(Un)Equal Rights and Liberties

POL 101
Introduction to American Politics

Monday, September 21

Inequality in the United States

One of the most enduring characteristics of the American

political system is social/political inequality of specific groups
in society.
African Americans
Women
Hispanics
Asian Americans
Muslims
LGTBs

Constitution and the Bill of Rights both exclude equal

protection.

Inequality in the United States

Under what conditions may a law treat some groups

differently than others?
Compelling State Interest
A fundamental state purpose, which must be shown before the
law can limit some freedoms or treat some groups of people
differently.

Different levels of scrutiny are applied to laws affecting

different groups in society.

Legal Classifications

Suspect Classification
Discrimination based on race.
Strict Scutiny the highest standard of review applied by the
Court.

Quasisuspect Classification
Discrimination based on gender.
Intermediate Standard of Review

Nonsuspect Classification
Discrimination based on age, income, or sexual orientation.
Minimum Rationality Test

Types of Discrimination

De Jure Discrimination
Discrimination arising from or supported by the law.
Legal segregation in schools and public transportation.

De Facto Discrimination
Discrimination that is the result not of law but rather of
tradition and habit.
Geographic racial distinctions.

Racial Discrimination pre-Reconstruction

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Fugitive slaves found in free territories were to be returned to
their owners.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Citizenship rights did not extent to blacks, even in free
territories.

The End of Slavery

13th Amendment (1865)

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude [...] shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.

Black Codes
Laws passed in southern states to restrict the rights of former
slaves and preserve as much of the institution of slavery as
possible.

Equal Protection Clause

Institutionalized by the 14th Amendment in 1868.

How should equal protection be defined?
Equality of opportunity.
Equality of condition.
Equality of result.

Recall distinctions between substantive and procedural

guarantees.

Extending the Right to Vote

15th Amendment (1870)

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridge by the United States or by an State on
account of race, color, or previous servitude.

Political Change and the End of Reconstruction

Democratic-controlled southern states respond to

Reconstruction violently.
1870s Republicans begin to lose political power at both the
state and national levels.
Note: The Republican and Democratic Parties did not begin
to reverse positions on civil rights issues during the
1950s-1960s.

Jim Crow Laws

Poll Taxes
Required the payment of a small tax before voters could cast
their votes.

Literacy Tests
Required voters to demonstrate reading skills before casting
their votes.

Grandfather Clauses
Only required literacy tests for voters whose grandfathers had
not been allowed to vote before 1867.

Racial Discrimination post-Reconstruction

The Civil Rights Cases (1883)

The Court rules that the 14th Amendment forbids
discrimination by the government, not by the people.
Based roughly on the distinction between de jure and de facto
discrimination.

Racial Discrimination post-Reconstruction

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Racial segregation on trains in Louisiana.
Majority opinion is that the equal protection clause only
extends as far as political equality, not social equality.
Seperate but Equal

Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting:

Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor
tolerates classes among citizens. In respect to civil rights all
citizens are equal before the law. [...]the judgment this day
rendered will in time prove to be quite as pernicious as the
decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case.

Overturning Plessy

The Plessy decision provided an inform seal of approval of

segregation for the next sixty years.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP)
Founded in 1910 to raise awareness and directly lobby
legislation aimed at ending racial discimination.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

The Court ruled that school segregation, regardless of school
qualities, caused black students to feel socially inferior to white
students. As a result, segregation in schools was declared
unconstitutional.

Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Ended discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or
sex.
Ended racial segregation in public places, as well as unequal
voter registration laws.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Banned discriminatory voter registration tests, such as literacy
tests.

24th Amendment
Banned poll taxes in federal elections.

Enforcing Brown v. Board

James Meredith
Denied acceptance to law school multiple times in the early
1960s.
Files a suit against the school on the grounds that his rights
granted by the Brown decision were violated.
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court rule
in favor of Meredith.
School eventually accepts Meredith, but riots erupt; two dead,
hundreds injured.

Gender Discrimination

Early 19th century

Women had no legal identity.

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

Marked the beginning of the womens rights movement.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and
women are created equal.

Movement gained momentum in Seneca Falls by gaining

support in New York, but exclusion from the legal and
political system prevented an efficient national movement.

State Strategy

While African Americans had the support of Republicans in

the national government, women did not have the federal
governments support.
By focusing on individual states, the womens movement was
able to gain political in legal status in select states, eventually
filtering up to the federal level.

Early State Voting Rights

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

By 1912, women could vote in only a handful of western
states (74 out of 483 total electoral votes).
1914 NAWSA begins a campaign against the Democratic
Party in Congress, subsequently gaining more momentum on
the state level.
1917 state voting rights in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, North
Dakota, Ohio, Indiana, Rhode Island, Nebraska, and Michigan.

19th Amendment

Susan B. Anthony Amendment

Will give women the right to vote on the national level.

NAWSA proposes the amendment to Congress, threatening to

campaign against any legislator who voted against it.
1919 Congress passes the 19th Amendment with the
necessary two-thirds majority in the House and Senate and the
necessary three-fourths of state legislatures vote to ratify it,
granting women the right to vote on the national level.

Equal Rights Amendment

The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, but did
not provide them with the constitutional protection against
discrimination that the 14th Amendment had provided African
Americans.
Equal Rights Amendment
Would have ended discrimination on the basis of sex and
guarantee women the equal protection of the laws.

Eventually passed by both chambers of Congress, but fails to

achieve ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Equal Rights Amendment

Why didnt the ERA pass?

Identification with Roe v. Wade (allowing abortion during first
trimester)
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment
Supreme Court already strikes down most laws that
discriminate against women.

The Value of the 14th Amendment

It was through the privileges & immunities clause and the

equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, that the 15th
and 19th Amendments were able to grant voting rights to
women and African Americans.