What Are Civil Rights and How Do We Identify Them? Flashcards
civil rights
guarantees by the government that it will treat people equally—particularly people belonging to groups that have historically been denied the same rights and opportunities as others.
The due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enacted what?
the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that “all men are created equal”
equal protection clause
states, in part, that “No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
When may the government treat people unequally?
when unequal treatment is necessary to maintain important governmental interests such as public safety.
civil liberties
limitations on government power designed to protect our fundamental freedoms.
How must the constituion be applied?
On an equal basis
The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Equal Protections Clause
“all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.”3 If people are not similarly circumstanced, however, they may be treated differently.”
How does the gov decide if discrimination is lawful
In most cases when the courts are deciding whether discrimination is unlawful, the government has to demonstrate only that it has a good reason to do so. Unless the person or group challenging the law can prove otherwise, the courts will generally decide the discriminatory practice is allowed.
rational basis test
as long as there’s a reason for treating some people differently that is “rationally related to a legitimate government interest,” the discriminatory act or law or policy is acceptable.
Discrimination based on gender or sex is generally examined with what?
with intermediate scrutiny.
What does examining with intermediate scrutiny require?
It requires the government to demonstrate that treating men and women differently is “substantially related to an important governmental objective.”
What burdern does intermediate scrutiny put on the
to demonstrate why the unequal treatment is justifiable, not on the individual who alleges unfair discrimination has taken place. In
what does intermediate scrutinty look like in practice?
place. In practice, this means laws that treat men and women differently are sometimes upheld, although usually they are not.
Discrimination against members of racial, ethnic, or religious groups or those of various national origins is reviewed to the greatest degree by the courts, which apply the _______ standard in these cases.
strict scrutiny
How is the burden of proof on the gov under strict scrutiny
to demonstrate that there is a compelling governmental interest in treating people from one group differently from those who are not part of that group—the law or action can be “narrowly tailored” to achieve the goal in question, and that it is the “least restrictive means” available to achieve that goal.9 In other words, if there is a non-discriminatory way to accomplish the goal in question, discrimination should not take place.
Strict Scrutiny now vs in history
In the modern era, laws and actions that are challenged under strict scrutiny have rarely been upheld. Strict scrutiny, however, was the legal basis for the Supreme Court’s 1944 upholding of the legality of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, discussed later in this chapter.
affirmative action
consists of government programs and policies designed to benefit members of groups historically subject to discrimination.
Most of the controversy surrounding Affirmative action
Much of the controversy surrounding affirmative action is about whether strict scrutiny should be applied to these cases.
The rest of the world compared to the US at the time of the writing of the constitution
More discrimitory then in todays time, but less discriminatory compared to the rest of the world
The aftermath of what marked a turning point for civil rights?
The aftermath of the Civil War
Why did The aftermath of the Civil War marked a turning point for civil rights.
The Republican majority in Congress was enraged by the actions of the reconstituted governments of the southern states. In these states, many former Confederate politicians and their sympathizers returned to power and attempted to circumvent the Thirteenth Amendment’s freeing of enslaved men and women by passing laws known as the Black codes. To override the southern states’ actions, lawmakers in Congress proposed two amendments to the Constitution designed to give political equality and power to formerly enslaved people.
Can new civil rights issues emerge with time?
yes
We can identify true discrimination by applying the following analytical process:
- Which groups? First, identify the group of people who are facing discrimination.
- Which right(s) are threatened? Second, what right or rights are being denied to members of this group?
- What do we do? Third, what can the government do to bring about a fair situation for the affected group? Is proposing and enacting such a remedy realistic?
The longest and greatest struggle for rights was by whom?
African Americans
What did Thomas Jefferson do when he reckognized that he owned slaves and yet claimed that“all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
He recognized this contradiction, personally considered the institution of slavery to be a “hideous blot” on the nation, and agreed to free those he held in bondage upon his death.13
How did the founders address slavery after claiming “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
They just didn’t address it
Describe political support for the abolition of slavery at the time of the creating of the constitution
Political support for abolition was very much a minority stance in the United States at the time, although after the Revolution many of the northern states followed the European example of fifty years prior in abolishing slavery.14
What happened as the US expanded westwards?
As the new United States expanded westward, however, the issue of slavery became harder to ignore and ignited much controversy.
Why did the controversy over slavery grow as the US expanded westwards?
Many opponents of slavery were willing to accept the institution if it remained largely confined to the South but did not want it to spread westward.
Why were did oppnonents of slavery want to keep slavery confined to the south?
They feared the expansion of slavery would lead to the political dominance of the South over the North and would deprive small farmers in the newly acquired western territories who could not afford to enslave others.15
What did Abolonists of slavery argue?
argued that slavery was immoral and contrary to the nation’s values and demanded an end to it.
The spread of slavery into the West seemed inevitable, however, following the Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling in which case?
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott v. Sandford
The justices rejected Scott’s argument that though he had been born into slavery, his time spent in free states and territories where slavery had been banned by the federal government had made him a free man. In fact, the Court’s majority stated that Scott had no legal right to sue for his freedom at all because Black people (whether free or enslaved) were not, and could not become, U.S. citizens. Thus, Scott lacked the standing to even appear before the court. The Court also held that Congress lacked the power to decide whether slavery would be permitted in a territory that had been acquired after the Constitution was ratified. This decision had the effect of prohibiting the federal government from passing any laws that would limit the expansion of slavery into any part of the West.
Ultimately, of course, the issue of slavery was decided by what?
the Civil War
What were the southern states fighting for in the Civil War?
the southern states seceding to defend “states’ rights,” specifically, the purported right to own human property, without federal interference.
How did Abraham Lincoln change his policies over the course of the Civil War?
Although at the beginning of the war, President Abraham Lincoln had been willing to allow slavery to continue in the South to preserve the Union, he changed his policies regarding abolition over the course of the war.
The first step Abraham Lincoln took when it came to changing his policies
The first step was the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 (Figure 5.4).
How was the emacipation proclamation limited?
Although it stated “all persons held as slaves . . . henceforward shall be free,” the proclamation was limited in effect to the states that had rebelled.
At the end of the Civil War, the South entered a period called ______________
Reconstruction
What happened during the reconstruction era?
during which state governments were reorganized before the rebellious states were allowed to be readmitted to the Union. As part of this process, the Republican Party pushed for a permanent end to slavery.
Adding the 13th amendment
Added after the civil war
13th amendment
abolished slavery in the US
Were the changes by the 13th or 14th amendment more extensive?
14th
Why were the changes of the 14th amendment more extensive than those of the 13th?
In addition to introducing the equal protection clause to the Constitution, this amendment also extended the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the states, required the states to respect the privileges or immunities of all citizens, and, for the first time, defined citizenship at the national and state levels.
The Fifteenth Amendment stated:
that people could not be denied the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
How did the states block black people from voting when they weren’t allowed to stop someone from voting based off race?
while states could not deny Black people the right to vote on the basis of race, they could deny it on any number of arbitrary grounds such as literacy, landownership, affluence, or political knowledge.
How did the reconstruction era end?
the Reconstruction ended with the end of military rule in the South and the withdrawal of the Union army in 1877.
What happened following the withdrawl of the Union Army in the south?
Following the army’s removal, political control of the South fell once again into the hands of White men, and violence was used to discourage Black people from exercising the rights they had been granted.20
or disenfranchisement,
The revocation of voting rights,
Perhaps the most famous of the tools of disenfranchisement were
were literacy tests and understanding tests.
How were literacy tests use to discriminate agaisnt black people?
However, since voter registration officials had discretion to decide what text the voter was to read, they could give easy passages to voters they wanted to register (typically, white people) and more difficult passages to those whose registration they wanted to deny (typically, Black people). Understanding tests required the prospective voter to explain the meaning of a particular passage of text, often a provision of the U.S. Constitution, or answer a series of questions related to citizenship. Again, since the official examining the prospective voter could decide which passage or questions to choose, the difficulty of the test might vary dramatically between African American and white applicants.
Even had these tests been administered fairly and equitably, however, most African Americans would have been at a huge disadvantage, because_____________________________________
few had been taught to read.
Why did few black people know how to read?
Although schools for Black people had existed in some places, southern states had made it largely illegal to teach enslaved people to read and write.
What did the grandfather clause allow for?
Poor, less literate white people to vote
Why did some white people disprove of the literacy test?
BEcause there were some less literate white people who couldn’t pass the tests
How did the grandfather clause work?
The illeterate white people were able to vote for a short period of time,, before the grandfather clause would be declared unconstitutional
In states where the voting rights of poor white people were less of a concern, another tool for disenfranchisement was the
poll tax
poll tax
This was an annual per-person tax, typically one or two dollars (on the order of $20 to $50 today), that a person had to pay to register to vote.
How did the poll tax work?
People who didn’t want to vote didn’t have to pay, but in several states the poll tax was cumulative, so if you decided to vote you would have to pay not only the tax due for that year but any poll tax from previous years as well.
How did the poll tax prevent African Americans from voting?
Because formerly enslaved people were usually quite poor, they were less likely than White men to be able to pay poll taxes.
How did the white people ensure the black people’s vote was meaningless?
the White elites used their control of the Democratic Party to create the white primary: primary elections in which only White people were allowed to vote.
white primary:
primary elections in which only White people were allowed to vote.
Why did the white primary party argue that they had no obligation to follow the Fifteenth Amendment’s requirement not to deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
Because they were a private group rather than a part of the state government. Furthermore, they contended, voting for nominees to run for office was not the same as electing those who would actually hold office.
what did the white primary do?
they held primary elections to choose the Democratic nominee in which only White citizens were allowed to vote.27 Once the nominee had been chosen, they might face token opposition from a Republican or minor-party candidate in the general election, but since White voters had agreed beforehand to support whoever won the Democrats’ primary, the outcome of the general election was a foregone conclusion.
What doctrine were segregation laws passed under?
“seperate but equal”
What were discrimitory laws called collectively?
Jim Crow laws
. The Supreme Court _________ the separate but equal doctrine in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, ____________________________________________________________________
upheld
inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, and allowed segregation to continue.28
Did African Americans agree on the right path forward from segreation?
African American leaders and thinkers themselves disagreed on the right path forward.
What did Booker T. Washington believe would end segregation?
Some, like Booker T. Washington, argued that acceptance of inequality and segregation over the short term would allow African Americans to focus their efforts on improving their educational and social status until White people were forced to acknowledge them as equals.
How did W.E.B Du Bois believe would end segregation?
W. E. B. Du Bois, argued for a more confrontational approach and in 1909 founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as a rallying point for securing equality.
Who founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
W.E.B Du Bois
History of race majorities in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
equality. White liberals dominated the organization in its early years, but Black people assumed control over its operations in the 1920s.29
What did the NAACP strategy quickly become?
overturning Jim Crow laws through the courts.
NAACP greatest string of legal successes
consisted of its efforts to challenge segregation in education.
What did Early cases brought by the NAACP deal with?
racial discrimination in higher education.
What choice did the Supreme Court give the states in 1938?
they could either integrate institutions of higher education, or they could establish an equivalent university or college for African Americans.30
Did the states choose to allow black people into colleges or to establish colleges for African Americans?
Southern states chose to establish colleges for Black people rather than allow them into all-White state institutions.
Brown v. Board of Education
In this case, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson as it pertained to public education, stating that a separate but equal education was a logical impossibility. Even with the same funding and equivalent facilities, a segregated school could not have the same teachers or environment as the equivalent school for another race.
Why did the Supreme court decide the only way to dispel inferiority was to integrate schools?
Even with the same funding and equivalent facilities, a segregated school could not have the same teachers or environment as the equivalent school for another race.
describe the integration of black and white schools
While integration of public schools took place without much incident in some areas of the South, particularly where there were few Black students, elsewhere, it was confrontational—or nonexistent. In recognition of the fact that southern states would delay school integration for as long as possible, civil rights activists urged the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision.
What in Little Rock, Arkansas did governor Orval Faubus a few months after the integration of races in public schools
A few months later, in Little Rock, Arkansas, governor Orval Faubus resisted court-ordered integration and mobilized National Guard troops to keep Black students out of Central High School. President Eisenhower then called up the Arkansas National Guard for federal duty (essentially taking the troops out of Faubus’s hands) and sent soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division to escort students to and from classes, as shown in Figure 5.7.
In Virginia, state leaders employed a strategy of _________ to school integration,
“massive resistance”
What did the strategy of massive resistance lead to in Virginia?
the closure of a large number of public schools across the state, some for years.
de jure segregation,
segregation mandated by law,
What did many white southerners do when de jure segregation ended?
Many White southerners who objected to sending their children to school with Black students then established private academies that admitted only White students; many of these schools remain overwhelmingly White today.35
How did many neighborhoods in the north segregate?
Many neighborhoods in northern cities remain segregated by virtue of “red lining” districts where minorities were allowed and not allowed to live.
Red linining
Restrictive real estate covenants bound White residents to not sell their houses to African Americans and sometimes not to Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos, Jews, and other ethnic minorities.
In New York City in the late 1950s, a group of activist parents led by Mae Mallory protested what?
the inadequate schools in their neighborhood; a court ruled that New York was engaging in de facto segregation, and forced the city to institute policies that would provide more equitable access.
How have banks been racist?
for not lending to people of color to buy homes and start business at rates commensurate with similarly situated prospective White borrowers.
How did the supreme court evolve in the postwar era of White flight,
into a more progressive force in the promotion and preservation of civil rights.
Shelley v. Kraemer (1948),
the Supreme Court held that while such covenants did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment because they consisted of agreements between private citizens, their provisions could not be enforced by courts.37
Why would law, the courts’ enforcement of racially restrictive covenants would be a violation of the amendment.
Because state courts are government institutions and the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the government from denying people equal protection of the law,
of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
the Supreme Court declared that requiring payment of a poll tax in order to vote in an election at any level was unconstitutional.39
Howdid Newer, grassroots organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) affect the NAACP
challenged the NAACP’s position as the leading civil rights organization and questioned its legal-focused strategy.
general strategy of groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
These newer groups tended to prefer more confrontational approaches, including the use of direct action campaigns relying on marches and demonstrations. The strategies of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience, or the refusal to obey an unjust law,
civil disobedience,
or the refusal to obey an unjust law,
What kind of action were the sit-in campaigns to desegregate lunch counters that began in Greensboro
direct action
Were sit ins effective?
While such focused campaigns could be effective, they often had little impact in places where they were not replicated.
Some responses to campaigns against segregation
Rosa Parks, a longtime NAACP member and graduate of the Highlander Folk School for civil rights activists, whose actions had begun the Montgomery boycott, received death threats, E. D. Nixon’s home was bombed, and the Freedom Riders were attacked in Alabama.42
As the campaign for civil rights continued and gained momentum, President John F. Kennedy called for what?
Congress to pass new civil rights legislation, which began to work its way through Congress in 1963.
When President John F. Kennedy called for Congress to pass new civil rights legislation what did the resulting law look like?
was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which had wide-ranging effects on U.S. society. Not only did the act outlaw government discrimination and the unequal application of voting qualifications by race, but it also, for the first time, outlawed segregation and other forms of discrimination by most businesses that were open to the public, including hotels, theaters, and restaurants that were not private clubs. It outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, or national origin by most employers, and it created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to monitor employment discrimination claims and help enforce this provision of the law.
did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had a monumental impact over the long term, it did not end efforts by many southern White people to maintain the White-dominated political power structure in the region?
no
Progress in registering African American voters remained slow in many states despite increased federal activity supporting it, so ____________________________________________________________
civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr. decided to draw the public eye to the area where the greatest resistance to voter registration drives were taking place.
What big event did the leaders of the The SCLC and SNCC plan?
a march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965.
Why did The SCLC and SNCC particularly focused their attention on the city of Selma, Alabama?
because had been the site of violent reactions against civil rights activities.
How was the first attempt to march unsuccesful
Their first attempt to march was violently broken up by state police and sheriff’s deputies (
How was the second attempt to march unsuccessful?
The second attempt was aborted because King feared it would lead to a brutal confrontation with police and violate a court order from a federal judge who had been sympathetic to the movement in the past.
Second march attempt:
That night, three of the marchers, White ministers from the north, were attacked and beaten with clubs by members of the Ku Klux Klan; one of the victims died from his injuries.
How many march attempts until success?
3
The events at Selma galvanized support in Congress for a follow-up bill solely dealing with
the right to vote.
How did the right to vote act go beyond previous laws?
by requiring greater oversight of elections by federal officials.
What did Malcom X advocate for?
sought to raise the self-esteem of Black people and advocated for their separation from the United States through eventual emigration to Africa.
Malcom X on the civil rights movment
Malcolm X rejected the mainstream civil right’s movement’s integration and assimilation approach, and laid the foundation for the Black Power movement, which sought self-determination and independence for Black people. His position was attractive to many young African Americans, especially after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968.
busing
transporting students from one segregated neighborhood to another to achieve more racially balanced schools—
de facto segregation
a form of segregation that results from the choices of individuals to live in segregated communities without government action or support.
Today, a lack of well-paying jobs in many urban areas, combined with the poverty resulting from the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow era terror, and persistent racism, has what?
trapped many Black people in under-served neighborhoods with markedly lower opportunity and life expectancy.53
The Obama administration proposed new rules under the Fair Housing Act that were intended to what?
lead to more integrated communities in the future; however, the Trump administration repeatedly sought to weaken the Fair Housing Act, primarily through lack of enforcement of existing regulations.
Indeed, the women’s movement came about largely as a result of:
the difficulties women encountered while trying to abolish slavery.
What convention was a trailblazer for women’s rights
Seneca Falls Convention
largely eclipsed the women’s movement throughout most of the nineteenth century.
the abolition and African American civil rights movements
Were women allowed to own property at the time of the American Revolution?
Although single women were allowed to own property, married women were not.
What happened durring the American Revolution when women married?
not. When women married, their separate legal identities were erased under the legal principle of coverture
What happened to their property when women married
Not only did women adopt their husbands’ names, but all personal property they owned legally became their husbands’ property.
Could husbands sell their wives?
Husbands could not sell their wives’ real property—such as land or in some states enslaved people—without their permission, but they were allowed to manage it and retain the profits.
Could wives legally leave their husbands?
So long as a man provided food, clothing, and shelter for his wife, she was not legally allowed to leave him.
Career/education opportunities for women around the time of the American Revolution
Higher education for women was not available, and women were barred from professional positions in medicine, law, and ministry.
Did women’s condition improve directly after the American Revolution?
nope
Women were not granted the right to vote by any of the states except ________, which at first allowed all taxpaying property owners to vote.
New Jersey (until 1807)
