Civil Rights

Regents of the University of California v Bakke (1978)

Alan Bakke was a white applicant from medical school. He was not allowed in because of an affirmative action plan to boost the number of black students. The court ruled that Bakke had been unfairly excluded and that quotas requiring a certain percentage of minorities violated the 14th amendment. But the court also held that race-based affirmative action was permissible so long as it was in the service of creating greater diversity.

Age Discrimination Act of 1967

As its name states, this law prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of age. The law makes an exception for jobs in which age is essential to job performance. An amendment to this law banned some mandatory retirement ages and increased others to 70.

Jim Crow Laws and Voting Restrictions

As the federal government exerted less influence over the South, states, towns, and cities passed numerous discriminatory and segregationist laws. The Supreme Court supported the states by ruling that the 14th Amendment did not protect blacks from discriminatory state laws and that blacks would have to seek equal protection from the states, not from the federal government. in 1883, the court also reversed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, thus opening the door to legal segreation. These segregationist laws are known as Jim Crow laws. The states also moved to deprive blacks of their voting rights by imposing poll taxes (a tax that must be paid in order to vote) and literacy tests. To allow poor, illiterate whites to vote, some states passed grandfather clauses that exempted from these restrictions anyone whose grandfather had voted. Grandfather clauses effectively excluded blacks whose grandparents had been slaves and therefore could not have voted.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Banned discrimination in hotels, restaurants, and railroad cars, as well as banned discrimination in selection for jury duty. This was declared as unconstitutional in 1883.

15th Amednemnt (1870)

Banned laws that would prevent African Americans from voting on the basis of their race or the fact that they were previously slaves.

Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964)

Did the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandate the places of public accommodation are prohibited from discrimination against African Americans? Yes, said the court.

26th Amendment (1971)

Extended the right to vote to 18-year-olds.

Equal Rights Amednment

Failed constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed equal protection under the law for women (1970s)

Affirmative Action

Government-Mandated programs that seek to create special employment opportunities for African Americans, women, and other victims of past discrimination.

19th Amendment (1920)

Granted women the right to vote

Brown v Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

In this landmark case, a unanimous corut led by newly appointed chief justice earl warren ruled the doctrine of "separate but equal" to be unconstitutional.

Brown v Board 2 (1955)

One year later, the Warren Court saw that segregation was still ubiquitous. So in Brown 2, they ordered schools to desegregated "with all due and deliberate speed."

Reverse Discrimination

Opponents of affirmative action programs argue that such programs penalize whites and thus constitute this idea, which is illegal under Civil Rights Act of 1964

De Facto Segregation

Racial segregation, especially in public schools, that happens "by fact" rather than by legal requirement. For example, often the concentration of African-Americans in certain neighborhoods produces neighborhood schools that are predominantly black, or segregated in fact

13th Amednment (1865)

Ratified after the civil war; made slavery illegal

14th Amendment (1868)

Ratified during Reconstruction; designed to prevent states in the South from depriving newly freed blacks of their rights. It clauses guaranteeing due process and equal protection were later used by the Supreme Court to apply most of the Bill of Rights to state law. However, in the 1880s the Supreme Court interpreted the amendment narrowly, allowing the states to enact segregationist laws. This amendment also made African Americans citizens of the nation and of their home states, overruling the Dred Scott case (1857), which had ruled that slaves and theri descendants were not citizens.

De Jure Segregation

Segregation by law

Civil Rights Act of 1964

THis was a landmark piece of legislation. It not only increwased the rights of blacks and other minorites, but also gave the federal government greater means of enforcing the law. The law banned discrimination in public accomodations (public transportation, offices, and so on) and in all federal funded programs. It also prohibited discrimination in hiring based on color and gender. Finally, it required the government to cut off funding from any program that did not comply with the law, and it gave the federal government the power to initiate lawsuits in cases of school segregation. States that had previously ignored federal civil rights mandates now faced serious consequences for doing so.

Katzenbach v McClung (1964)

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in public places, but what about in private businesses? THe Katzenbach case established that thepower of Congress to regulate interstate commerce extends to state discrimination statutes. This ruling made the Civil Rights Act of 1964 apply to virtually all businesses.

The Civil War (1861-1865)

The Civil War began over the issue of slavery (the debate over the relative powers of the federal and state governments was also a major cause of the war). The war was more clearly defined as a war about slavery in 1864, when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the liberation of slaves in the rebel states. The Civil War also influenced the civil rights process in a less direct and less immediate way, as it resulted in an increased in the power of the federal government. 100 years later, the increased power vested in the federal government would be the means of imposing and enforcing equal right laws in the states.

Civil Rights Act of 1964 Provision

The provision pertaining to gender discrimination was included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by an opponent of the bill. Representative Howard Smith of Virginia believed his proposal was ridiculous and would therefore weaken support for the bill. Much to his surprise, the bill passed with gender provision-prohibiting employment discrimination based on gender-included. The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 enhanced those protections.

1964

The year employment discrimination based on gender was outlawed.

Grutter v Bollinger (2003) and Gratz v Bollinger (2003)

Theses cases involved the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Michigan undergraduate school. Both used affirmative action, but the undergraduate school did so by giving minority applicants a large boost in the score used by officers deciding on admission. The court threw out the undergraduate system of selection, but generally upheld Bakke.

Civil Rights Act Title VIII (1968)

This banned racial discrimination in housing.

Plessy v Ferguson (1896)

This case famously allowed southern states to twist the Equal protection clause of the 14th amendment by allowing "separate but equal" facilities based on race.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

This federal law made it illegal to base an employee's pay on race, gender, religion, or national origin. This Act was also important to the women's movement and to the civil rights struggles of other minorities. Prior to this bill, many businesses and organizations maintained different pay and raise schedules for their male and female employees. In fact, the law, however, has helped narrow the gap between the salaries and wages of the genders

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009

This law closed a loophole that limited suits on discriminatory pay based on the timing of the issuance of the first discriminatory paycheck. The Ledbetter Act expanded those limits to allow suits based on any discriminatory paycheck, an important adjustment for employees who learn of inequities in wages or salary only after they have persisted for some time.

Title IX, Higher Education Act (1972)

This law prohibits gedner discrimination by institutions of higher education that receive federal funds. Title IX has been used to force increased funding of women-only programs, such as women's sports.

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

This law requires businesses with more than 24 employees to make their offices accessible to the disabled. It also requires public transportation, new offices, hotels, and restaurants to be wheelchair-accessible whenever feasible. Finally, it mandated the development of wider telephone services for the hearing-impaired.

Voting Rights Act of 1982

This law requires states to create congressional districts with minority majorities in order to increase minority representation in the House of Representatives. The law has resulted in the creation of numerious strangely shaped districts, such as one in North Carolina that was 160 miles long and, at points, only several hundred yards wide. The Supreme Court nullified the district just described, leaving it unclear how the government may both achieve the goals of the Voting Rights Act and maintain the regional integrity of congressional districts.

Civil Rights Act of 1991

This law was designed to address a number of problrms that had arisen in civil rights law during the previous decade. Several Supreme Court decisions had limited the abilities of job applicants and employees to bring suit against employers with didcriminatory hiting practices; the 1991 act eased those restrictions.

24th Amendment (1964)

This outlawed poll taxes, which had been used to prevent blacks and poor whites from voting.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

This was designed to counteract voting discrimination in the South. It allowed the federal government to step into any state or country in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote, or in areas that used literacy tests to prevent voting. In those areas, the federal government could register voters (which is the normal function of the states).

1920

Women were not given the right to vote in all 50 states until this date.

Sexual Harassment

any sexist or sexual behavior-physical or verbal- that creates a hostile work environment.

Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988

increased Title IX's potency by allowing the government to cut off all funding to schools that violate the law ( and not just to the specific program or office found in violation). As a result of these laws mandating equity in college athletics spending, colleges have eliminated many less popular men's sports, resulting in a backlash against Title IX and the Civil Rights Restoration Act.

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

women were guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave from work after giving birth (expanded to fathers as well)