Race Relations: Between Emancipation and Subjugation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Burt
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Racial Segregation ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
District Courts ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Race Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
The Supreme Court

This chapter discusses race relations as the paradigmatic judicial effort to protect vulnerable groups under the commitment made in Footnote Four. After the Supreme Court correctly held in Brown I that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional, and in Brown II wisely paused to enlist the assistance of district courts, the federal Congress, the executive, and others, the Court then failed to continue this approach after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing law in 1968 by requiring past intentionally imposed race discrimination in public schools to obtain judicial relief. The chapter then offers suggestions on what the Court could have done—an approach of less intervention by the Court imposing its views of equality on the parties and more promotion of deliberation among the parties to achieve democratic equality.

Civil Rights and the Private School Movement in Mississippi, 1964–1971

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Fuquay
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private School ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
Housing Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Act

The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was heralded as a tremendous victory for the civil rights movement, the fulfillment of a decade-long struggle to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Along with measures against job and housing discrimination, the Civil Rights Act included provisions specifically designed to overcome the white South's massive resistance campaign and enforce school desegregation. Despite the continued intransigence of segregationists, these measures proved successful and white public schools across the South opened their doors to black children. With segregationists in retreat and the Voting Rights Act on the horizon, this was a time of celebration for civil rights activists. But this was not the end of the story.

Credentialing by Tests or by Degrees: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Griggs v. Duke Power Company

1974 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Huff
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
National Origin ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Aptitude Tests ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
Enrollment Patterns ◽  
Power Company ◽  
The Supreme Court

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 made it unlawful for an employer to use the results of a test to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. If a group could show an adverse effect based on such a test, the employer had to prove the test was job-related. Griggs v. Duke Power Company challenged this principle, and the Supreme Court struck down the use of general aptitude tests and a high school diploma requirement for certain jobs. In this article, the author traces the evolution of Title VII and the Griggs precedent, looking at their implications for education in two ways. First, as the educational system is an employer, it must interpret the law for its own hiring and promotion practices. Second, as educational requirements and credentials are struck down by the courts, there could be major changes in the enrollment patterns, content, and functions of public schools and institutions of higher education.

The Gospel of the Sit-In

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Gershenhorn
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The City

During the 1960s, Austin lent his talents and his newspaper in support of the direct action movement in Durham and throughout the state. Unlike many other black leaders in the city, he immediately and enthusiastically embraced an early sit-in in Durham that began in 1957, three years before the more celebrated Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins. He also aided a boycott of white retail businesses that refused to hire black workers by publishing the names of those businesses in the Carolina Times. This strategy was quite effective in forcing white businesses to hire African Americans. Austin’s efforts and those of countless civil rights activists led to major freedom struggle successes with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Reverse Discrimination and Remedial Affirmative Action in Employment

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Ray Gullett
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Title Vii ◽  
Reverse Discrimination ◽  
Remedial Action ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Public Employer

Public sector employers are governed by two standards in the design and application of voluntary remedial affirmative action plans: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as amended) and the equal protection provisions of the Constitution. Since these plans are subject to challenge under reverse discrimination claims, they must be carefully designed to avoid vulnerability to such charges under either a statutory or constitutional claim. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the legal acceptability of voluntary affirmative action differently under the statute than under the Constitution. Title VII allows a more permissive standard than does the 14th or 5th amendments. An analysis and comparison of Court rulings under both standards illustrate these differences. To avoid successful challenge of a voluntary remedial plan, a public employer must abide by the more conservative criteria of the Constitution. In so doing, some kinds of remedial action available to those in the private sector is barred to their public sector counterparts. Further Court rulings may clarify these apparent differences.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act: Narrating the Past, Authorizing the Future

2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Hattam
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Fair Housing Act ◽  
Home Mortgage ◽  
Past Wrongs

Civil rights legislation of the sixties and seventies sought to end racial discrimination in the United States; doing so required that the federal government establish an official ethnoracial taxonomy in order to specify who was and was not covered by the various statutes. Specifically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, and the Home Mortgage Act of 1975 required federal agencies to identify particular groups to be monitored for evidence of discrimination. Since these statutes were enacted, scholars and activists have argued over their political effects. In fact, the questions raised are legion: Who has benefitted from civil rights protections? Has discrimination diminished or simply morphed into new forms? Who counts as a minority and on what grounds? How has the massive immigration of the last four decades intersected civil rights reform? Should foreign nationals qualify for civil rights protections? If yes, how do more recent claims to diversify fit with older notions that civil rights legislation as a means of redressing past wrongs?

Color-Blind Conservatism and the Great White Switch

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sid Bedingfield
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
New Rhetoric ◽  
Political Clout ◽  
Racial Issues ◽  
Color Blind

This chapter details the effort by former segregationist editors to unite whites against rising black political clout after passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The editors at the state’s two largest newspaper, Thomas R. Waring Jr. at the News & Courier in Charleston and William D. Workman Jr., at The State in Columbia, helped develop a rhetoric of “color-blind conservatism” to undermine black political activism. The new rhetoric accepted the end of segregation and legal equality for blacks in the South, but declared that racial issues should no longer be an acceptable topic for political debate. It identified blacks as special pleaders seeking aid from government that they did not deserve.

Justice and Empathy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Burt
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Economic Equality ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
American Society ◽  
The U.S

The Supreme Court long considered its highest mission to be the protection of individual liberty from intrusion by government, but the court shifted its focus to social and economic equality. This book explores this shift and its implications, especially for the legal protection of the vulnerable. Crucial to the author's perspective is an unconventional view of the role of judges—not simply to decide disputes, but to promote a respectful dialogue leading to a genuine understanding between parties. The U.S. Constitution, through its interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court, deals with the protection of vulnerable people in American society. It focuses on the judge not as the sole determiner of equality or protection but as a leader who, through careful observation and guidance, promotes an interactive process among the parties in order to settle the matter in an empathic, mutually respectful way. The book points out that judges are not the only actors through whom democratic values founded on empathic mutual respect and accountability can be promoted. At the center of this study is the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Brown Reconceived: An Alternative Scenario

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derrick Bell
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
Effective Schooling ◽  
Public Expectations ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Face ◽  
University Professor ◽  
Constitutional Conventions ◽  
Opening Up

Having Read An Early Draft Of This Manuscript, longtime friend and Harvard University professor Frank Michelman asked: “Was there any way that they, as a Court acting subject to certain public expectations about the differences among courts, legislatures, and constitutional conventions, could have framed their intervention differ­ently from, and better than, the way they actually chose?” I think the answer is yes. Despite decades of efforts to reverse Plessy v. Ferguson and the NAACP lawyers’ well-researched legal arguments supported by reams of social science testimony, the Supreme Court might have determined to adhere to existing precedents. Suppose that, while expressing sympathy for the Negroes’ plight, the Court had decided that Plessy v. Ferguson was still the law of the land? Suppose, moreover, they understood then what is so much clearer now: namely, that the edifice of segregation was built not simply on a troubling judi­cial precedent, but on an unspoken covenant committing the nation to guaranteeing whites a superior status to blacks? On this understanding, could the Court have written a decision that disappointed the hopes of most civil rights lawyers and those they represented while opening up opportunities for effective schooling capable of turning constitutional defeat into a major educational victory? Again, I think the answer is yes. And I have imagined such an alternative. Today we uphold our six decades old decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). We do so with some reluctance and in the face of the argu­ments by the petitioners that segregation in the public schools is unconstitutional and a manifestation of the desire for dominance whose depths and pervasiveness this Court can neither ignore nor easily divine. Giving full weight to these arguments, a decision overturning Plessy, while it might be viewed as a triumph by Negro petitioners and the class they represent, will be condemned by many whites. Their predictable outraged resistance could undermine and eventually negate even the most committed judicial enforcement efforts.

Launching the North Carolina Campaign, 1964–1965

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Rosen ◽  
Joseph Mosnier
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
School District ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Church ◽  
Racial Segregation ◽  
The State ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
The North ◽  
Lyndon Johnson

This chapter describes Chambers's return to North Carolina in July 1964, and his success in quickly elevating North Carolina to the forefront of the LDF's national litigation campaign to translate provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to overcome racial segregation in public accommodation, schools, and employment. Chambers, who opened his small office in Charlotte the same week that Lyndon Johnson signed the new Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, quickly assumed leadership of the Legal Redress Committee of the North Carolina NAACP, which had long spearheaded civil rights litigation in the state. Chambers barnstormed North Carolina to inform black citizens of their rights and prospective new remedies afforded by the Civil Rights Act and soon launched a spate of new legal actions targeting the state's largest school district and employers. In January of 1965, as Chambers addressed a rally at a black church in New Bern, his car was dynamited; local legal authorities showed little enthusiasm to prosecute the Klan-affiliated assailants.

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