Civil Rights Assignment
A. All Key Terms
B. What if….. Illegal Immigrants were granted citizenship? 146
C. Understanding American Slavery: Graphic Organizer, Outline, PowerPoint, etc
D. Diagram: Civil Rights Acts (1866, 1870, 1872, 1875, 1883, 1896)
E. Voting Barriers: Graphic Organizer—White Primary, Grandfather Clause, Poll Tax, Literacy Test, etc)
F. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka: Graphic Organizer
Issues, Results, Reactions, etc.
G. Busing: PROS/CONS
H. Civil Rights Movement Annotated Webchart
I. Swann Case
J. Graphic Organizers:
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Civil Rights Act of 1968 (and Housing Reform Legislation)
Consequences of Civil Rights Legislation
K. Plessy v. Ferguson 1896
L. Women’s Struggle for Equal Rights
Annotated Timeline, Diagram, or Outline
M. Issues in the Workplace
Graphic Organizer, Diagram, or Outline
N. Immigration—The Hispanic Issues
Graphic Organizer, Diagram, or Outline
O. A Controversial Issue: Affirmative Action
Definition, Assessment/Analysis, PROS/CONS
P. An Aging America: Graphic Organizer, Diagram, or Outline
Q. Disabled Americans and the Government: Graphic Organizer, Diagram, or Outline
R. The Gay and Lesbian Issues concerning the Government
Graphic Organizer, Diagram, or Outline
S. Young People: Juveniles and the Government-- Graphic Organizer, Diagram, or Outline
T. READ—Zero-Tolerance and Dealing with Discrimination
Reaction Paragraphs (2)
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
· Define civil rights and explain the difference between civil rights and civil liberties.
· Describe the attempts to grant civil rights to African Americans following the abolition of slavery, including the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1865-1877.
· Explain how these initial attempts were frustrated by the courts.
· Describe the obstacles to political participation by African Americans.
· Explain the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
· Explain the difference between de facto segregation and de jure segregation.
· Indicate the role of violence in the struggle for African American civil rights.
· Describe King’s philosophy of nonviolence and define civil disobedience.
· Describe the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
· Describe the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
· Describe the goals and tactics of the women’s suffrage movement.
· Describe the creation of the modern women’s movement.
· Describe the attempt to win the ERA.
· Describe other major modern feminist issues.
· Explain what Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides.
· Define sexual harassment, wage discrimination, and the glass ceiling.
· Explain the impact of Hispanic immigration
· Describe governmental attempts to deal with the issue of illegal immigration
· Define affirmative action and explain why it was originally established.
· Describe the limits the Supreme Court has placed on affirmative action.
· Provide the most important provisions of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.
· Give the most important provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and some of its limits.
· Provide the circumstances under which the modern gay and lesbian rights movement began.
· Define sodomy laws and explain how they were upheld in Bowers v. Hardwick and rejected in Lawrence v. Texas.
· Explain “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
· Give the current state of the same-sex marriage controversy (the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, the proposed constitutional amendment, civil unions in Vermont, and same-sex marriage in Massachusetts).
· Explain the legal status of juveniles, especially with regard to civil rights and criminal rights.
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
Given the time it took for so many of the provisions of the Civil War Amendments to become a reality, do you regard their addition to the Constitution as empty promises?
Why were the reconstruction-era Civil Rights acts ineffective?
Why was the Voting Rights Act necessary?
Would there have been a difference in the civil rights movement of the 1960s if it had not been based on the philosophy of nonviolence? Who had the better perspective: King or Malcolm X?
Can the modern women’s movement be characterized as a success?
To what extent should illegal immigration be regarded as a significant problem in our country? How should we treat those who are illegally in this country?
Should affirmative action exist? If you do not favor affirmative action, how should society address the economic gap between men and women and whites and African Americans?
How can the gap in funding between programs that benefit older Americans and those that benefit children be addressed? Do these two policy areas constitute a zero-sum game?
Without the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act would the private sector have been as likely to take action to eliminate policies that had the effect of discrimination toward individuals with disabilities?
How could the issue of gays in the military be resolved?
Should same-sex couples be able to marry and receive all of the privileges and benefits associated with marriage?
Should juveniles charged with serious crimes such as murder be treated as adults? Can children have intent?
Why are juveniles legally different from adults? What should the age of majority be? Why?
Should the government have the power to take a child away from a parent? Under what conditions? Who should make such decisions?
BEYOND THE BOOK
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution states, “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year of thousand eight hundred and eight . . .” The phrase “such Persons” refers to slaves. The only other reference to slavery in the original Constitution is Article I, Section 2, which mentions “other persons.” Why did the founders choose to not directly address the issue of slavery? One of the major reasons concerned the adoption of the Constitution by the states. If slavery had been directly mentioned within the Constitution, some northern states might have been reluctant to ratify it. By not addressing this issue in the Constitution, the national government was allowed time to become a powerful political force.
Not all of the reasons for the reconstruction-era constitutional amendments and civil rights laws were altruistic. Republicans wanted African Americans to vote because they expected them to vote Republican. In those days, the two major parties were relatively evenly balanced.
African Americans were not always the only target of laws designed to limit voting. Take the example of the literacy test, a particularly devilish scheme in that it allowed literacy examiners to fail prospective voters on a purely subjective basis. While African Americans in the South were the primary target of this scheme, it was used elsewhere. For example, as late as the 1950s the remnants of the “Tammany Hall” political machine on the West Side of Manhattan made a regular practice of flunking Columbia University professors on the reasonable ground that these voters were almost sure to support the anti-machine, “reform” cause.
Technology had an important role in the integration of society. Television contrasted the violent opposition to civil rights and integration and nonviolent civil rights actions. Also, television brought the problems of racial inequality into the living rooms of Americans on the nightly news. As racial barriers fell, national institutions such as baseball, movies, television, and the music industry began to offer major roles for African Americans. A new generation became admirers of athletes like Jackie Robinson (baseball), actors like Sidney Poitier (movies) and Bill Cosby (television) and recording artists like Diana Ross and James Brown. To what extent have these popular stars helped to eliminate racial prejudice by becoming role models for young people of all races? Are we seeing a similar phenomenon occurring with gays in television shows like Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?
There actually were a few steps taken by Congress to support civil rights before 1964. In 1957, Congress established a Civil Rights Commission to investigate claims of racial bias. Because many southern states were denying African Americans the right to vote, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which was intended to stop this type of action by state governments. Both of these laws, however, were ineffectual. Why might Congress pass an ineffectual law?
What gave Congress the power to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964? The Supreme Court ruled in the 1880s that Congress did not have the power to end discrimination that was not created by the government. In 1964, there were attempts to get the Supreme Court to declare the 1964 Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. However, this time the Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act was constitutional because private acts of discrimination were having an adverse impact on interstate commerce, an area covered by an enumerated power of Congress. Cases: Heart of Atlanta Motel, v. U.S. (1964) and Katzenback v. McClung (1964). Did Congress push its power to regulate interstate commerce too far? Did the Supreme Court ignore its responsibility to check the power of Congress because it approved of the intention of Congress to address discrimination?
What rights individuals have in the area of sexual preference will continue to vary from city to city and state to state, as long as the federal courts do not establish national standards. Does the Fourteenth Amendment provide for the equal protection of individuals based on sexual orientation? If the majority of the people in a state are opposed to same sex marriages should they have the power to deny such marriages? What would James Madison, the author of Federalist #10, have to say on this issue?
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Civil Rights refer to those things that the government must do to provide equal protection and freedom from discrimination for all citizens. Traditionally, we think of civil rights as those rights rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. While the term “civil rights” goes back in history, early attempts at true protection were unsuccessful because the Supreme Court believed that it was not within its purview to stop non-governmental discrimination. Since the 1950s, the Supreme Court has held the opposite view, thus enabling the government to offer broader protections to citizens’ equality in social and economic life.
I. African Americans and the Consequences of Slavery in the United States
A. Ending Servitude. With the passage of the Civil War amendments, slavery and some of the problems slavery had created were abolished. 1) The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) prohibits slavery within the United States. 2) The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) established that all persons born in the United States are citizens and no state shall deprive citizens of their rights under the Constitution. 3) The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) established the right of citizens to vote.
B. The Civil Rights Acts of 1865 to 1875. After passing the Civil War Amendments, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Acts of 1865–1875, which were aimed at the southern states. These laws attempted to prevent states from passing laws that would circumvent the amendments.
C. The Ineffectiveness of the Civil Rights Laws.
1. The Civil Rights Cases. The United States Supreme Court invalidated much of the civil rights legislation in the Civil Rights cases (1883). Enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment was limited to correcting official acts by states. This would mean that private citizens could practice discrimination without interference from the national government.
2. Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate but Equal. The Supreme Court went further in this direction in 1892 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, where the Court held that “separate but equal” treatment of people of different races by state governments was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
3. Voting Barriers. The Fifteenth Amendment attempted to establish voting rights for all citizens, except females and some Native Americans. However, some state governments enacted laws that circumvented the right to vote (the white primary, the grandfather clause, poll taxes, literacy tests). The effect of these laws virtually prohibited African American males from voting in many southern states.
4. Extralegal Methods of Enforcing White Supremacy. Lynching in the South, and in the North, riots against the employment of African Americans.
D. The End of the Separate-but-Equal Doctrine.
1. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Plessy v. Ferguson was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in 1954. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the separate but equal doctrine was reversed.
2. “With All Deliberate Speed.” States were ordered to eliminate segregation policies with all deliberate speed.
E. Reactions to School Integration. States that mandated segregation were outraged at interference in state issues by the national government. Serious riots against desegregation took place in a number of localities.
F. An Integrationist Attempt at a Cure: Busing.
Key concepts: De facto segregation—racial segregation that occurs because of past social and economic conditions and residential racial patterns. De jure segregation—racial segregation that occurs because of laws or administrative decisions by public agencies.
1. Court-Ordered Busing. A solution to both forms of segregation, it involved busing black students to predominantly white schools and vice versa. It was very unpopular among whites and not very popular among African Americans, either. It is not common today.
2. The End of Integration? By the 1990s the Court was willing in many cases to say that local schools had done enough to desegregate, and no further actions were necessary, despite the continued existence of de facto segregation.
3. The Resurgence of Minority Schools. Many African Americans and members of other minority groups now seek to improve the performance of their local schools rather than make them more balanced racially.
II. The Civil Rights Movement
The elimination of segregationist policies and racial intolerance would not have occurred without a strong civil rights movement. This movement began in the South and grew to a national scale. Although this movement included thousands and had many leaders, the most famous leader was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A. King’s Philosophy of Nonviolence. One of the major reasons Dr. King was so successful was his philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience, a nonviolent, public refusal to obey allegedly unjust laws.
1. Nonviolent Demonstrations. Peaceful civil disobedience became the hallmark of the civil rights movement.
2. Marches and Demonstrations. This approach gained the support and respect of millions of Americans. What began as a small movement in the South quickly became a national mission.
B. Another Approach: Black Power. Leaders such as Malcolm X advocated a more forceful approach than King. His followers also resisted the impulse to cultural assimilation that was implied by the integrationist philosophy.