Midterm Flashcards
The court read the fourteenth amendment to take as their primary target the rights of the former slaves and new freedmen, not of all the people, and thus read the scope and application of the fourteenth amendments quite narrowly. The fourteenth amendment would not apply to, say, a group of butchers.
Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873
People cannot be excluded from the jury selection process solely due to their race or color. The fourteenth amendment should be read in the context with which it was passed. The passage of this highlighted a systematic difference between blacks and whites.
Strauder v. West Virginia
Congress does not have the power to enact the civil rights act of 1875 because it is a federal action. The fourteenth amendment only applies to state action. Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the amendment. There are therefore clear limits to the power of Congress under the 14th amendment.
As for the 13th amendment, it is about abolishing slavery and nothing more.
The Civil Rights Cases of 1883
The fourteenth amendment was meant to enforce absolute equality among the races but was not meant to abolish distinction based on color. Also the government cannot do much nor should it be expected to do much.
Plessy v. Ferguson
Motels could not discriminate based on race through refusing to accept guests of color. The Court held that the commerce clause restricted hotels from doing this due to the blockage of the free flow of goods across interstate borders.
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. US
Enunciated the principle that separate but equal in primary and secondary public schooling is unconstitutional.
Brown v. Board of Education I
Ruled that desegregation of public schooling must occur with all deliberate speed. Known as the remedy phase of the two part ruling. Announced the remedy that must follow from the principle that separate but equal is unconstitutional.
Brown v. Board of Education II
Eliminated segregation in DC under the 5th Amendment due process clause.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Constitutionality of a Congressional statute banning the interstate shipment of “filled milk” –milk reconstituted with vegetable oil — because it was deemed injurious to public health. Fourth footnote of the decision laid out the limits of the presumption of a law’s constitutionality and acknowledged the circumstances when that presumption would not hold (discrete and insular minorities).
Judges aren’t imposing subjective or substantive notions of fairness; they are identifying a procedural bias and acting to correct it.
US v. Carolene Products
While the Court must subject race classifications to the most rigid scrutiny, Japanese detention camps, given WWII, meet this test. The first case that says racial discrimination is judged by a strict standard of scrutiny, even though the outcome is not what we might expect in terms of strict scrutiny typically leading to the downfall of the state action.
Korematsu v. US
Ollie’s BBQ. Restaurants cannot refuse to serve blacks under the commerce clause because by having less customers there was less trade of interstate good.
Katzenbach v. McClung
Reimagined the marriage contract as not a civil contract and went against trend to suggest that federal Reconstruction policies did not rearrange relations between the state and federal authority or limit state regulatory power from its antebellum level. Challenged a ban on interracial marriage. The court claimed that the fourteenth amendment didn’t overturn states rights to regulate contracts (argued that marriage is more than the civil contract, it was a contract with God and cannot fall under federal regulation).
Gibson v. Indiana
Invalidates a statute that punished interracial cohabitation more severely than cohabitation of persons of the same race. Based on a classification of race of the participants, which bears a heavy burden of justification and will be upheld only if it is necessary and not merely rationally related, to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy.
McLaughlin v. Florida
Statutes prohibiting interracial marriage violate due process and equal protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment. Miscegenation jurisprudence deprives liberty without due process of law. Modern origin of the “strict scrutiny” doctrine for racial classifications.
Loving v. Virginia
The constitution cannot control racial prejudices, but it also cannot tolerate them. Don’t allow racial prejudices to go forward.
Palmore v. Sidotti
City ordinance about laundries in certain buildings requiring a permit, when in practice permits were denied to all Chinese. Court ruled that it was clear that the administration of the law was discriminatory and that there was therefore no need to even consider whether the ordinance itself was lawful. Blatant discrimination of the equal protection clause.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Before the CRA blacks were only allowed to work in the labor department, however after this, Act this had to change. The company instituted an IQ test and high school graduation requirement that the employee had to pass in order to work in a department higher than the labor department. The Court of Appeals ruled the test fine, but the Court said it was unconstitutional because it violated the CRA of 1964, and set the precedent that businesses had to show relations between the test and job performance to have it not be discriminatory. Disparate Impact.
Griggs v. Duke Power
Disparate impact does not constitute racial discrimination, and thus there is no invocation of strict scrutiny. Disparate impact is not enough to prove a constitutional violation, but it is enough to prove a statutory violation.
Washington v. Davis
A Massachusetts law gave hiring preference to honorably discharged veterans. A woman who scored higher on the civil service test was ranked lower than several veterans and she claimed this violated the EP clause. The Court ruled that the law did not violate the EP clause because it served a “legitimate and worthy purpose.” The disadvantage was not between men and women, but veterans and non-veterans.
Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney
