Civil Rights: Where Liberty and Equality Collide
This chapter was dedicated to a presentation of civil rights that serve as calls for government intervention on our individual behalf in order to ensure equal treatment for all within our society. This process began with the Civil War Amendments, especially the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. However, for the first hundred years the courts took an economic based interpretation of this clause, which served to hinder rather than help the cause of individual civil rights.
By the 1960s though, a new court with a new agenda had effectively sounded the death knell for Jim Crow segregation in the South with the landmark Brown v. Board (1954) decision overturning the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) doctrine of “separate but equal.” Energetic presidents Kennedy and Johnson, along with the Congress, spearheaded the winds of change with a series of acts that collectively enfranchised the African-American South and set up a system of affirmative action to address racial and gender inequalities.
By the late 1970s, conservatives counteracted previous advancements of affirmative action with decisions like the Bakke case in 1978, which struck down racial quotas. This activity was continued into the 1980s and beyond with the Rehnquist and now Robert’s Court’s rollback on affirmative action and school desegregation issues. However, in the 2000s, certain extensions of civil rights have been accorded to previously unknown groups regarding this phenomenon, such as in the Court’s reaffirming affirmative action considerations of race in Fisher v. University of Texas and the right of gay couples to marry in Obergefell v. Hodges.
The chapter also discusses the issue of civil rights through their manifestation as social movements, which are collective enterprises that attempt to change the organizational design or characteristic operating procedures of a society in order to produce changes in the way the society distributes opportunities and rewards. Social movements are said to arise from a combination of expanding political opportunities, mobilization of indigenous organizational resources, and the presence of certain shared cognitions or values amidst a group that gives it momentum. Social movements are seen by the author to reflect the larger historical frame of which they are a part. For instance, the abolitionist, labor, and women’s suffrage movements all occurred within a free labor, entrepreneurship, and right to contract frame. Meanwhile, the movements of the 1960s like civil rights and others were joined together by an equal rights frame. The chapter then goes on to discuss the abolitionist, civil rights, and women’s movements in order to showcase the pursuit, receipt, and even rejection of civil rights guarantees to these various groups and their attendant social movements. Finally, the chapter also includes a more recent battleground for civil rights with the debate over gay marriage as it currently rages across our collective landscape as well as a nod to the #MeToo movement and sexual harassment.
Quizzes
Critical Thinking Exercises
This chapter was dedicated to a presentation of civil rights that serve as calls for government intervention on our individual behalf in order to ensure equal treatment for all within our society. This process began with the Civil War Amendments, especially the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. However, for the first hundred years the courts took an economic based interpretation of this clause, which served to hinder rather than help the cause of individual civil rights.
By the 1960s though, a new court with a new agenda had effectively sounded the death knell for Jim Crow segregation in the South with the landmark Brown v. Board (1954) decision overturning the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) doctrine of “separate but equal.” Energetic presidents Kennedy and Johnson, along with the Congress, spearheaded the winds of change with a series of acts that collectively enfranchised the African-American South and set up a system of affirmative action to address racial and gender inequalities.
By the late 1970s, conservatives counteracted previous advancements of affirmative action with decisions like the Bakke case in 1978, which struck down racial quotas. This activity was continued into the 1980s and beyond with the Rehnquist and now Robert’s Court’s rollback on affirmative action and school desegregation issues. However, in the 2000s, certain extensions of civil rights have been accorded to previously unknown groups regarding this phenomenon, such as in the Court’s reaffirming affirmative action considerations of race in Fisher v. University of Texas and the right of gay couples to marry in Obergefell v. Hodges.
The chapter also discusses the issue of civil rights through their manifestation as social movements, which are collective enterprises that attempt to change the organizational design or characteristic operating procedures of a society in order to produce changes in the way the society distributes opportunities and rewards. Social movements are said to arise from a combination of expanding political opportunities, mobilization of indigenous organizational resources, and the presence of certain shared cognitions or values amidst a group that gives it momentum. Social movements are seen by the author to reflect the larger historical frame of which they are a part. For instance, the abolitionist, labor, and women’s suffrage movements all occurred within a free labor, entrepreneurship, and right to contract frame. Meanwhile, the movements of the 1960s like civil rights and others were joined together by an equal rights frame. The chapter then goes on to discuss the abolitionist, civil rights, and women’s movements in order to showcase the pursuit, receipt, and even rejection of civil rights guarantees to these various groups and their attendant social movements. Finally, the chapter also includes a more recent battleground for civil rights with the debate over gay marriage as it currently rages across our collective landscape as well as a nod to the #MeToo movement and sexual harassment.
Useful Links
Links to further content exploring the themes covered in this chapter
Civil Rights Timeline
This site provides a useful timeline and historical narrative of the civil rights movement in its various forms.
Legal Information Institute: Civil Rights
At this site you will find a legal discussion of civil rights with commentary emanating from the study of constitutional law.
The Leadership Conference
This site contains commentary on major contemporary issues relative to civil liberties, civil rights, and human rights.
Civil Liberties vs. Civil Rights
This site provides a good overview of the basic points of differentiation between civil liberties and civil rights.
Anti-Defamation League
This is the website for the Anti-Defamation League. It agitates against anti-Semitism and promotes social justice in a broad manner.
American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
This is the website for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee which focuses on battling discriminatory practices against Arab Americans. The site contains some video links to related news regarding the treatment of Arabs and Arab Americans.
Find Law
This site provides access to Supreme Court decisions, as well as dissenting and concurring opinions. These are important for doing research on civil liberties and civil rights cases as they have been manifested on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court over the decades.
NOW
The official website for the National Organization for Women. It contains a number of articles relating to issues of women’s rights.
National LGBTQ Task Force
This is the website for the National LGBTQ Task Force. The organization seeks to promote political, social, and economic equality for gay men and women.
DOJ Civil Rights Division
This site has a link for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which will provide information on current events, the history of federal law enforcement’s role in protecting civil rights, the Department of Justice’s mission statement, and other governmental information.
Civil Rights Act of 1964 – teaching guide
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act
Description- Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII
https://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/legal-resources/know-your-rights-at-work/title-vii
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Description- Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
https://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/matthewshepard.php
Repealing of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell- September 20, 2011
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s4023/text
ACLU- LGBT and AIDS project
https://www.aclu.org/hiv-aids-lgbt-rights/lgbt-aids-project-case-profiles
ACLU- The rights of transgendered students
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/getting-it-right-transgender-students
ACLU- Removing restrictions of voting
MLK: “I Have a Dream”
This site provides access to Dr. King’s famous speech at the Washington Monument during the 1963 civil rights demonstration known as “The March on Washington.” This is the speech that contains King’s famous line, “I have a dream!”
MLK: Last speech 1968
This site provides access to Dr. King’s last speech, which bridges the gap between civil liberties and civil rights by providing a similar philosophical basis. The “mountain top” speech also identifies the civil rights movement with social gospel themes and contains some ultimately cryptic commentary where King discusses his own mortality: he was killed soon after giving this speech.
President Obama’s 2008 Victory Speech
This site contains President Obama’s victory speech in the wake of the 2008 election. While not specifically oriented toward civil rights, it is a moving speech that shows how far the American polity has come regarding civil rights issues, when it elected its first man of color to the highest office in the land.
National Council on Disability
The National Council on Disability (NCD) is an independent federal agency that advises by the president, Congress, and other federal agencies on current and emerging issues affecting the lives of people with disabilities.
National Disability Rights Network
The NDRN’s mission is to promote the integrity and capacity of the for the federally mandated Protection and Advocacy (P&A) Systems and the Client Assistance Programs CAP national network to advocate for the enactment and vigorous enforcement of laws protecting civil and human rights of people with disabilities.