direct relationship with the duties required in a particular position, or are otherwise discriminatory.

Congress has responded to the feminist movement by passing laws that require comparative wealth in the workplace. Comparable wealth; paying men and women equivalent salaries for jobs requiring similar skills. Congress has also passed laws that ban discrimination against pregnant women on the job. The Court has never required the federal government to give women equal pay for jobs of comparable worth. And the Court in Rostker v. Goldberg, did rule that Congress may choose to draft men but not women.

The United States Supreme Court has handed down each of the following decisions concerning gender discrimination in employment and business activity: 1.prohibiting gender discrimination in private business and service clubs. 2.voiding laws and rules barring women from jobs through arbitrary height and weight requirements. 3.protecting women from being required to take mandatory pregnancy leaves from their jobs.

Roe v. Wade (1973) demonstrated the Court's use of substantive due process in protecting liberties, including the right to privacy. In this extremely controversial case concerning abortion, the Court based its decision to allow abortions on the Fourteenth Amendment's due process right to privacy clause.

V. Homosexual Rights; Civil rights for homosexuals still remains a controversial issue, due in part to the persistent homophobia, fear and hatred towards gay men and lesbian women, in our society.

This resistance towards homosexuals was shown in 1993 when the Clinton Administration proposed to protect gay rights in the military. The result was the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that did not resolve the ambiguous status of gays in the military, and the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on its constitutionality.

The Supreme Court has upheld discrimination of the LGBT community in its 1986 ruling in Hardwick v. Georgia; Georgia’s sodomy laws forbidding homosexual relations was constitutional. However, the Court has modified its view on sodomy laws in resent years. In the case of Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Supreme Court held that laws against sodomy violate the due process clause of the 14 th Amendment.

This ruling coupled with the “full faith and credit clause” of the Constitution, which requires marriage license issued in one state to be honored in all states, has led to the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in A federal law allowing states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states.

U.S. v. Windsor (2013); Section 3 of DOMA was ruled unconstitutional in Section 3; prevented the federal government from recognizing any marriages between gay or lesbian couples for the purpose of federal laws or programs. Section 2 of DOMA was upheld by the Court. Section 2; declares that all states and territories have the right to deny recognition of the marriage of same sex couples that originated in states where they are legally recognized.

The Supreme Courts ruling on DOMA does not make marriage equality legal throughout the country. It means that the federal government has to recognize the legal marriage of same-sex couples; but states are not required to legalize or recognize these unions.

The End!