Ch 16 Synopsis

Chapter 16 - Equality and Civil Rights
Chapter Synopsis

Learning Objectives:
After reading this chapter, students should be able to
· Define the key terms at the end of the chapter
· Distinguish between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome
· Explain why the Civil War Amendments proved ineffective in ensuring racial equality
· Outline the NAACP's strategy for ending school segregation
· Distinguish between de jure and de facto segregation
· Describe the tactics of the civil rights movement and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
· Show how protectionist legislation discriminated against women
· List the major legislative and judicial milestones in the struggle for equal rights for women
· Explain why women's rights advocates favored the Equal Rights Amendment rather than the 14th Amendment as a way to extend equal rights to women
· Discuss how affirmative action programs have led to charges of reverse discrimination

Synopsis
This chapter provides a historical overview of the process by which civil and political rights have been extended to African-Americans, women, and other minorities. The search for social and economic equality has been slow and often filled with controversy and violence.
Americans continue to struggle over the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. While nearly all Americans agree on equality of opportunity, not everyone agrees that individual outcomes should be equal or that society should limit certain individual freedoms in order to ensure that others are "equalized".
The adoption of the 14th, 15th, and 16th Amendments following the Civil War was designed to provide black Americans with the civil and political rights that had been denied to them by slavery. The Supreme Court, however, systematically prevented these citizens from exercising their rights by declaring that the federal government could not regulate private forms of discrimination. Throughout the South, black Americans were denied the right to vote by the use of the poll tax, education requirements, and proof of property ownership.
"Jim Crow" laws, requiring separate housing and public facilities for blacks and whites, became the basis of an official system of racial segregation. In a landmark case, the Supreme Court upheld racially motivated segregation as long as separate but equal facilities were provided for blacks. The Court overlooked the existing differences in facilities available to blacks and whites in reaching this decision. Nevertheless, the separate-but-equal doctrine later allowed black Americans to challenge the discriminatory admissions policies of all white universities.
The political mood of the 1950's favored the successful challenge to the separate-but-equal doctrine in the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case in 1954. With this decision, the Court approved several remedies, such as busing and racial quotas, to achieve the integration of schools.
The advancement of political equality beyond the classroom, however, required more extensive political mobilization, which came to be known as the Civil Rights movement. During the 1960's, the unconventional political tactics of the civil rights movement, which included boycotts and sit-in demonstrations, brought national attention to the problem of racial discrimination. As a result, Congress passed the Civil Rights act of 1964, the most comprehensive legislation to date designed to eliminate racial discrimination.
Although legislative efforts of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program did much to improve race relations, the problem of poverty and unemployment among African-Americans in urban areas remained unsolved. This lack of progress toward economic equality was in part responsible for the rise of militant black nationalist movements during the 1960's. Other minorities have had mixed fortunes in improving their lot. Hispanic Latinos have only recently been able to exercise significant economic and political clout in urban areas. Native Americans have had worse treatment. Other non-black ethnic minorities had to wait until 1987, when the Supreme Court extended civil rights protection to them. In 1990, the protection of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was extended to people with disabilities.
The movement toward equal civil rights for women also has a long history of confrontation and struggle. The courts upheld laws discriminating against women in education and employment on the grounds that they protected the "weaker sex" from the harsh realities of life. Women were also "protected" from participating in the electoral process until the adoption of the 19th amendment in 1920. During the 1960's, the prohibition of sex-based discrimination was heralded in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1954. Despite some clear gains in dismantling sexist stereotypes in the work force, most working women are still relegated to jobs that pay less than those held by men. When the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) failed to be ratified by the 1982 deadline, much of the controversy regarding the civil rights of women was put to rest.
One of the more controversial issues the court has dealt with recently concerns affirmative action. The depth of the Court's ambivalence on this issue is illustrated by the 1978 Bakke case, in which the Supreme Court ruled against the use of racial quotas. In 1987, however, in Johnson v. Transportation Agency, Santa Clara County, the Supreme Court upheld the use of affirmative action programs. Overall, the Supreme Court has shown sympathy for the concept of affirmative action while requiring that such practices not deviate excessively from common employment practices. In 1995, however, in Adarand Constructors v. Pena, the court ruled that minority set-aside programs would be subject to "strict scrutiny".
Americans will continue to work through their differences over the competing values of freedom and equality, and many of those debates will occur in the judicial system.