CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD EAIRNESS 139 EQUAL RIGHTS: STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS Through protest demonstrations in 1988,students at Gallaudet I have a dream that one day this mation will rise up and live ou the tre meaning of its College,which was founded to creed:"We hoid these truths to be self-epident:that all men are created egualm provide higher education for the -Martin Luther King Jr. obeaining the appointment of the college's first hearing-impaired president.The students argued would be a severe setback in the captured in Africa,shipped in chains across the Atlantic,and sold in open markets in Charleston and other southern seaports.When the Constitution was oralmost a month in 1977 an unlikely group of protesters staged a sit-in at being written in 1787,the question was not whether hlack people would L'the San Francisco offices of the U.S.Department of Health,Education,and become free citizens,but whether they would even be counted as human Welfare.All the protesters were blind,deaf,wheelchair-bound,or otherwise beings.It was finally decided,and written into Article I of the Constitution,that disabled.They were demanding that the federal government carry out its each slave would be counted as three fifths of a person for purposes of taxation responsibility to implement Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and representahon.The Clvil War freed the slaves,but they were soon subjected which outlawed discrimination against disabled persons by organizations that fo Tegal discrimination,such as laws that prohibited black children from receive federal assistance.In response,Health,Education,and Welfare Secretary attending school with white children.It was not until the 1950s and 1960s-not Joseph Califano agreed to implement the law;among other accommodations, so long ago-that black Americans gained nearly equal standing in law with buildings constructed with the help of federal funds would have access ramps white Americans.And even today,it requires monumental insensitivity or and toilet stalls accessible to the disabled. naivete to say that America treats its black citizens as well as it does its white The San Francisco sit-in was a struggle for equal rights.In theory,Americans ones.To take but one example:blacks with a correctable heart problem are three are equal in their rights,but in reality,they are not now equal,nor have they times less likely to receive the necessary surgery than are whites with the same ever been.Blacks,women,Hispanics,the disabled,Jews,American Indians, problem. Catholics,Asians,homosexuals,and members of nearly every other minority This chapter focuses on equal rights,or eivil rights-terms that refer to the group have been victims of discrimination in fact and in law.The nation's right of every person to equal protection under the laws and equal access to creed-"all men are created equal"-has encouraged minorities to believe that society's opportunities and public facilities.We saw in Chapter 5 that"civil they are deserving of equal justice and has given weight to their claims for fair liberties"refers to specific individual rights,including freedom of speech and treatment.But full equality is far from being a condition of American life. protection against self-inerimination."Equal rights"or"civil rights"has to do Black Americans are the most obviously disadvantaged group.The ancestors with whether individual members of differing groups-racial,sexual,and the of most black Americans came to this country as slaves,after having been like-are treated equally.Although the law refers to the rights of individuals first and to those of groups in a secondary and derivative way,this chapter Reported on CBS Evening News of January 16,1989 138
140 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 141 concentrates on groups because the history of civil rights has been largely one of group claims to equality.The chapter emphasizes the following main points: Americenshavessaulityder the They have,inega terms,equal EQUALITY AND THE DUE-PROCESS CLAUSE protection of the laws,equal access to accommodatlons and housing,and an equal OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT right to vote.Discrimination by law against persons because of race,sex,religion,and ethnicity is now largely a thing of the past. Although the Fourteenth Amendment's equal-protection whether a person is a Texan,an Oregonian,or a New Disaduntaged groups have had to slruggie for equal rights.Blacks,women,Native dause is more dosely assodated with issues of equality, Yorker,but much less than it did in the past.Americans Americans,Hispanics,and Asian Americans have all had to fight for their rights in its due-process clause is also important in this area.Sinoe were once unequal,for example,in their constitutional order to come closer to equality with white males. the Supreme Court extended the federal Constitutlon's protection against self-incrimination:they enjoyed this Legal eqlity for an Americans has not resulte in de faco equty.Blackswomen, Bill of Rights to the states,basing its reasoning on the orotection in state courts only if it was guaranteed by their due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,Ameri- state's constitution.But today,because of the Supreme mhonmm cans in the various states have become more equal in their Court's interpretation of the due-process clause,all Amer- gagmpsped rights to free expression and fair trial.On issues of icans are entitled to constitutional protection against political expression and criminal justice,itsi matters self-incrimination during criminal proceedings. full equality. N57币HEf5S正 EQUAL PROTECTION:THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT Equality under the Law The Impact of Federalism epalily op uditerieirm The Fourteenth Amendment,which was ratifed in 1868,declares in part that No State sa..demy toy on Equality Equality has always been the least completely developed of America's founding no state shall"deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of persun within its jurisdiction Disadvantaged groups have the laws."Through this equal-protection clause,the courts have protected the enmal protection of the laws achieved a greater degree od ideas.Not even Thomas Jefferson,who had a deep admiration for the common man,believed that broad meaning could be given to the claim of the Declaration such groups as black people and women from discrimination by state and local U.S.Constitution, of Independence that "all men are created equal."Jefferson rejected any governments. Fourteenth Amendment As we noted in Chapter 2,the Supreme Court initially interpreted the (equal-protection clause) rulings,rather than through suggestion that people should be equalized in their possessions,interests, state and local measures. positions,or opiuons.fo Jefferson,"equality"had a restrieted,though signin- Fourteenth Amendment so narrowly that the South's white-dominated govern- What do you thinkare the cant,meaning:people are of equal moral worth and thereby deserving of equal ments found it easy to relegate black people to second-class status.By law,they main reasons for this development?Do James treatment under the law.Even then,Jefferson made a distinction between free Madison's arguments (in men,who were entitled to legal equality,and slaves,who were not. Federalist No.10)about the Since Jefferson's time,Americans'beliefs about equality have changed substantially,but the emphasis on legal equality has not.The catchphrase of under a federal system apply to the situation?Do issues of nearly any group's claim to a fairer starding m American society has been 'equality under the law."The importance that people attach to legal equality is understandable.When made into law,claims to equality assume a power that system is preferable to a they do not otherwise have.Once people are secure in their legal rights,they are unitary ane? in a stronger position to seek equality on other fronts,such as in the economic realm.In addition,once encoded in law,a claim to equality can force officials to take positive action on behalf of a disadvantaged group.For example,some communities refused to allow the children of illegal aliens to attend public school until a 1982 Supreme Court rulig required those communities to do so.3 Americans'claims to legal equality are contained in a great many laws. Federal troops protect black students desegregating Little Among the most noteworthy are the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Rock Central High 5chool after Amendment,the Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1968,and the Voting Rights Act the 5uprer me courl's of1965. ruting in 1954 that pabltc schdols were unconstitutional.The ruling set Robert Nisbet,"Public Opinion versus Popular Opinion"Ixterest 41 (1975):171 P%rV.D,457U.5202982 offa wave of protests throughout he South.®wr
142 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7*EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 143 were not allowed to attend the same schools,use the same public restrooms,or go to the same hospitals as white people.In 1954,however,the Supreme Courl announced in Crig v.Boren(1976)that sex classifications were permissible if issued its historic decision in Brown v.Bourd of Edncation of Topeka,which they served "important governmental objectives"and were "substantially" declared that racial segregation of public schools violates the equal-protection related to the achievement of those objectives.?The Court thus placed sex clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. distinctions in an"intermediate"(or"almost suspect category,to be scruti- nized more closely than some other classifications (for example,income levels) but,unlike racial classifications,justified in some instances. The Reasonable-Basis Test The intermediate-scrutiny test isso inexact that some scholars question its The equal-protection clause does not require government to treat all groups or validity as a legal principle.Nevertheless,when evaluating claims of sex classes of people the same way in all circumstances.In fact,laws routinely treat discrimination,the judiciary applies a stricter level of scrutiny than is required people unequally.For example,age restrictions have been placed on voting by the rational-basis test.Rather than allowing government broad leeway to participation,the driving of automobiles,and the drinking of alcoholic beverag- treat men and women differently,the Supreme Court has recently invalidated es.By law,twenty-one-year-olds can drink alcohol but twenty-year-olds most of the laws it has reviewed that contain sex classifications.In 1983,for cannot.Inequality is also written into the tax code:people who make more example,the Court disallowed lower monthly pension payments to women money pay taxes at a higher marginal rate than people who make less money. merely because they tend to live longer than men.The Court concluded that The judiciary allows such inequalities because they are held to be "reasona- women were entitled to monthly payments comparable to those of men. biy"related to a legitimate government interest.In applying this reasonable- Yet the Supreme Court has upheld some sexually discriminatory laws.In basis test,the courts give the benefit of the doubt to government It need.only Rostker v.Goldberg (1980),for example,the male-only registration for the show that a parteular law-has-a-sensible basis.For example,the courts have military draft was upheld on grounds that the exclusion of women from combat held that the goal of reducing fatalities from-aleohol-related accidents involving duty serves a legitimate and important purpose.It is safe to say that the young drivers is a valid reason for imposing a twenty-one-year minimum age Supreme Court would never have upheld a draft system that required registra- requirement for the purchase of alcohol. tion of black men but not of white men.That is,the level of scrutiny that the judiciary applies to sexual classifications is less strict than the level of scrutiny applied to racial classifications. The Strict-Scrutiny Test Although the reasonable-basis test applies to most social classifications,it does EQUAL ACCESS:THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACTS OF 1964 AND 1968 not apply to racial or ethnic classifications,particularly when these categories serve to discriminate against minority-group members.Any law that attempts a The Fourteenth Amendment applies only to action by government.As we saw racial or ethnic classification is subject to the strict-scrutiny test,under which in Chapter 2,the Supreme Court ruled after the Civil War that the language of such a law is unconstitutional in the absence of an overwhelming argument on the Fourteenth Amendment could not be construed as forbidding discrimina- the need for it.Such an argument is nearly impossible to construct;after all, tion by private parties.Owners could legally bar black perple trom rastaurants, what could justify a law that treated people less favorably merely because their hotels,and other accommodations,and cmplovers could frecly discriminate in their job practices. skin is not white? The strict-scrutiny test has virtually elminated race and ethnicity as permissi- ble classifications when the effect is to put members of a minority group at a Accommodations and Jobs disadvantage.The Supreme Court's position is that race and national origin are suspect classifications-that such classifications have invidious discrimination Since the 1960s private firms havy had much less freedom to discriminate for as their purpose and therefore any law containing such a elassification is reasons of race,sex,ethnicity,or feligion.The Civil Rights Act of 1964,which is unconstitutional. based on the commerce power of Congress under the Constitution,entitles all persons to equal access to restaurants,bars,theaters,hotels,gasoline stations, and similar establishments serving the general public.The legislaton also bars The "Intermediate"-Scrutiny Test discrimination in the hiring promotion,and wages of emplovees of medium- The strict-scrutiny test emerged after the 1954 Browon ruling and became a basis sized and large firms.The Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not regulate people's for invalidating laws that discriminated against black people.As other groups, beliets,friendships,or use of their own homes-no legislation could put an ond especially women,began to organize and press for their rights in the late 1960s to prejudice and discnmination in these realms-but the act does prohibis and early 1970s,the Supreme Court gave early signs that it might expand the discniminatory conduct in public places,such as restaurants and motels,and in scope of suspect classifications to include gender.In the end,however,the Court employment situations involving interstate commerce.A lew forms of job Crsig v.Bores,429 U.S.190 (1976) Brooon v.Baard of Education of Topeka,347 U.S.483 (1954)
144 PART TWO女，INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7*EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 145 discrimination are still lawful under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.For example, an owner-operator of a small business can discriminate in hiring his or her 39,135 co-workers,and a religious school can take the religion of a prospective teacher into account. FIGURE 7-1 Indicators of the The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has nearly eliminated the most overt forms of 14.5% Economic Status of Whites and 526.175 Hlacks in the United States discrimination in the area of public accommodations.Some restaurants and White Americars tend to be hotels may provide better service to white customers,but outright refusal to better off financially than black serve blacks or other minority-group members is rare.Such a refusal is a Americans.The 515.080 violation of the law and could easily be proven in many instances.It is harder to 6.0% prove discrimination in job decisions;accordingly,the act has been lesseffecive cause and an effect of persistent racial discriminabion.Sovro 5 in rooting out employment discrimination-a subject that will be discussed in detail later in the chapter. 53,397 Abstract of the United States 1988 (Wsskington,D.C:LL5. Percent Gouemment Prinling Ofce,198g) Housing 2达，4M1.Dri net worth The Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination in housing.A building d如or wedian househald net owner cannot ordinarily refuse to sell or rent housing because of a person's race, religion,ethnicity,or sex.More than three-fourths of all housing transactions- 勇whie 图星ak worth are froue 1984:data for sales and rentals-are covered by the antidiscrimination provisions of the 1968 Civil Rights Act.Exceptions are allowed for owners of small multifamily The Nineteenth Amendment,which in 1920 gave women the right to vote, dwellings who reside on the premises and for owners of three or fewer houses who sell or rent without using an agent and who do not indicate a discriminato- effectively ended resistance to women's suffrage;paradoxically,resistance to black suffrage was intensified by the Fifteenth Amendment,which in 1870 gave ry preference when advertising the property. [-ANIY☑STHE LSUE black persons the right to vote.Southern whites invented a series of devices that Despite legal prohibitions on discrimination,housing in America remains were designed to keep blacks from voting and thus to prevent them from having White Americans highly segregated.One reason is the legacy of discriminatory practices that were Acceptance of Racial common in the past.Until 1948,when the Supreme Court outlawed them,0 an electoral weapon with which to fight discrimination.Through poll taxes Integration whites-only primary elections,and rigged literacy tests as a qualification for 'restrictive covenants"in the deeds to many properties barred their sale to m taken in the 1960s and in the blacks,Jews,Catholics,or members of other designated "undesirable"groups. registration to vote,blacks in many areas of the South were effectively disenfranchised.For example,almost no votes were cast by blacks during the 1980s Indicate that white Banks contributed to housing segregation by "redlining"-refusing to grant Americans have become mortgage loans in certain neighborhoods.This practice drove down the selling years 1920-1946 in North Carolina.1 prices of homes in these neighborhoods,which led to an influx of blacks and an Barriers to black participation in elections began to crumble in the mid-1940s other aspects of American exodus of whites."Blockbusting"was a tactic used by some unscrupulous real when the Supreme Court declared that whites-only primary elections were estate firms:they frightened white homeowners into selling at low prices by unconstitutional Two decades later,through the Twenty-fourth Amendment, moving a black family into a previously all-white neighborhood.Redlining and poll taxes were outlawed. The major step toward equal voting rights for blacks was passage of the blockbusting are prohibited by the 1968 Civil Rights Act,but many of the intervention to pramote racial segregated neighborhoods that they helped to create still exist. Voting Rights Act of 1965,which forbids discrimination in yoting and registra inteyration.Are these Another reason for the persistence of segregated housing patterns is the fact tion.This legislation empowers federal agents to register voters and to oversee that the economic condition of most black families is greatly inferior to that of participation in elections.The threat of federal agents descending on county courthouses was enough to persuade officials in most southern communities to conclusions would you draw many white families (see Figure 7-1).Low income tends to limit the areas in which black families can afford to live.Today less than a third of black allow blacks to register and vote,but agents had to intervene actively in some about what mast whHe Americans really think about Americans live in a neighborhood that is mostly white. locations.The Voting Rights Act,as interpreted by the courts,also eliminated racial progress? literacy tests:local officials can no longer deny registration and voting for reasons of illiteracy.In fact,officials in communities where a language other EQUAL BALLOTS:THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 than English is widely spoken are now required by law to provide ballot Free elections are perhaps the foremost symbol of American democracy,yet the materials in that other language. right to vote has only recently become a reality for many Americans,particular- ly those of the black race. See J.Mo gan The SHa8 F 0 ersity Press,1974). ck:Knope,1949495, Shelley v.Kroemer,334 U.S.1 (1948) Swich v.right,1U..6()
146 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7*EQUAL RIGHT5:STRUGGLING TOWARD EAIRNESS 147 Percent voting bestowed by the more powerful upon the less powerful.And,as the effort of AN☑生HS☑ 0 black Americans to acquire voting rights illustrates,efforts to achieve legal equality may require decades of struggle before they succeed. Homosexual Rights Whites n1985he5 Resistance to granting disadvantaged groups a greater degree of equality is upreme Court ruled that the Corstitution rooted in prejudice and privilege.Certain groups have always claimed superiori- does not give consenting 60 ty over other groups on the basis of superficial differences such as skin color. adults the rignt to have Even today,more than a fourth of white Americans claim that the black race is "Tess able"than their own race.1 Legal discrimination serves the material interests as well as the status needs of a dominant group.The classic case was disapprove of this ruling? When asked this question in the white southern plantation owner,for whom slavery was an issue not of a Gallup poll,51 percent of FIGURE 7-2 Voter Turnout in human freedom and dignity but of a lavish lifestyle built on the sweat and blood the respondents said that Presidential Campaigns among they approved and 41 percent Black and White Americans, of the black race. 20 said that they disapproved (8 1952-1985 Equality is a subject that loses urgency when it is considered apart from its nt had no pa ion) Voter tumout among black historical context.The compelling need for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other such laws,and the great triumph their passage represents,cannot be under- Court said,in effect,that during the 1960s as legal 0 stood without an awareness of the long struggle that led up to them.We can homosexuals are not a legally obstacles to their voting were 195256606468727680 日4 88 establish this context by looking briefly at the efforts of American blacks, protected category. Election Stdies,1952-1988 women,Native Americans,Hispanics,and Asians to achieve fuller equality. certain other groups. including radal minorithes, women.and the elderly. From the late 1950s to 1968,black registration and voting rose sharply (see What legal,political,or other Figure 7-2);the increase was especially pronounced in the South.In Mississippi, BLACK AMERICANS siderabons might justify society in treating black registration rose by 900 percent in just the five years from 1965 to 1970 homesexuals differently from The influx of black voters into the southern electorate does not mean that race is Of all America's problems,none has been so persistent as the white race's unwillingness to yield a full share of society's benefits to members of the black no longer an issue in the region's politics,but its impact has been diminished and candidates who might previously have run blatantly racist campaigns have race.It took a civil war to bring slavery to an end,but the conflict did not stop been forced to moderate their appeals to bigotry." institutionalized racism.When Reconstruction ended in 1877 with the with- Blacks have had some success in winning election to public office.Although drawal of federal troops from the South,southern whites regained power and the percentage of black elected officials nationwide is still far below the gradually reestablished racial segregation by enacting laws that prohibited black proportion of blacks in the population,it has risen sharply since the early citizens from using the same public facilities as whites.1 The Supreme Court 1960s.15 As of 1989,there were more than twenty black members of Congress accepted this arrangement in Plessy v.Ferguson(1896),ruling that"separate" and 200 black mayors-including the mayors of Los Angeles,Philadelphia, facilities for the two races did not violate the equal-protection clause of the Atlanta,and Detroit. Fourteenth Amendment as long as the facilities were "equal."8 Congress renewed the Voting Rights Act in 1970,1975,and 1982.The 1982 The Court proceeded to ignore its own standard,allowing southern states and extension is noteworthy because it renews the act for twenty years and requires communities to maintain inferior facilites for their black residents.Public states and localities to clear with federal officials any electoral change that has schools for blacks nearly always had fewer teachers and books and less the effect,intended or not,of reducing the voting power of a minority group classroom space than did those for whites.In some cases,no facilities at all were This provision has the potential to enable minorities to increase their electoral established for the black community;for example,in the whole of the Deep influence.When congressional-district boundaries are redrawn after the 1990 South,there were no state medical or dental colleges for blacks.Black leaders census,a state may find it difficult to gain federal approval of district boundaries challenged these diseriminatory state and local policies through legal action,but that appear designed to keep blacks or Hispanics from having a majority. not until the late 1930s and 1940s did the Supreme Court begin to modify its Plessy position.The Court began modestly by ruling that where no public facilities existed for blacks,they must be allowed to use those reserved for The Struggle for Equality whites. The history of America shows that disadvantaged groups have rarely achieved an additional degree of legal equality without a struggle.Equality is seldom in 1989 Tom Bradley was elected uSee Richard Scher and James Button,"Voting Rights Act:Imp and Imp Paul M.Sniderman with Michael Gray Hagenace gualiy(Chatham.NJ:Chatham bo a fifth term as mavor of Los 5.Bullock II and Charles M.Lamh.eds 198530. Policy Angeles.He is one of the Brooks/Cole 19)ch.2 Bass and Walter Palitics 二益完装之满心 increasing-naumber of Pv.rg45163US.537189 nority-group members wha (New York:Longman.192) See Loren Miller,The Pefitiomers (New Yock:Meridian Books,1967). hold pablic o西e.民ick "Missouri ex rel.Gaimes v.Canada,305 U.S.57 (1938). owne/Stock.Bston)
148 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 149 The Brown Decision parliamentary obstacle that racial conservatives could muster,the Civil Rights Substantial relief for black Americans was finally achieved in 1954 with Brown Act of 1964 was enacted.Even then,southern states resorted to legal maneuver- NA1Y2 THF TSSUE星 v.Board of Education of Topeka,arguably the most significant ruling in Supreme ing and other delaying tactics to blunt the legislation's impact.The state of Why Are Black Americans Virginia,for example,established a commission to pay the legal expenses of Losing Ground? Court history.The case began when Linda Carol Brown,a black child in Topeka Although the lives of blac Kansas,was denied admission to an all-white elementary school that she passed white citizens who were brought to court for violations of the federal act Amer every day on her way to her all-black school,which was twelve blocks farther Nevertheless,momentum was on the side of racial equality.The murder of two ns have improved in absolute terms since the away.The case was initiated on her behalf by the National Association for the civil rights workers during a voter registration drive in Selma,Alabama,helped mid-gixties,their lives have Advancement of Colored People(NAACP)and was argued before the Supreme to sustain the momentum."President Lyndon Johnson called for new legisla- not improved much in Court by Thurgood Marshall,who later became the Court's first black justice a tion that would end racial barriers to voting.Congress's answer was the 1965 n with those af whites.The job and income In its decision,the Court fully reversed its Plessy doctrine by declaring that racial Voting Rights Act. gaps have grown:the segregation of public schools "generates [among black children]a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and The Aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement been closing,s now minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone....Separate educational facilities widening:and the life are inherently unequal. After 1965 the civil rights movement went awry.The rising expectations of expectancy of blacks has started to drop while that of A 1954 Gallup poll indicated that a sizable majority of souther whites black Americans were not met in terms of jobs and other benefits,and rioting contin es to Increase, dTeH7e2u边ega, opposed the Brown decision,and billboards were quickly erected along souther occurred in Detroit,Newark,Los Angeles,and other cities between 1966 and Why are blacks going Brown v.Boord of roadways that called for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.In the 1968.In addition,the attention of Washington policymakers had been distract- backward in these important Education of Topeka (1954) so-called Southern Manifesto,southem congressmen urged their state govern- ed from the civil rights movement by the escalating war in Vietnam,which was respects?Is it mainly because new poll' ments to "resist forced integration by any lawful means."In 1957 rioting broke also siphoning away federal funds that might have been used for education, natatives have teen made in out when Governor Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard to training,and jobs programs for poor blacks (see Chapter 27).When King was their behalf in reoent years block the entry of black children to the Litle Rock public schools.To restore murdered in 1968,the most active phase of the modern civil rights movement ind some edsting p order and carry out the desegregation of the Little Rock schools,President came to an end. have been ut3Ort Dwight D.Eisenhower used his power as the nation's commander in chief to The most significant progress in history toward the legal equality of all mainly because of the place the Arkansas National Guard under federal control.For their part, Americans occurred during the 1960s.Yet King's dream of a color-blind society destructive impact of dnig northern whites were neither strongly for nor strongly against school desegre. has remained elusive.3 By some indicators,the status of black Americans has gation.A Gallup poll taken shortly after the Bron decision indicated that asm actually deteriorated since the modern civil rights movement began.According lck community?If both majority of whites outside the South agreed with it. these reasons apply,are they aSee David J.Garn connected?Can anything bat The Black Civil Rights Movement University Press,1975). conbemporary,be at the bottom of the whole After Brown,the struggle of black Americans for their rights became a political problem? movement.Perhaps no single event tumned national publie opinion so dramati- cally against segregation as a 1963 march led by the Reverend Martin Luther King,Jr.,in Birmingham,Alabama.An advocate of nonviolent protest,King had been leading peaceful demonstrations and marches for nearly eight years before that fateful day in Birmingham.As the nation watched in disbelief on television,police officers led by Birmingham's sheriff,Eugene "Bull"Connor, attacked King and his followers with dogs,cattle prods,and firehoses. The modem civil rights movement peaked with the triumphant March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of August 2,1963.Organized by King and other civil rights leaders,it attracted 250,000 marchers,one of the largest The Rev.Martin Luther King,Ir. gatherings in the history of the nation's capital."I have a dream,"King told the became the nation's conscience gathering,"that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they as he led the black civil rights will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their movement from the Montgomery,Alabama,bus character." boycott in 1955 until he was A year later,after a months-long fight in Congress that was marked by every murdered in 1968.Here he dream"speech at the Lincoin Memorial in Washington,D.C. to a cronwd of 250,000 people in 1963.(UFi/Beitmann Newsphotos)
150 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD EAIRNESS 151 to U.S.Department of Labor statistics,the unemployment rate for blacks in 1955 was 1.2 times higher than that for whites,but by 1985 it was 2.3 times higher.Black Americans'income also declined in proportion to white Ameri- cans'income during the same period.In the mid-1980s,reversing a previous trend,the proportion of young blacks going to college began to decline. WOMEN In view可this entire The United States carried over from English common law a political disregard disfrancitisement of one-half the for women,forbidding them to vote,hold public office,and serve on juries. Upon marriage,a woman essentially lost her identity as an individual and becnuse women do feel usually surrendered her right to own and dispose of property without her husband's consent. and frauduiently deprived of The first women's rights convention in America was held in 1848 in Seneca hei巾w5 t sacred rigi,w insist that they habe inmediate Falls,New York,after Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been admission to all the rights and barred from the main floor of an antislavery convention.Thereafter,however, privileges which belong to them the movement for women's rights became closely aligned with the abolitionist as citizens of the UInited States. movement,and women had some expectation that black emancipation would The Equal Rights Amendment Elizabeth Cady Stanton also bring them their civil rights.However,the passage of the post-Civil War fell three states short of et al.. constitutional amendments proved to be a setback for the women's movement. ratification in 1982.(Paul The Thirteenth,Fourteenth,and Fifteenth amendments barred discrimination Conklin) Falis Corventon by color but not by sex."Finally,in 1920,the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted,forbidding denial of the right to vote"by the United States or by any men)favored the ERA,36 percent were opposed,and9 percent had no opinion. state on account of sex." Nevertheless,the ERA failed to gain the support of a majority of state legislators @》T起心NEHm in the thirty-eight states needed for ratification.The proposed amendment was three states short when the deadline for ratification came and went in 1982. Women's Equality The Equal Rights Amendment Although conflict b ween groups universal,the Equality of rights tnder the law In 1923 women's leaders proposed another constitutional amendment,one that Women's Legal Gains nature of the conflict is often shail not be denied or abridged would guarantee equal rights for women.The amendment failed to gain 的the United States or by amy congressional approval then and on several subsequent attempts.Finally,in Although the ERA did not become part of the Constitution,it helped bring particularized.Racial confkt in the United States cannat slate o accotont of ser 1973,the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)received congressional approval and women's rights to the forefront at a time when developments in Congress and ead y be compared wit. Proposed Equal the courts were contributing significantly to the legal equality of the sexes. say,religious conflict in Rights Amendment went to the state legislatures for ratifcation.The proposed amendment stated: Northem Ireland.The one "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United Among the congressional initiatives that have helped women are the Equal Pay States or by any state on account of sex." Act of 1963,which prohibits sex discrimination in salary and wages by some all nations is that of gender: Congressional support for the ERA was an outgrowth of the 1960s civil rights categories of employers;the Civil Rights Act of 1964,which prohibits sex omen everywhete are not movement and of the changing demands of women.Families were smaller,and discrimination in programs that receive federal funding:Title IX of the equal to men in law oc in more women were entering the labor force."Proponents of the ERA argued that Education Amendment of 1972,which prohibits sex discrimination in educa- fact.But there are large tences between countries. women cannot truly be equal and sexism-discrimination on the basis of tion;and the Equal Credit Act of 1974,as amended in 1976,which prohibits sex sex-cannot be eliminated as long as legal distinctions between men and discrimination in the granting of financial credit. A1988st如中y by the Population Crisis Committee women are maintained.Ratification of the ERA was opposed by traditionalists, The Fourteenth Amendment's equal-protection clause has also become an placed the United Sates third who argued that there is a need to retain special legal protections for women, instrument of women's equality.The Broion decision encouraged women's rall in women's equality. behind only Sweden and mainly in the areas of the draft,working conditions,and family life."A 1982 rights activists to believe that the equal-protection clause could be the basis for Finland (see Chapter 1). Gallup survey indicated that 55 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of sex-discrimination rulings.In Reed v.Reed(1971)the Supreme Court invoked equal protection for the first time in a case involving women's rights,declaring unconstitutional an Idaho statute that gave preference to men in appointments MPor a histary of the wamen's rights movement,see Eleanof Flexer,Centary of Sirggle,rev.ed. as administrators of the estates of dead children.3 (Cambridge,Mass:Harvard University Press,1975) See Ellen Carol DuBois,Fewin The 1984 Grove City case,which involved alleged sex discrimination,was a in Americg,1848-1869 (lthaca,N.Y.:C mnell University Press,1978)Susan Cary Nicholas,Rights setback:the Supreme Court concluded that the antidiscrimination requirements and Wrongs (Old Westbury.N.Y.:Feminist Presa,1979). See 5uzanne M.Bianchi and Daphne Spain,Americen Women in Trensition (New York:Russel Sage Foundation,1986). See Joyce Gelb and Marian Lef Palley,Wowren and Public Policies(Princeton.N.L:Princeton University Preas,19821. See Janet K.Boles,The Palitics of the Egunl Rights Amendment (New York:Longman,1977) Reed v.Reed,404 US.71 (1971)
152 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7*EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 153 ANALYZE THE ISSUE of federal grants to educational institutions applied only to activities funded a lower court but were reversed by a U.S.court of appeals.Advocates of Comparable Worth directly,in whole or in part,with federal money.However,in 1988 Congress comparable worth did persuade the Minnesota and lowa legislatures to enact Sbould women recclve the altered this policy through legislation that prohibits discriminatory practices in new salary structures that will eventually provide employees of those states same pay as men if their jobs any activity of organizations that receive federal funding. from those with equal pay,regardless of sex,for jobs requiring comparable training and held byere skills.On the national level,though,the Reagan and Bush administrations have levels of education and Comparable Worth opposed the concept of comparable worth,contending that market forces alone should dictate salaries in the private sector. In the past two decades,increasing numbers of women have found employment in traditionally male-dominated fields.For example,about a third of law school wamen's groups.Can it be graduates now are women.Women have also attained more and higher political NATIVE AMERICANS accomplished on a large scale positions than ever before.In 1981 President Ronald Reagan appointed the first When white settlers began arriving in America in large numbers during the natton's economy Can woman to serve on the Supreme Court,Sandra Day O'Connor.The Democratie seventeenth century,8 to 10 million Native Americans were living in the women achieve full equality party in 1984 chose Geraldine Ferraro as its vice-presidential nominee,the first territory that would become the United States.By 1900.the Native American without achieving income time a woman has run on the national ticket of a major political party.In population had plummeted to less than 1 million.Diseases brought by white parity with men?Which of these do you Nebraska in 1986,both the Republican and Democratic parties nominated settlers had taken a toll on the various Indian tribes,but so had wars and women to run for governor-another political first. massacres."The only good Indian is a dead Indian"is not simply a hackneyed think is more important? Which is more likely to win Despite such signs of progress.women are still a long way from political, expression from cowboy movies.It was part of the strategy of westward social,and economic equality with men.Women occupy less than 5 percent of expansion,as settlers and U.S.troops alike mercilessly drove the eastern Indians the nation's gubernatorial and congressional offices.Women also hold a from their ancestral lands to the Great Plains,then took those lands too. disproportionately stnall number of the better-paying jobs.On average,women Today Native Americans number more than 1 million in population,of whom earn only about two-thirds as much as men.This situation has led to demands about half live on or close to reservations set aside for them.Those who retain by women for equal pay for work that is of similar diffculty and responsibility ties to a reservation are among America's most impoverished,illiterate,and and that requires similar levels of education and training-a concept called jobless citizens.Native Americans are less than half as likely to attend college as comparable worth.A comparable-worth policy would eliminate salary inegul- other Americans,their life expectancy is more than ten years less than the ties resulting from the fact that some occupations are female-dominated while national average,and their infant mortality rate is more than three times higher others are male-dominated.This view was the basis for a legal suit against the than that of white Americans. state of Washington brought by a group of female state employees,who won in The civil rights movement of the 1960s at first did not include Native Americans.Then,in the early 1970s,militant Native Americans occupied the HGrove City College v.Bell,465 U.S.555 (1984) Employees in certain job categories dominated by women-day-care workers, secretaries,and so on-are paid male-domnated ts with similar educational requirements and levels of.The policy,most Native Americans concept of comparable worth ve oo reserv信B0t核，and mam tcp05eds者remedy for such aspects of their traditional way ineguities.(Rlchard h Kalvar/Magnum) (Rene Burri/Magnum)
154 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 155 Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington,D.C.,and later seized control of the Illegal Aliens village of Wounded Knee on a Sioux reservation in southwestem South Dakota, exchanging gunfire with U.S.marshals.These episodes brought attention to the Hispanics have benefited from laws and court rulings aimed primarily at grievances of Native Americans and perhaps contributed to passage in 1974 of protecting other groups.Thus,although the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was largely legislation that granted Native Americans on reservations a greater measure of a response to the condition of black people,its provisions apply broadly.Just as control over federal programs affecting them.However,Native Americans had it is unlawful to deny a hotel room to an individual because he or she is black,so already benefited from the legislative climate created by the civil rights it is unlawful to do so because he or she is a Native American,Asian,or movement of the 1960s.In 1968 Congress had enacted the Indian Bill of Rights Hispanic. which gives Native Americans on reservations constitutional guarantees that However,Hispanics face some distinctive problems.The fact that many do are similar to those held by other Americans. not speak English is the main reason for a 1968 amendment to the 1964 Civil In recent years Native Americans have filed suit to reclaim lost ancestral lands Rights Act that funds public school programs offering English instruction in the and have won a few settlements.But they stand no realistic chance of getting language of children for whom English is a second language.In addition,many back even those lands that had been granted them by federal treaty but were Hispanics are illegal aliens;these individuals do not have the full rights of later sold off or simply taken forcibly by federal authorities.Native Americans citizens.In De Canns v.Bica (1976)for example the Supreme Court uphetd a were not even official citizens of the United States until an act of Congress in state law barring illegal aliens from employment 1924.This status came too late to be of much help;their traditional way of life In 1986 Congress passed landmark immigration and naturalization legisla- had already been seriously eroded. tion,the Simpson-Mizzoli Act,which affected Hispanics primarily.The legisla tion provided that illegal aliens who could prove that they had lived continu- HISPANIC AMERICANS ously in the United States for five years were eligible to become citizens.The act also mandated fines for employers who knowingly hired aliens without work The fastest-growing minority in the United States is Hispanic Americans,people permits;the resulting lack of job openings would eliminate the main reason for The son of Mexican immigrants, with Spanish-speaking backgrounds.The 1980 census counted 15 million aliens to enter the country illegally.The legislation was intended partly to Hispanics living in the United States,and it is projected that they will replace. relieve employment and social-service pressures on states bordering Mexico, black Americans as the nation's largest racial or ethnic minority group by the which is the country of origin of most illegal aliens.Hispanic leaders had mixed in 1962 to fight for better pay year 2000.They have emigrated to the United States primarlly from Mexico and reactions to the legislation,welcoming the provision granting citizenship to and working conditions for the Caribbean islands,mainly Cuba and Puerto Rico.About half of all migrant farm laborers and to aliens of long standing residence but worrying that the deportation of nonquali- Pwolestdlaianinalic Hispanics in the United States were homn in Mexico or trace their ancestry there fied atiens would result in the breakup of families.The number of illegal aliens Hispanics.Ironically,the Hispanics are concentrated in their states of entry;thus Florida,New York,and who applied to become citizens fell short of government projections.Apparent- effectiveneas of his efforts made New Jersey have large numbers of Caribbean Hispanics,while Califoria,Texas, ly some aliens were suspicious of the program,believing that they would be unlonization seem less urgent: Arizona,and New Mexico have many immigrants from Mexico.Mor-thahaif arrested and deported when they applied for citizenship at the offices of the he UFWA's members the population of Los Angeles is of Hispanic-mostly Mexican-ancestry. Immigration and Naturalization Service. dropped from 100,000 at its peak in the early 1970s to 20,000 in 1987.Oohn Chase/Stock, Migrant Workers Growing Political Power The most publicized civil rights actions involving Hispanics were the farm Hispanics are an important political force in some states and communities,and workers'strikes of the late 1960s and the 1970s,which aimed at gaining basic their influence is likely to increase substantially in the next decade or two.In labor rights for migrant farm workers.Migrants were working long hours for 1974 Arizona and New Mexico elected governors of Spanish-speaking back- low pay,traveling from place to place as crops became ready for harvesting ground.New Mexico elected its second Hispanic governor in 1982.The Carter They usually lived near the fields where they worked,in shacks without administration included a large number of Hispanics in high positions.Presi- electricity or plumbing.They were unwelcome in many local schools,and dent Reagan appointed an even greater number to positions of authority. sometimes in local hospitals as well,because few of them had health insurance including several members of the White House staff.The growing political and or the money to pay for their medical care cultural influence of Hispanics,however,has made them a target for criticism in Farm owners at first refused to bargain with migrant workers over pay,hours, some cities.For example,some non-Hispanic residents of Miami have become conditions,or benefits.Only after several years of strikes and a surprisingly increasingly vocal in their opposition to bilingual education,claiming that effective nationwide boycott of Califoria grapes and lettuce did California in Spanish-speaking residents (most of whom are of Cuban background)are the 1970s pass a law giving migrant workers the right to bargain collectively making little effort to learn English or adjust to their new culture and are thus through their organization,the United Farm Workers.The strikes were led in turning Miami into a Spanish-speaking city. California by Cesar Chavez,who himself grew up in a Mexican American migrant family.Chavez's tactics in California were copied in other states, particularly Texas,but the results were less successful. "De Canas v.BicA,424 U.5.351 (1976). 5ee F.Chris Garcin and Rudolph O.de la Garza,The Chicamo Politiesl Experience (Duxbury,Mass: n.Sslsi Puedes:Caser Chaoez and the New AmericanRetion (New York Dudbury Pre,197刀
3 156 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 157 EAST-WES EXTENDING THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS: YORYU AT酊 THE DISABLED AND THE ELDERLY 花BANA Women and racial and ethnic minorities are not the only not provided with instructional materials in Braille).In TELAS groups whose members suffer from discrimination.Al- most any group that is vulnerable or has a minority fo Dee characteristic has experienced discrimination in one form or another.Two such groups that have been receiving viduals to earn a moderate income without losing their Medicaid health coverage. increased attention from govemment are the disabled and the clderly. The government has also been moving to protect For years the disabled were thought of as a tiny elderly Americans from discrimination.The Age Discrimi- nation Act of 1975 and the Age Discrimination in Employ- proportion of the American population and therefore ment Act of 1967 outlaw discrimination against older more of a special-interest group than a civll rights classifi. cation.But,according to the U.S.Census Bureau,more workers in hiring for jobs in which age is not dearly a than 37 million Americans are physically impaired and crucial factor in job performance.More recently,manda- between 13 million and 14 million have a disability so tory retirement ages for most jobs have been eliminated by law.Retirement at age seventy can no longer be severe that they are unable to perform some critical function,such as hearing,seeing,walking or lifting.They arbitrarlly decided by management;it must be justified by the nature of the particular job or the performance of the constitute about 5 percent of the population-a sizable particular employee. Hispanic Americans are exerting minority. By the year 2020 there will be an estimated one retired considerable political,sodal,and A major goal for the disabled is easier access to the American for every two working Americans.By virtue of cultural influence in many mainstream of socicty.The 1973 Rehabilitation Act has their numbers,the elderly will become an even more communities,as here in moved them toward this goal.So has the Education for All powerful political constituency.As a consequence,politl- Brownsvibe,Texas.(Paul Handicapped Children Act of 1975,which mandates that Conklin/Texastock) all children,however severe their disability,receive a free, cal issues of concem to the elderly-Including pecial housing and continued employment at a reduced level- appropriate education.Before the legislation,1 million ASIAN AMERICANS handic are certain to be taken serlously by elected officials. pped children were receiving no education and Chinese and Japanese laborers were the first Asians to come to the United States another 3 million were recelving an inappropriate one (as in the case of a blind child who is not taught Braille or is nthe Sodal Barien The in large numbers.They were brought into western states-during the latter nineteenth century to work in mines and to build railroads.When the need for this labor declined,Congress in 1892 ordered a temporary halt to Chinese immigration.Over the next three decades informal agreements kept all but a people now emigrate to the United States each year,and a majority come from few Asians out of the country.In 1921 the United States ended its traditional Asian and Latin American countries.By the vear 2000.Asian Americans will poticy of untmited immigration and established immigration quotas based on number about 12 million.or between 4 and 5 percent of the total U.S. country of origin.Western European countries were given large quotas and population.Most Asian Americans live on the West Coast,particularly in Asian countries tiny ones.The Japanese were entitied to about 150 arrivals a year until 1930,when Congress excluded the Japanese entirely.Japan had The rights of Asian Americans have been expanded primarily by court rulings protested a California law that prohibited persons of Japanese descent from and legislation,such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964,that were responses to the buying property in the state.Rather than finessing what was called"the problems of other minorities.In a few instances,however,the rights of California problem,"Congress decided to be blunt with Japan:its people were minorities have been defined by actions of Asian Americans.For example,in not wanted in the United States. Lau v.Nichols (1974),a case involving Chinese Americans,the Supreme Court This disermination against Asians did not change substantially until 1965, ruled that public schools with a large proportion of children for whom English when Congress enacted legislation that adjusted the immigration quotas to is a second language must offer English instruction in the children's first favor those who had previously been disadvantaged.This change in the law was anguage. a product of the 1960s civil rights movement,which,as we have indicated, Asian Americans are an upwardly mobile group.The values of most Asian sensitized national leaders to all forms of discrimination.About half a million families include a commitment to hard work,which,in the American context, has included an emphasis on academic achievement.For example,Asians make James Truslow Adams,The Merci of.vol:4 (New York:5cribner's,1933)284-285. WLau v.Nichals,414 U.S.563 (1974)