Challenges of a Diverse Society

Race, Ethnicity, and ImmigrationDiNitto Chapter 12,

By Dr. Nerio

Racial Equality: How Far Have We Come?

• By 2050: non-Hispanic whites will likely become a numerical minority– Hispanic population: 30%– African-American: 15%– Asian-American: 6%

Civil Rights Act

• First Civil Rights Act: 1866

• Second Civil Rights Act: 1875 (declared unconstitutional)

• Civil Rights Act, 1964

Events Leading Up to the Civil Rights Act

• See PowerPoint: Parting the Waters

Civil Rights Act, 1964• Outlawed unequal standards for voter registration

• Outlawed discrimination by race, color, religion, or national origin in public accommodations

• AG must take action on behalf a person denied equal access

• AG must take civil action on behalf of persons attempting orderly desegregation of public schools

• Commission on Civil Rights must investigate and make reports regarding discrimination

• All federal agencies and departments must take action to end discrimination in federal aid

• Established EEOC

• All employers and labor unions with more than 25 employees are forbidden to discrimination in any fashion in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national original

Fair Housing Act, 1968

• An amendment to the Civil Rights Act

• Result of the Kerner Comission

From School Desegregation to Resegregation

• Dred Scot: 1857

• In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment: all citizens are guaranteed equal protection under the law

• 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate but equal

Brown vs. Board of Education

• 1954

• De jure and de facto segregation

• Southern school districts resisted Brown with “freedom of choice” plans

• 1968: Green v. School Board of Kent County– Required districts to eliminate all vestiges of discrimination

Busing

• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education– Approved “mandatory student reassignment”

A Major Anti-Busing Backlash Begins

From Sticks to Carrots

• Magnet Schools

• Educational enhancements

• 2007: Supreme Court struck down the use of race as a criterion:

– John Roberts: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminated on the basis of race.”

Resegregation

Issue: Local Funding

• Texas’s “Robin Hood” law

• Class action suite against the State of California, 2000– State claimed that more money in poorer districts

would not fix the problem

• After a settlement in the California case, students showed improvement with more funding

No Child Left Behind

• Focus on achievement does nothing to improve funding

• NCLB had no civil rights component

• G.W. Bush: “soft bigotry of low expectations”

Affirmative Action• Principle: “women and minorities should be admitted,

hired, and promoted in proportion to their representation in the population” (DiNitto, 466)

• Quotas or goals?

• Philadelphia Plan, 1967: those bidding on federal contracts must submit plans to employ specific % of minority workers

• 1971: Federal Aviation Administration: every fifth vacant position must be filled by a minority or hiring will be frozen

Claims of Reverse Discrimination

• Does affirmative action violate the 14th Amendment?

• 1974: Marco DeFunis sued the University of Washington

• Several suits followed, mostly at universities

Affirmative Action During the Reagan Years

• Reagan recommended people to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission who opposed affirmative action

• Justice Department began to force localities to abandon affirmative action policies

George H.W. Bush

• A supporter of civil rights

• Congress attempted to “restore civil rights” and affirmative action in 1990

• George Bush defeated the attempt

• ACLU accused him of using quotas as a “smokescreen”

Affirmative Action and Voters• Early 1990s:

• California Proposition, Proposition 209 • Washington State, Initiative 200

• Voters banned gender/racial preferences

• 1996

• Hopwood v. Texas• U.S. Court of appeals ruled that racial preferences in university

administration are unconstitutional

The States Respond with New Plans

• Texas: all high school students who finish in the top 10% of their class are guaranteed admissions to Texas universities

• California: 12.5%

• Investigation by U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: the percent plans did not work well

• NAACP: strong supporter of affirmative action

• Many African-American conservatives oppose it

• What do you think?

Stop and Frisk

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#44996131

Immigration: An Introductory Discussion

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#44939271

Immigration and Social Welfare

• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• Immigration Act of 1924

• Waves of Immigration– English/North European– Mid-1800s, Britain, Germany, Ireland– 1880s to 1914, southern and eastern European and Asian– Post 1965 – Lyndon Johnson reforms the Johnson-Reed Act

Crisis and Immigration

• Vietnam War

• Trujillo in DR, 1960s

• Cuban Revolution (several waves, including Mariel Boat Lift in 1980)

• Haiti and Duvalier

Sanctuary Cities and the Sanctuary Movement

• 1980s – El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua

• Backlash to sanctuary movement