Civil Rights Cases in the History of American GovernmentAnna Cardillo, Casey Edmondson, Ryan Haney

The 14th AmendmentSection 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

African-Americans

Brown v. Board of Education

Issue: Does the segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprive the minority children of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment?

Facts: Black children denied admission from close “white schools

Equality: buildings, curricula, qualifications, teacher salaries

Outcome: “Separate-but-equal” is unequal

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States

Issue: Did Congress exceed its Commerce Clause powers by depriving motels of the right to choose their own customers?

Facts:Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade racial discrimination by places of public accommodation

Outcome: United States won; ruled that the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to regulate local incidents of commerce

Loving v. Virginia

Issue: Did Virginia’s antimiscegenation law violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment?

Facts:White man married black woman in D.C.

Charged with violating Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute

Sentenced to a year in jail

Outcome: Lovings won, “the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg County School District

Issue: Were federal courts constitutionally authorized to oversee and produce remedies for state-imposed segregation?

Facts:Little had been done to remedy segregation in schools

Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC was prime example

Outcome: Once violations of previous mandates directed at desegregating schools had occurred, the scope of district courts’ equitable powers to remedy past wrongs were broad and flexible.

Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education

Issue: Should a school district be allowed to use race as the sole factor to assign students to public schools? And can an enrollment plan that requires a certain percentage of African-American students meet the 14th Amendment’s requirement that racial classifications be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest?

Facts: JCPS integrated by court order

Enrollment based on place of residence, school capacity, random chance, and race

District court ruled constitutional

Outcome:No and no.

No individualized consideration of students – unlike college

Enrollment was targeted toward demographic goals, not equality

Adarand Constructors v. Pena

Issue: Is the presumption of disadvantage based on race alone a discriminatory practice that violates the 14th Amendment?

Facts:Adarand submitted lowest bid

Contractor to receive compensation if hiring small business controlled by “socially and economically disadvantaged”

Contractor would have accepted Adarand’s bid if not for the additional compensation offered

Outcome: Adarand won. All racial classifications must pass strict scrutiny review.

Adarand v. Pena (ctd.)

Figure 1 Figure 2

General Civil Rights

Korematsu v. U.S.

Issue: Did the President and Congress go beyond their war powers by implementing exclusion and restricting the rights of Americans of Japanese descent?

Facts:

Statutes gave military authority to exclude Japanese Americans from certain areas

Korematsu refused

Outcome: The court sided with the government, stating that the need to protect against espionage was more important than Korematsu’s rights

Figure 3

CA Board of Regents v. Bakke

Issue: Did the University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke's application for admission to its medical school?

Facts:Bakke was twice rejected from UC-Davis Medical School while lesser qualified minority candidates were accepted

Bakke believed that he was excluded from acceptance based solely on race

Outcome: No single majority opinion—Bakke was granted admission, but the court continued to consider the use of race as an admission criteria

Hurley v. Irish-American GLIB Assoc.

Issue: Did a Massachusetts State Court's mandate to Boston's Veterans' Council, requiring it to include GLIB members in its parade, violate the Council's free speech rights as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments?

Facts:

South Boston Allied War Veterans Council refused to hold a spot for the Irish-American GLIB Group of Boston for St. Patrick’s Day Parade under the grounds that forced inclusion of the group violated the Council’s right to free speech

Outcome: Unanimous decision held that forcing a private parade to include a group whose message they do not wish to express violates the First Amendment by making private speech to the public accommodation requirement

Romer v. Evans

Issue: Does Amendment 2 of Colorado's State Constitution, forbidding the extension of official protections to those who suffer discrimination due to their sexual orientation, violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

Facts:

Homosexual and other aggrieved parties challenged the Amendment after its adoption

Outcome: Court held that the amendment did violate the Equal Protection Clause by denying homosexual and bisexual persons the right to seek and receive specific legal protection from discrimination

Figure 4

Gratz v. Bollinger

Issue: Does the University of Michigan's use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Facts:

The University of Michigan admitted to considering race as a factor in accepting or denying students—fully qualified applicants Jenifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher were denied while “virtually all qualified applicants who are African American, Hispanic, or Native American are offered acceptance

Outcome: Court ruled that racial preferences in admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI

Ricci v. DeStefano

Issue: Can a municipality reject results from an otherwise valid civil service exam when the results unintentionally prevent the promotion of minority candidates?

Facts:

White and Hispanic candidates for promotion in the New Haven, CT fire department sued city officials for not certifying exams needed for the plaintiffs’ promotions

Exams were not certified because the results would have promoted a disproportionate number of white candidates in comparison to minority candidates

Outcome: The Supreme Court held that by discarding the exams, the City of New Haven violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Automobile Workers v.Johnson Controls, Inc. (1990-1999)

All female employees barred from work with exposure to lead after 8 8 of female workers became pregnant while maintaining blood levels marked unsafe by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

The UAW challenged Johnson’s fetal-protection policy as sexually discriminatory and in violation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

Decision: 9 to 0, UAWThe policy discriminated against women; did not require male employees to provide medical sterility

Fell outside of the bona fide occupational qualification exception; only job performance

No proof

Women’s & Men’s Rights

Craig v. Boren (1970-1976)

Oklahoma law prohibited the sale of 3.2 beer to males under 21, females under 18

Challenged by a between 18 and 21, licensed vendor

Decision: 7-2, CraigUnconstitutional gender provisions

Insufficient statistics

21st Amendment did not alter the application of the Equal Protection Clause

Reed v. Reed (1970-1979)

Idaho Probate Code: males must be preferred to femalesAdministrators of estates

Cecil Reed was appointed administrator after death of son

Decision: 7-0, Sally ReedLaw’s unfair treatment of men and women was unconstitutional

Base decision on merits of the individual

Equal Protection Clause

Rostker v. Goldberg (1980-1989)

President Carter reactivated the draft registration

Military Selective Service Act did not include the registration of females

Decision: 6-3, RostkerDid not violate Due Process

Combat restrictions on women, not similar for draft purposes

Problems with drafting women, justified MSSA

United States v. Virginia Military Institute (1990-1995)

Virginia’s only exclusively male public undergraduate higher learning institution

US thought unconstitutional

Proposed Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership

Decision: 7-1, U.S.Unconstitutional, no justification for gender-based admission

Women wouldn’t receive the same benefits

Dothard v. Rawlinson (1977)

Prison guard in Alabama dismissed because she did not meet the height and weight requirement

Decision:National statistics showed that it would exclude 4% of women

Unlawful sex discrimination

Challenged Title VII, being male was not a qualification of the job

Multimedia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-B3bMrL4bc&feature=fvst

Newspaper Articlehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/opinion/28tue4.html?ref=civilrights

1. What rights and benefits do a married couple receive as opposed to a couple in a civil union?

2. How does the denial of same-sex marriage follow or violate the 14th Amendment in regards to Civil Rights?

3. What is your opinion on same-sex marriage? Is it unlawfully discriminatory? Why or why not?

Bibliography

www.oyez.org

Rees, Stu. “Figure 1”. http://www.stus.com/stus-cartoon.php?name=Adarand+Constructors%2C+Inc.+v.+Pena&cartoon=con0023

Huber, Jim. “Figure 2”. http://www.conservativecartoons.com/cartoon.php?toon=301

“Figure 3”. http://www.japanfocus.org/data/Superman%20cartoon.jpg