Chapter 14

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 interim certain extensions of civil rights have been accorded to previously unknown groups regarding this phenomenon like the disabled, elderly, and homosexuals.

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.

For many Americans the debate over gay marriage has been deeply uncomfortable. Some have lamented the intensity and passion behind this conflict. However, as you read in this chapter passionate debates and the intense conflict of seemingly incompatible values have followed every change in our national consciousness about Civil Rights. These intense moments in our history are the crucible from which democracy emerges renewed. These conflicts are ultimately about learning as a society to respect our differences and find a way forward without the kind of political and social violence that can scar non-democratic societies.

Before you begin your research, consider if you are for or against the legalization of gay marriage. Once you’ve done so visit this site and consider the issues surrounding the California law Prop 8 (http://www.smartvoter.org/2008/11/04/ca/state/prop/8/) and the Supreme Court’s recent decision affirming the nationwide right of same-sex couples to marry. Consider these two events with regard to issues of federalism. Once you’ve informed yourself about the issues at stake, write an argument from the perspective opposite your own. To make things more interesting you can team up in groups to present the other side’s argument against the team representing the point of view with which you identify.

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.

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.

Chapter 14

Civil Rights Act of 1964 – teaching guide

Description- Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

Description- Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

Repealing of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell- September 20, 2011

ACLU- LGBT and AIDS project

ACLU- The rights of transgendered students

ACLU- Removing restrictions of voting (includes video)