Chapter 15: Politics and civil rights

Civil rights

Legal and political protections that ensure people are treated equally and are not discriminated against because of race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation.

Minority incorporation

The process of racial and ethnic minorities gaining representation and influence within government and politics.

Minority representation in city government

African Americans and Hispanics have gained greater power in urban politics, especially since the 1960s, after being almost totally excluded from city political influence.

Policy consequences of minority representation

Minority officials are more likely to focus attention on poverty, unemployment, race relations, racial balance in city jobs, and fair distribution of city services.

Limits on minority policy influence

Minority officials often cannot create major changes in taxing and spending because city governments are constrained by economic conditions and state and federal mandates.

Police review boards

Boards created to review police conduct; one example of a policy change linked to minority representation in city government.

Minority appointments

A result of minority political power where more minorities are appointed to city boards and commissions.

Minority contractors

Minority representation in city government can increase the use of minority

Minorities in city employment

One of the most significant impacts of minority representation is increasing minority employment in city government and higher

Fourteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment declaring that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens and that states may not deny due process or equal protection of the laws.

Equal Protection Clause

Part of the Fourteenth Amendment requiring states to provide equal protection under the law to all people.

Due Process Clause

Part of the Fourteenth Amendment preventing states from depriving people of life, liberty, or property without proper legal procedures.

Reconstruction

The post

Thirteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.

Fifteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment that protected voting rights for African American men.

Hiram R. Revels

The first African American to serve in Congress; he took the Mississippi Senate seat previously held by Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Compromise of 1877

Political compromise ending military occupation of the South and Reconstruction efforts, while giving tacit approval to white supremacy in exchange for southern acceptance of national supremacy and Rutherford B. Hayes as president.

Segregation

Separation of people by race, especially in schools and public facilities, legally enforced in southern states before Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Separate but equal

Supreme Court doctrine from 1896 stating that segregated facilities were constitutional as long as they were equal; reversed by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Plessy v. Ferguson

The 1896 Supreme Court case that upheld “separate but equal” segregation under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Separate and unequal

The reality that segregated schools and facilities were rarely equal in quality, funding, or physical condition.

NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the largest African American civil rights organization and sponsor of historic desegregation litigation.

Roy Wilkins

NAACP executive director during the civil rights era who helped push for a direct challenge to segregation.

Thurgood Marshall

NAACP chief counsel who argued against segregation and later became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

1954 Supreme Court case declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional because separate schools harmed African American children and violated equal protection.

Symbolic importance of Brown

Brown gave African Americans hope, strengthened the civil rights movement, and affirmed that race should not determine citizenship rights.

Supremacy Clause

Article VI of the Constitution declaring the Constitution and federal law the “supreme law of the land,” overriding conflicting state laws.

Segregated school states in 1954

Seventeen states required racial segregation in public schools, and four additional states allowed local school boards to choose segregation.

District of Columbia segregation

Congress required segregation in public schools in Washington, D.C., before Brown.

Border

state response to Brown

Old Confederacy resistance

The eleven states of the former Confederacy resisted school integration after Brown.

Common resistance strategy

Many southern school districts delayed desegregation until forced by federal court injunctions.

Private school tuition schemes

Some states tried to pay private school tuition instead of operating integrated public schools.

Compulsory attendance changes

Some states changed attendance laws so children would not be required to attend integrated schools.

School closure strategy

Some schools facing desegregation orders attempted to close rather than integrate.

Pupil

placement laws

Desegregation delay by public safety claims

State officials argued that integration would endanger public safety as a way to delay desegregation.

Southern desegregation by 1964

Ten years after Brown, only about 2 percent of Black schoolchildren in the eleven southern states attended integrated schools.

Civil Rights Act of 1964 and school desegregation

The Act required federal agencies to end discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance and allowed termination of funding for noncompliance.

Title VI

Section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requiring federal departments and agencies to end discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance.

Department of Education desegregation plans

Under Title VI, school districts in formerly segregated states had to submit desegregation plans to receive federal assistance.

Unitary schools

School systems without separate Black and white schools; the Supreme Court required districts to end dual systems “at once.”

1969 Supreme Court desegregation decision

The Court rejected Mississippi’s request to delay desegregation and required school districts to operate only unitary schools.

De facto segregation

Racial imbalance not directly caused by official government action but by neighborhood residential patterns.

De jure segregation

Segregation created or enforced by law or official government action.

Racial imbalance

Unequal racial distribution across schools, often caused by housing patterns or past government policies.

Racial balance

The goal of making each school’s racial makeup roughly reflect the racial makeup of the entire school district.

Busing

Assigning students to schools based partly on race rather than residence and transporting them by bus to reduce racial imbalance.

Federal court supervision

Federal judges may order desegregation remedies when government or school officials contributed to racial imbalance.

Swann v. Charlotte

Mecklenburg Board of Education

School attendance

zone gerrymandering

School clustering or grouping

Combining schools or attendance areas to promote racial balance.

Cross

district busing

Detroit cross

district busing case

Residential segregation and schools

If racial imbalance comes from housing patterns rather than official action, the Constitution does not require school integration remedies.

End of desegregation supervision

Courts may end racial balancing plans when state

Strict scrutiny

The highest Supreme Court standard for reviewing laws or policies that classify people by race; the policy must be narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest.

Narrowly tailored

A policy must be carefully designed and use the least disruptive means to achieve its goal.

Compelling government interest

A very important government objective that can justify certain constitutional burdens under strict scrutiny.

Seattle school assignment case

The Supreme Court held that a Seattle race

White flight

Movement of white residents or students to suburbs or private schools in response to increasing minority populations in central

Continuing school segregation

Many large

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Landmark federal law banning discrimination in public accommodations, federally funded programs, and employment.

Title II

Section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning discrimination or segregation in public accommodations such as hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, arenas, and other public

Public accommodations

Businesses and facilities that serve the public, such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, and arenas.

Title VII

Section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Federal agency created to enforce employment discrimination law through investigation, conciliation, persuasion, and civil action.

Private discrimination

Discrimination by private individuals or businesses, which required legislative action because the Constitution mainly restricts government action.

Fair housing

Legal protection against discrimination in the sale or rental of housing to minorities.

Civil Rights Act of 1968

Law prohibiting discrimination in the sale or rental of housing based on race, color, religion, or national origin.

Fair housing exemptions

Private individuals selling their own homes without real estate agents were exempt if they did not advertise discriminatory preferences.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil rights leader, minister, and advocate of nonviolent direct action who helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott, Birmingham protests, March on Washington, and broader civil rights movement.

Montgomery bus boycott

Yearlong protest beginning in 1955 against segregated seating on Montgomery city buses, bringing national attention to Martin Luther King Jr.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Civil rights organization created in 1957 after the Montgomery bus boycott to support nonviolent civil rights activism.

Nonviolent direct action

Protest method involving open, nonviolent violation of unjust laws to dramatize injustice and force public attention.

Civil disobedience

Openly breaking an unjust law, nonviolently and with willingness to accept punishment, to protest injustice.

Letter from Birmingham City Jail

Martin Luther King Jr.’s defense of civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action.

Birmingham protests

1963 demonstrations led by King to desegregate downtown eating places and form a biracial school integration committee; protesters faced police dogs, fire hoses, electric cattle prods, and mass arrests.

March on Washington

August 28, 1963, interracial civil rights march of over 200,000 people ending at the Lincoln Memorial.

“I Have a Dream” speech

Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech delivered at the March on Washington.

Kennedy civil rights bill

President John F. Kennedy sent a strong civil rights bill to Congress after the March on Washington; it passed after his assassination as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Affirmative action

Programs by governments or private businesses designed to overcome past discrimination by giving minorities and/or women special or preferential treatment in hiring, promotion, admissions, or contracts.

Equality of opportunity

The idea that government should remove discrimination and apply equal rules without guaranteeing equal results.

Equality of results

The goal of achieving actual equality in outcomes, such as minority representation in education and employment proportional to population.

Goals and timetables

Affirmative action standards used to measure progress toward minority representation without explicitly calling them quotas.

Minority life chances

Differences in income, poverty, unemployment, education, jobs, housing, health, and life opportunities between whites, Blacks, and Hispanics.

Black

white inequality

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

1978 Supreme Court case ruling that race may be considered as a “plus” factor in admissions but specific racial quotas violate equal protection.

Allan Bakke

White applicant denied admission to UC Davis Medical School who challenged the school’s minority set

Quota

A fixed number or percentage of positions reserved for a specific group.

Harvard admissions model

Admissions approach allowing race or ethnicity to be considered as one “plus” factor in an overall review without quotas.

Benign racial classification

A race

United Steelworkers v. Weber

1979 Supreme Court case approving a private employer

United States v. Paradise

1987 Supreme Court case upholding a 50 percent Black promotion quota in the Alabama Department of Safety because of a long history of discrimination.

Firefighters Local Union v. Stotts

1984 Supreme Court case ruling that a city could not lay off white firefighters in favor of Black firefighters with less seniority.

Richmond v. Croson

1989 Supreme Court case striking down Richmond’s minority set

Set

aside program

Color

blind doctrine

Affirmative action and strict scrutiny

Race

Grutter v. Bollinger

2003 Supreme Court case allowing narrowly tailored use of race in law school admissions to promote diversity.