8.Civil Rights Flashcards
US Constitution - A Protection of peoples rights - Amendment process protecting rights
-Amendments need to have 2/3 vote in both house of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures which mean that the vast majority of politicians at both levels from around the country, likely dependent on the support of their constituents, have to support an amendment
-Failure of the Flag Burning Amendment under the 109th Congress due to lacking 1 vote in the Senate, can be seen as preventing tyranny of the majority from infringing on people’s rights as a poll showed 55% of people supported it
US Constitution - A Protection of peoples rights - Amendment process making people harder to protect
-The lengthy and difficult amendment process can make it difficult to update the Constitution to modern society
-e.g. Freedom of Speech has not been extended to internet forums such as Twitter, where Trump has been banned, although it could be argued he was inciting violence in the 2021 US Capitol Attack
US Constitution - A Protection Against the Growth of the Security State - YES
-4th amendment stops unreasonable searches and seizures of property without a good reason and a warrant, providing a right to privacy
US Constitution - A Protection Against the Growth of the Security State - NO
-Patriot Act 2001 as a Direct result of 9/11
-Gave the power to collect bulk data of communications records
-Agencies can obtain secret court orders to search ‘tangible things’ as part of terrorist investigations (e.g. laptops, books or phones) and the act suspends the ‘probable cause’ requirement that there is good reason to suspect the individual is involved in terrorist activity
All provisions are seen as a threat to the 4th Amendment- right to privacy
US Supreme Court - An Effective Protector of Civil Rights and Liberties - YES - Gun Rights
-District of Columbia v Heller 2008
-2nd Amendment – Right to bear arms
-First time in history that the Supreme Court ruled in a case relating to the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. The Court ruled against the control laws and the majority of the Court took the view that ‘the right to keep and bear arms’ in the 2nd Amendment is a right of the individual
US Supreme Court - An Effective Protector of Civil Rights and Liberties - YES - Death Penalty
-Ring v Arizona 2002
-8th Amendment – Freedom from cruel punishment (Death penalty)
-death sentences imposed by judges, rather than juries, were unconstitutional as they infringed the Sixth Amendment Right to trial by jury
US Supreme Court - An Effective Protector of Civil Rights and Liberties - NO - Assisted Suicide
-Decision on laws banning assisted-suicide hindering constitutional rights
-Judged on by the Supreme Court in Washington v Glucksberg (1997) where Washington state law that banned assisted-suicide was upheld
-Campaigners argued that the law was unconstitutional due to the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment which says that no state can ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law’ and that the right to die was a fundamental liberty
-Supreme Court unanimously disagreed due to 700 years of Anglo-American common law that has disapproved of assisting suicide
-Citizens therefore denied the right to die
US Supreme Court - An Effective Protector of Civil Rights and Liberties - NO - Abortion
-Decision on laws banning abortion hindering constitutional rights
-Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization 2022
-Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not confer the right to an abortion under the 4th amendment right to privacy, overturning Roe v Wade 1973
-Thus individual states have the full power to regulate any aspect of abortion not legislated on by federal law.
Affirmative Action - Has affirmative action been a success
-Affirmative action is the positive discrimination in favour of African-Americans
-When asked whether people thought that affirmative action programmes increasing the number of BME college students was a good or bad thing, 60% said good and just 30% said bad
-However, when asked whether people thought that affirmative action programmes increasing the number of BME college students was fair or unfair, while 45% said fair, 40% saw them as unfair
Among African-American people a mere 5% said they had been helped by affirmative action, 10% said they had been hurt, and 85% said they had seen no affect at all
Affirmative Action - The Supreme Court and affirmative Action
-In Gratz v Bollinger 2003 the court ruled 6-3 that the University of Michigan’s affirmative action-based admissions programme was unconstitutional due to being too ‘mechanistic’ as all black, Hispanic, and American-Indian applicants were automatically awarded 20 of the 150 points required for admission
However in Grutter v Bollinger 2003 the court ruled 5-4 that the University of Michigan’s law school’s admissions programme was constitutional because it used a more ‘individualised’ approach when considering an applicant’s race
Therefore universities are permitted to use race as plus factor so long as they individually asses the candidate
Immigration Reform - Failure
-President Obama’s DREAM Act (2010), which would have given citizenship to millions of children brought to the USA by illegal immigrant parents, was killed in the Senate due to a Republican filibuster
-Controversial wall has persisted American history. In 2006, a 700-mile-long fence was constructed, as well as a virtual fence with sensors.
Immigration Reform - Successes
-Despite reform failures in Congress, in 2014, President Obama was able to bypass Congress with an executive order that gave temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants and protected young immigrants who arrived with children via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program
-However, an executive order can easily be cancelled by the next president as seen by the Trump administration announcing it was going to be phased out in 2017
Voting Rights - Congress attempting to ensure them
-2006 Congress (with Bush’s support) re-authorised the Voting Rights Act’s key provisions for another 25 years- included the controversial Section 4 determined which states and localities must have major changes in their voting laws as they aren’t aligned with it properly
-Shelby County v Holder 2013, the Court struck down the preclearance formula as unconstitutional with the belief the country had changed
-The immediate consequence was Texas announced that a voter identification law which had been blocked would go into immediate effect and that the state’s redistricting maps would no longer need fed gov approval.
Voting Rights - Voter turnout
-Voter turnout has increased significantly 1980 only 50% of eligible black voters went to the polls compared to 61% white voters. By 2012, 62% eligible black voters went to the polls compared with less than 58% white voters
Voting Rights - Worrying developments that disproportionately affect black voters
-9 states introduced photo ID requirement for all voters in the run up to the 2016 election- included Alabama and Texas who have high proportions of black voters
-By 2016 it was estimated 1 in 13 voting-age African-Americans had lost the right to vote through a past conviction (the rate is 4 time higher than all other Americans)
-Sentencing Project research showed that felony disenfranchisement among the black community had risen sharply since 1980. In 1980, just 2 states had disenfranchised more than 10% of black voters because of past convictions, by 2016 it was 8 states had disenfranchised more than 10% of black voters
