Civil Rights:
When Government Must Step in to Protect People
The Constitution left many
unanswered questions about civil rights
How
Americans have answered three of these unanswered questions?
1) Unanswered Question #1
Do slaveowners hold the balance of power in America?
How did
we answer the question?
Political Compromise (Missouri Compromise)
2). Unanswered
Question #2
Can slaveowners start their own nation?
How did we answer?
Civil War
3). Unanswered Question #3
Are African-American’s civil rights protected by the states?
How did we answer?
At first, by letting states decide (de jure segregation; "Jim Crow")
Plessy v. Ferguson,
1896 upheld Jim Crow laws
Then, de jure segregation
was defeated in the mid-twentieth century by
court decisions, social movements,
and new national laws
4).
How did politics change civil rights?
Brown versus Board
of Education (1954) rejects de jure segregation in schools
The Civil Rights Movement
- The 1964 Civil Rights Act
-
The 1965 Voting Rights Act
5). The Civil Rights legacy
a). The Civil Rights agenda expands to de facto
segregation
- Housing (Fair Housing Laws)
- Schools (Busing)
- Jobs (Affirmative Action)
... and
to other groups
- Gender: The Equal Rights Amendment
- Other Minorities: Hispanics
- Disability
- Gays
Civil Liberties: What Problems Should Not Be Public?
1. The Constitution at its Most Ambiguous: Civil Liberties
- An Example: Freedom of Religion
2. Two Positions on Civil Liberties
a) The Absolutist Position (Hugo Black)
b) The Balancing Position (Most Judges)
3. Free Speech Against Security Threats
a) The Case of Dennis v. U.S. (1951)
- "McCarthyism" and fear of communism
- The Supreme Court Majority Opinion
- Hugo Black's Opinion
4. The Right to Privacy
a) Not explicit in the Constitution
b) The case of Griswold v. Connecticut
(1965)
- The Supreme Court Majority Opinion
- Hugo Black's Opinion