1. Civil Rights
Equality of rights for persons regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background.

2. Discrimination against African Americans, I
Slavery was common in the colonial period both north and south:
The Constitution accepted slavery but barred the importation of new slaves after 1808;
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) saw the Court considered slaves “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”

3. Discrimination against African Americans, II
The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship, equal protection, and due process to former slaves:
Also changed the relationship between the federal government and the states;
Gave Congress the authority to enforce the amendment

4. Discrimination against African Americans, III
Establishing segregation:
Caused by the reconciliation between north and south;
Jim Crow laws;
Supreme Court limitations on the Fourteenth Amendment;
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the separation-but-equal doctrine

5. Denial of the Right to Vote
The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race:
States took this to mean at the federal level and disenfranchised blacks;
Violence against African-Americans became increasingly frequent (riots, lynchings, murders)

6. Overcoming Discrimination against African Americans, I
Formative actions:
Founding of the NAACP (1909);
Desegregation of schools through court cases especially Brown v. Board of Education (1954):
The Supreme Court ordered desegregation “with all deliberate speed”;
Federal marshals were required to open up schools in the South

7. Overcoming Discrimination against African Americans, II
A changing political climate:
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964;
Federal aid to education in 1965;
Busing attacks de facto segregation (very limited);
“white flight” to the suburbs increases

8. Overcoming Discrimination against African Americans, III
A mass movement develops:
The emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC);
Public protests throughout the South relied on non-violence;
Advocacy of a more confrontational approach by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), others

9. Congressional Action Beginning in 1964 Congress takes on segregation:
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits public accommodation discrimination, and employment discrimination;
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 bans discrimination in:
The sale or rental of housing on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin

10. Continuing Discrimination against African Americans, I
Segregation in education:
De facto segregation continues and is getting worse;
Unequal funding based on per pupil funding and divided between suburbs and cities;
Second-generation discrimination sees minority students placed in different classes than white students

11. Continuing Discrimination against African Americans, II
Desegregation has reemerged in many areas:
In public accommodations;
In employment;
In housing;
In racial profiling

12. Improving Conditions for African Americans?
In many ways blacks’ lives have improved;
In other ways blacks have been disproportionately affected by economic downturns

13. Discrimination against Hispanics
Reasons for discrimination:
Continuing and growing immigration;
Occupations that are not traditionally or closely regulated

14. Discrimination in Education
Latinos primary problem in education is language:
Bilingual education gets funding from Congress in 1968;
The Supreme Court mandates bilingual education in 1974;
Most Latino parents and children want education in English but with preservation of native language and culture

15. Combating Discrimination against Hispanics
Hispanics are increasingly powerful at state and local levels and moving into the mainstream;
Latinos are potentially powerful at the national level and are courted by both parties;
Latino politicians do not share a common agenda

16. Discrimination against Native Americans
Government programs toward Native Americans have changed frequently:
Separation including removal of tribes from traditional lands;
Assimilation and citizenship;
Tribal restoration;
Native Americans remain at the bottom of the racial and ethnic ladder

17. Sex Discrimination Women have traditionally been denied many rights:
Women were denied the right to vote until 1920;
Women were barred from schools and jobs;
Traditional gender attitudes kept women out of positions of authority

18. The Women’s Movement The Women’s Rights Convention (1848);
Women’s suffrage movements;
The women’s movement reemerges in the 1960s:
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique;
The creation of the National Organization for Women (NOW, 1966)

19. The Movement in Congress and the Courts
Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment (1972):
Seen by many as an attack on traditional values;
The Republican Party refuses to endorse it in 1980;
Reagan becomes first president not to support it since Truman (1982);
The ERA fails to gain the needed 3/4 of all states needed to ratify it

20. Women and Employment
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination on the basis of both sex and race in hiring, promoting, and firing;
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 requires that men and women receive equal pay for equal work:
Women continue to be in different jobs than men and get different pay;
Equal pay is not required for comparable work

21. Other Problems
Credit – loans are made less frequently to women regardless of income;
Education – women were not hired at similar levels of pay or expertise as men until the Education Amendment of 1972 (Title IX);
Women in sports have not received the same funding, attention, or facilities that men get.

22. Discrimination against Men
Some laws have been designed to discriminate against men:
Divorce rights;
Custodial issues

23. Affirmative Action
Should civil rights policy ignore race and sex or take race and sex into account to compensate for the effects of past discrimination?

24. In Employment
How much of a burden does affirmative action place upon innocent individuals?
The Supreme Court has made it more difficult for government to either adopt or require affirmative action;
Affirmative action has been effective but has not changed the status of blacks in the economic system

25. Bakke Decision
Alan Bakke was a white applicant to the UC Davis medical school.
He sued the University for reverse discrimination, arguing that the school had admitted non-whites with lower test scores
The court ruled that the UC could not use a racial quota system, but could make diversity a factor in admissions decisions.

26. In College Admissions
University of California v. Bakke (1978) upheld the use of race as a factor in admissions but refused the use of quotas without a history of intentional discrimination;
The Supreme Court upholds the decision in 2003 but only as part of a “holistic review”

27. Conclusion
Racial and sexual discrimination show how the Supreme Court has power as well as a lack of it;
Minority groups will be able to pressure government as they expand, but will also find conflicts among themselves as they do so