Week 3: Racial Discrimination

Question 1

What happened after the Reconstruction Amendments (13, 14, 15)?

Answer 1

Slavery was abolished, made everyone born in the US a citizen, equal protection of the laws for all, protected from state abuses, guaranteed the right to vote free of racial discrimination, gave the national government authority to protect rights for all

Question 2

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Answer 2

Provides for birthright citizenship, protects a range of civil rights against racial discrimination, provides for “like punishments, pains, and penalties”

Question 3

KKK Act of 1871

Answer 3

trie to eliminate white violence against African Americans and other minorities

Question 4

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Answer 4

banned racial discrimination by hotels, restaurants, railroads, theaters, and other public accommodations

Question 5

The Slaughterhouse Cases

Answer 5

Supreme Court virtually destroys 14th Amendments Privileges Clause

Question 6

The Civil Rights Cases

Answer 6

Supreme Court established state doctrine and limited the reach of Congress’ enforcement powers. It was a series of constitutional challenges to the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Specifically reasoned that the 14th Amendment required “state action” and did not apply to discrimination by privately owned “public accommodations.” This only applies to the 14th Amendment tho.

In fact, they found that unlike the 14th Amendment, the 13th grants Congress the power to pass all laws necessary and proper for abolishing slavery. It also does not have a state action requirement.

Question 7

Plessy v Ferguson (1896)

Answer 7

held that the Equal Protection Clause did not prohibit laws that enforced racial segregation in public places

Question 8

Moore v Dempsey (1923)

Answer 8

Due Process rights under 14th Amendment in face of white mob rule at trial

Question 9

Smith v Allwright (1944)

Answer 9

Equal protection under 14th Amendment by Black Americans to vote in party primaries

Question 10

Brown v Board of Education

Answer 10

Realized that people look for ideal, sympathetic cases to push the Supreme Court to their ideal decision.
Argue that education is not a fundamental right, but rather is the most important function of state and local government. They focus on the empirics of whether or not segregated schools were actually equal – they were not. Also brought in the psychological evidence of how it affected children who begin to think that they were not equal.

Question 11

Millikan v Bradley (1974)

Answer 11

School district lines cannot be redrawn for the purpose of combating segregation unless the segregation was the product of discriminatory acts by school districts.

Question 12

What did Thurgood Marshall and NAACP represent?

Answer 12

Marshall and NAACP represented one split within the civil rights establishment about what to do about racial inequality. NAACP emphasized integration and ‘racial democracy’ whereas others emphasized ‘economic democracy’

Question 13

So, the Civil Rights Act is most immediately enforced via Congress’ power to ____ _____ ______.

Answer 13

Regulated interstate commerce

Question 14

Katzenbach v Mclung

Answer 14

Congress acted within its power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution in forbidding racial discrimination in restaurants as this was a burden to interstate commerce

Question 15

What does state action need?

Answer 15

It needs a very close relationship between the government and the private party; financial support from the government is typically not enough

Question 16

State action under the 14th Amendment?

Answer 16

Congress can only regulate government conduct, not private citizens and privately owned “public accommodations”