American govt
faiz16
Pattersonch.5powerpointEqualrights.pptx5: Equal Rights
Struggling Toward Fairness
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Equality through Law
Equal rights (civil rights): terms that refer to the right of every person to equal protection under the laws and equal access to society’s opportunities and public facilities
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The Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection
Equal-protection clause: forbids states from denying equal protection to citizens
Segregation in the schools:
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) banned forced segregation in schools
Little change to segregation seen 15 years later
Supreme Court encouraged busing as a solution to segregation—a highly controversial approach, with mixed results
With an end to racial busing in 2007 and white flight to the suburbs, schools have become less racially diverse
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The Civil Rights Act of 1964
All persons are entitled to equal access to public accommodations
Medium-size and large firms cannot discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in the hiring, promotion, and, wages of employees
Some forms of discrimination are still lawful
Example: church-related schools can take religion into account in hiring teachers
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The Black Civil Rights Movement
Impetus behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the black civil rights movement
Bus boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Resistance to the Civil Rights Act was widespread, but overt discrimination gradually ceased
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The Movement for Women’s Rights
First large and well-organized promotion of women’s rights: 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York
Fifteenth Amendment: right to vote extended to men of color, but not women
Nineteenth Amendment: right to vote extended to women
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) introduced in 1923, passed 50 years later, but failed state ratification
Other legislation:
Equal Pay Act of 1963
Title IX (1972)
Equal Credit Act of 1974
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The Voting Rights Act of 1965
Before 1965:
Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 granted blacks the vote
Blacks were disenfranchised by whites-only primaries, rigged literacy tests, and poll taxes
In the mid-1940s the Supreme Court declared that whites-only primary elections were unconstitutional
Twenty-Fourth Amendment in 1964 outlawed the poll tax
Two years later, the Supreme Court banned literacy tests
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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (2)
Voting Rights Act of 1965 allowed federal agents to oversee voter registration
States were prevented from creating election districts that deliberately diluted the minority vote
Weakened significantly by the 2013 Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated portions of the law
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The Civil Rights Act of 1968
In 1968, Congress passed legislation addressing discrimination in housing
Prohibited redlining, the refusal of mortgages for homes in certain neighborhoods, primarily those with large black populations
Strong patterns of housing segregation are still apparent
African Americans and Hispanics still have more difficulty obtaining mortgages than whites with comparable income levels
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Affirmative Action
Affirmative action: deliberate efforts to provide full and equal opportunities in employment, education, and other areas for disadvantaged groups
For organizations receiving federal funding or contracts
Affirmative action in law:
University of California Regents v. Bakke (1978)
Adarand v. Pena (1995)
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
Fischer v. University of Texas (2016)
Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014)
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Women
Job-related issues
Lack of job equality
Family leave and gender pay equity are continuing problems
“Feminization of poverty”: most single-parent families are headed by women and about one in three of those families live below the poverty line
Electoral and political successes
Supreme Court
Presidential politics
Congressional seats
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Other Disadvantaged Groups (2)
LBGT community:
Formerly barred from military service and had no employment protections or rights
Such prohibitions no longer exist
Greater legal protections in some jurisdictions for transgendered
U.S. has seen a rapid swing in public opinion toward acceptance of same-sex marriage in the last two decades, particularly among younger adults
Massachusetts was the first state to permit same-sex marriage, in 2004
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) expanded the right to all Americans
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