civil rights; Dred Scott decision; Jim Crow laws; Plessy v. Ferguson; grandfather clause; "separate but equal"; de jure segregation; de facto segregation; Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I); Brown v. Board of Education (Brown II); Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); Civil Rights Act of 1964; Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg County Schools; Smith v. Allwright; suffrage; white primary; Voting Rights Act of 1965; Korematsu v. United States; reservation; coverture; Equal Rights Amendment; women's liberation; National Organization for Women; National Women's Political Caucus; Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); Title IX; pro-life groups; pro-choice groups; Hyde amendment; gray liberation; Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the ADA); homophobia; affirmative action programs; University of California v. Bakke; Gratz v. Bollinger; Grutter v. Bollinger; Adarand Constructors v. Pena

Dred Scott v. Sandford; Plessy v. Ferguson; Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I); Brown v. Board of Education (Brown II); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg County Schools; Smith v. Allwright; Korematsu v. United States; University of California v. Bakke; Gratz v. Bollinger; Grutter v. Bollinger; Adarand Constructors v. Pena

A. Most Americans favor equality in the abstract, but the concrete struggle for equal rights has been our nation's most bitter battle.

B. The real meaning of equality is both elusive and divisive.
 

1. Civil rights are the policies that extend basic rights to groups historically subject to discrimination.

2. The beginning of the civil rights movement is marked by Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat in the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus (where only whites were permitted to sit). The boycott that followed her arrest is often seen as the beginning of the African American civil rights movement.
 

C. Today's debates over inequality in America center on racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and factors such as discrimination based on age, disability, and sexual preference. The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down the following decisions concerning gender discrimination in employment and business activity, among others:
 
a. voiding laws and rules barring women from jobs through arbitrary height and weight requirements.

b. protecting women from being required to take mandatory pregnancy leaves from their jobs.

c. prohibiting gender discrimination in private business and service clubs.

d. any prerequisites based on gender or appearance must have a direct relationship with the duties required in a particular position, or are otherwise discriminatory.
 

D. Conceptions of equality
 
1. Philosophically, the struggle for equality involves defining the term: "equality." Constitutionally, it involves interpreting laws; politically, it often involves power.

2. American society does not emphasize equal results or equal rewards; a belief in equal rights has often led to a belief in equality of opportunity.
 

E. Early American views of equality
 
1. Jefferson's statement in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" did not mean that he thought there were no differences among people.

2. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal," believed that blacks were genetically inferior to whites.

3. Few colonists were eager to defend slavery, and the delegates to the Constitutional Convention did their best to avoid facing the divergence between slavery and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Click here for a history of slavery.

4. Women's rights received even less attention than did slavery at the Convention.
 

F. The Constitution and inequality
 
1. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention came up with a plan for government, not guarantees of individual rights; the word "equality" does not even appear in the original Constitution.
 
a. Even the Bill of Rights does not directly mention equality, but it does have implications for the principle of equality since it does not limit the scope of its guarantees to any specified groups. See the Ninth Amendment.

b. The only place in which the concept of equality clearly appears in the Constitution is in the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits the states from denying "equal protection of the laws" to any person.
 

2. What does equal protection of the laws mean?
 
a. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that the Fourteenth Amendment was used to assure rights for disadvantaged groups.

b. Over the last one hundred years, the equal protection clause has become the vehicle for more expansive constitutional interpretations. Note however, that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not deny states treating classes of citizens differently if the classification is reasonable.

c. The Court has developed three levels of judicial scrutiny (or classifications). As a general rule, most classifications that are reasonable (that bear a rational relationship to some legitimate governmental purpose) are constitutional.
 

(1) Strict scrutiny: Racial and ethnic classifications are inherently suspect: they are presumed to be invalid and are upheld only if they serve a "compelling public interest" that cannot be accomplished in some other way. The Supreme Court has held, that as a general rule, classifications by race and ethnicity may be be acceptable only with respect to laws seeking to remedy previous discrimination.

(2) Intermediate scrutiny: Classifications based on gender fit somewhere between reasonable and inherently suspect: gender classifications must bear a substantial relationship to an important legislative purpose (and is sometimes called "medium scrutiny ").

(3) Rational basis review: In U.S. constitutional law, is the lowest level of scrutiny applied by courts deciding constitutional issues through judicial review. The test is applied by asking whether the governmental action at issue is a rational means to a end that may be legitimately pursued by government.

A. The civil rights laws that African American groups have pushed for have also benefited members of other minority groups, in particular, Hispanics.

B. Three eras define African Americans' struggle for equality in America: the era of slavery, from the beginnings of colonization until the end of the Civil War; the era of reconstruction and resegregation, from the end of the Civil War until 1954; and the era of civil rights, from 1954 to the present.

C. The era of slavery (1600s-1865)
 

1. During the slavery era, any public policy of the slave states or the federal government had to accommodate the property interests of slave owners.

2. The most infamous statement in defense of slavery occurred in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), in which Chief Justice Taney declared that an African American man was "chattel," (i.e., physical property) and had no rights under a white man's government. Congress had no power to ban slavery in the western territories (thereby effectively invalidating the Missouri Compromise). Dred Scott decision: The 1857 Supreme Court ruling that black Americans "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens' in the Constitution." It was reversed by the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) which made citizens of the freed slaves.

3. The Union victory in the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment (which ended slavery).
 

D. The era of reconstruction and resegregation (end of Civil War to 1954)
 
1. After the Civil War ended, Congress imposed strict conditions on the former Confederate States before they could be readmitted to the Union.

2. As soon as they regained power, white Southerners imposed a code of "Jim Crow laws," or Black Codes.Jim Crow laws: Laws that were enacted by Southern whites in the late 19th century to segregate African Americans from whites.

3. In the era of segregation, housing, schools, and jobs were — in one way or another — classified as "white" or "colored."

4. The Supreme Court provided constitutional justification for segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) when it held that the principle of separate but equal public facilities for African American was constitutional. (a principle that was commonly referred to as the "separate but equal" doctrine)"Separate but equal": a doctrine established by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that Jim Crow laws were constitutional.

5. Some limited progress was made in the first half of the twentieth century, including executive orders (such as desegregation of the armed forces) and court decisions which banned the grandfather clause in voting. Grandfather clause: provision in the law (passed by Oklahoma and other southern states) that permitted individuals to vote, even if legal requirements were NOT met, if the individuals or their ancestors voted prior to 1867. Blacks of course did not vote and were not covered by the grandfather clause. The goal and effect was to deny African Americans the right to vote.

6. In 1915, the United States Supreme Court found grandfather clauses to be unconstitutional and outlawed the practice.
 

E. The era of civil rights (1954-present)
 
1. The one institution most responsible for putting civil rights goals on the nation's policy agenda was the courts.

2. As a general rule, current civil rights policies conform to the eighteenth-century idea of limited government.

3. During the period leading up to the civil rights movement, segregation was legally required in the South (de jure, or by law) and sanctioned in the North (de facto). De facto segregation: Segregation that results from residential patterns rather than from laws.

4. Brown v. Board of Education (Brown I) (1954) marks the beginning of the judicial era of civil rights.
 

a. The Supreme Court used Brown v. Board of Education to set aside its earlier precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), overturning the doctrine of "separate but equal." The Court held that school segregation was inherently unequal.

b. The Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education was based on the legal argument that segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

c. In 1955, once again inBrown v. Board of Education (Brown II) (1954), the Court ordered lower courts to proceed with "all deliberate speed" to desegregate public schools; however, desegregation moved very slowly until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which denied federal funds to segregated schools.

d. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the most important law since the Emancipation Proclamation. The Act made racial discrimination illegal in public accommodations throughout America. It also banned sex discrimination in employment by law.
 

5. The civil rights movement organized both African Americans and whites to end the policies and practices of segregation.
 
a. As noted earlier, the movement began in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus (where only whites were allowed to sit). Her arrest led to a boycott led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

b. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): An organization formed by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957 to fight for civil rights through non-violent change.

c. Sit-ins, marches, and civil disobedience were key strategies of the civil rights movement, which sought to establish equal opportunities in the political and economic sectors and to bring an end to policies that put up barriers against people because of race.
 

6. The 1950s and 1960s saw a marked increase in public policies designed to foster racial equality.
 
a. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made racial discrimination illegal in hotels, motels, restaurants, and other places of public accommodation. It also forbade many forms of job discrimination, and Congress cut off federal aid to schools that remained segregated. It also banned sex discrimination in employment by law.

b. The Supreme Court in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg County Schools (1971), allowed court-ordered busing of students to achieve racially balanced schools. Recently, in 1999, federal district courts have ended the busing scheme, finding that it was no longer an effective tool in trying to achieve racial balance in the schools.

c. Taken as a whole, the Supreme Court has determined that the United States Constitution, as it relates to racial classifications by government, permits federal court orders that assign children to schools at least partly on a racial basis to compensate for past discrimination.
 

F. Getting and using the right to vote
 
1. In the United States, voting in a presidential election is the most common act of political participation by individuals.

2. The early Republic limited suffrage (the legal right to vote) primarily to property-holding white males.

3. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) guaranteed African Americans the right to vote, but full implementation did not occur for another century. Nonetheless, the United States Supreme Court, in Smith v. Allwright (1944), held primary elections are an integral part of the electoral process and thus, prohibiting blacks from full participation in primary elections violated the Fifteenth Amendment.

4. States used various methods to circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment:
 

a. Grandfather clause — as noted above, grandfather clauses exempted persons whose grandfathers were eligible to vote in 1860 from taking literacy tests in order to vote; the exemption obviously did not apply to grandchildren of slaves. These type of clauses were later declared to be unconstitutional.

b. Poll tax — small taxes levied on the right to vote; the taxes often fell due at a time of year when poor sharecroppers had the least amount of cash available

c. White primary — Mechanism designed to render African American votes ineffective. White primaries permitted political parties in the heavily Democratic south to exclude blacks from primary elections, on the pretext that political parties (and primaries) were private and not public institutions; this device deprived blacks of a voice in the primaries, where the real contest occurred.

d. Many areas in the South employed voter registration tests (sometimes called voter literacy tests) in a discriminatory manner; some of the tests checked for an understanding of the Constitution
 

5. The civil rights movement put suffrage high on its political agenda, and many barriers to African American voting fell during the 1960s.
 
a. Poll taxes in federal elections were prohibited by the Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); poll taxes in state elections were invalidated two years later.

b. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited any government from using voting procedures that denied a person the vote on the basis of race or color. As a result, black political participation in the South increased.
 

(1) Federal election registrars were sent to areas that had long histories of discrimination, and many African Americans were registered in southern states as a direct result.

(2) The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave the federal government the power to appoint examiners in certain counties with low voter registration. Justification for doing so was the presumption that de facto discrimination existed which resulted in lower voter registration.

(3) The Voting Rights Act of 1965 produced a major increase in the number of African Americans registered to vote in the southern states, and in the number of African Americans who held public office, thus dramatically increased their political participation in the South.
 

G. Other minority groups
 
1. The civil rights laws that African American groups pushed for have benefited members of other minority groups such as Native Americans, Asians, and Hispanics.

2. The United States is heading toward a minority majority status, when minority groups will outnumber Caucasians of European descent.

3. Hispanic Americans:
 

a. Hispanic: A term used in the United States to include persons of Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish origin.

b. Hispanics will soon displace African Americans as the largest minority group
 

4. Asian Americans:
 
a. The fastest growing minority group in the United States is Asian Americans.

b. During World War II, the U. S. government rounded up more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent and placed them Japanese Internment Camps ("war relocation centers").

c.  In the case of Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the removal of Japanese Americans from the West coast and their placement in Japanese Internment Camps during World War II.
 

5. Native Americans:
 
a. The oldest minority group in America, but they were not made U.S. citizens until 1924, well before the struggles of the civil rights era.

b. Native Americans are guaranteed access to the polls, housing, and to jobs.

c. The Indian Claims Act was enacted in 1946 to settle financial disputes arising from land taken from the Indians.

d. Reservation: A area of land "reserved" for Native Americans use and held in trust by the federal government.

A. The struggle for women's equality has emphasized legislation over litigation.

B. The battle for the vote
 

1. The first women's rights activists were products of the abolition movement.

2. "Coverture" was the legal doctrine that deprived married women of any identity separate from that of their husbands.

3. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized a meeting at Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss women's rights.

4. The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (signed on July 19, 1848) was the beginning of the movement that would culminate in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920), which gave women the right to vote.
 

C. The "doldrums": 1920-1960
 
1. The feminist movement seemed to lose momentum after winning the vote, possibly because the vote was about the only goal on which all feminists agreed.
 
a. Social feminists had defended the vote essentially as an extension of the maternal role into public life.

b. After passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, public policy toward women was dominated by protectionism (which also protected male workers from female competition).

c. State laws tended to reflect and reinforce the traditional family roles.
 

2. Alice Paul, the author of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), unsuccessfully pushed for its passage beginning in the 1920s; however, most people in the 1920s saw the ERA as a threat to the family. Equal Rights Amendment: A 1972 proposed constitutional amendment to the United States Constitution to eliminate discrimination against women. In 1982 it fell three states short of the thirty-eight necessary for ratification and was NEVER ratified.
 
D. The second feminist wave
 
1. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s attracted many women activists. Women's liberation: a general term for the organized effort to end sex discrimination and assure women full equality.
 

2. Groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the National Women's Political Caucus were organized in the 1960s and 1970s. National Organization for Women: A nationwide women's organization, founded in 1966, that has worked to improve employment opportunities for women, campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, defended the right of lesbians, and supported the reform of laws dealing with women. National Women's Political Caucus: An organization, founded in 1971, emphasizing such political goals as the election and appointment of more women to public office, and the improvement of social conditions for minorities and the poor through legislation.

3. Judicial development
 

a. Before the advent of the contemporary feminist movement, the Supreme Court upheld virtually all cases of sex-based discrimination.

b. In 1971, the Supreme Court held that any arbitrary sex-based classification violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

c. The Court has established a "medium scrutiny" standard, under which sex discrimination would be presumed to be neither valid nor invalid.

d. The Supreme Court has now struck down many laws and rules for discriminating on the basis of gender; some of the litigants have been men seeking equality with women in their treatment under the law.
 

4. The ERA was revived when Congress passed it in 1972 and granted a three-year extension six years later; the ERA fell three states short of ratification, but losing the ERA battle only temporarily stimulated vigorous feminist activity.
 
E. Women in the workplace
 
1. As conditions have changed, public opinion and public policy demands have also changed.
 
a. The traditional family role of father at work/mother at home is becoming a thing of the past.

b. The civilian labor force includes 58 million women (69 million males), representing 58 percent of adult women.

c. There are 12 million female-headed households — about 60 percent of American mothers who have children below school age are in the labor force.
 

2. Some important progress was made through congressional legislation:
 
a. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also banned sex discrimination in employment by law.

b. In 1972, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was given the power to sue employers suspected of illegal discrimination.

c. Title IX of the Education Act of 1972 forbade sex discrimination in federally subsidized education programs, including athletics.

d. Three of the most controversial issues that legislators will continue to face are wage discrimination, the role of women in the military, and sexual harassment.

e. In 1993 the Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment is sex discrimination that violates the Civil Rights Act when the workplace environment becomes hostile or abusive.
 

3. The Supreme Court has frequently ruled against gender discrimination in employment and business activity.
 
a. The Court voided laws and rules that barred women from jobs through arbitrary height and weight requirements, ruling that prerequisites for employment must have a direct relationship with the duties required. For example, discrimination against women flight attendants.

b. Women have been protected from being required to take mandatory pregnancy leaves from their jobs and from being denied a job because of an employer's concern for harming a developing fetus.
 

F. Wage discrimination and comparable worth
 
1. The U.S. Supreme Court has remained silent so far on the issue of "comparable worth," which deals with women seeking to redress the fact that jobs traditionally held by men tend to pay far greater salaries than jobs requiring similar skills but are traditionally held by women.

2. Median annual earnings for full-time women workers are only about two-thirds those of men.
 

G. Women in the military
 
1. Women have served in every branch of the armed services since World War II (originally in separate units, but now part of the regular service).

2. Women comprise 11 percent of the armed forces, and compete directly with men for promotion.

3. There are still two important differences between the treatment of men and women in military service:
 

a. Only men must register for the draft when they turn age eighteen.

b. Statutes and regulations prohibit women from serving in combat.
 

(1) The Persian Gulf War demonstrates that policy and practice are not always the same since women piloted helicopters at the front and some were taken as prisoners of war.

(2) After the war, Congress permitted women to serve as combat pilots. However, they are still not permitted to serve in ground combat units in the army or marines.
 

H. Sexual harassment
 
1. The push for sexual equality is a worldwide phenomenon.
 
a. Few (if any) societies have achieved full sexual equality.

b. Women in Third-world countries are making claims for their civil rights for the first time.
 

2. Sexual harassment can occur anywhere, but may be especially prevalent in male-dominated occupations such as the military.
 
a. The Supreme Court held that no single factor is required to win a sexual harassment case under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The law is violated when the workplace environment "would reasonably be perceived, and is perceived, as hostile or abusive."

b. Sexual harassment violates federal policies against sexual discrimination in the workplace.
 

I. Pro-life/pro-choice conflict
 
1. Pro-life groups: Groups that have worked to overturn the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on abortion, often by supporting a constitutional amendment to prohibit abortions.  Most recently, factions of pro-life groups have resorted to violence, including murdering physicians.

2.Pro-choice groups: Groups that argue that women have the right to control their reproductive systems and to have abortions.

A. New activist groups began to realize that policies that were enacted to protect racial minorities and women can also be applied to other groups, such as aging Americans, young Americans, the disabled, and homosexuals.

B. Civil rights and the graying of America
 

1. People in their eighties comprise the fastest growing age group in this country.

2. Since 1967, Congress has passed several laws that ban various types of age discrimination.

3. It is not clear what the fate of the "gray liberation movement" will be as its members approach the status of a minority majority. The "gray liberation" movement refers to those fighting for the rights of the elderly.

4. Age discrimination laws have denied federal funds to any institution discriminating against people over forty.
 

C. Are the young a disadvantaged group, too?
 
1. Young people have also suffered from inferior treatment under the law.

2. There are obvious difficulties in organizing a "children's rights movement," but there have been instances of young people who were successful in asserting their rights (illustrated by Walter Polovchak, who refused to return to the Ukraine with his parents, and a 12-year-old boy in Florida who "divorced" his family so he could be adopted by foster parents).
 

D. Civil rights and people with disabilities
 
1. Americans with disabilities have suffered from both direct and indirect discrimination.
 
a. They have been denied rehabilitation services, education, and jobs.

b. Many have been kept out of the workforce and isolated without overt acts of discrimination.
 

2. The first rehabilitation laws were passed in the late 1920s; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (twice vetoed by President Nixon as "too costly") added disabled (handicapped) people to the list of Americans protected from discrimination.

3. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the ADA) requires employers and public facilities to provide "reasonable accommodations, " and prohibits employment discrimination against the disabled.

4. Questions have been raised over whether AIDS victims are handicapped and thus entitled to protection. So far, no case dealing with AIDS victims has reached the Supreme Court.

5. The Supreme Court recently held that the definition of "disability," for purposes of protection under the ADA, does not include disabilities that can be relieved through the dispensation of prescription drugs.
 

E. Gay and lesbian rights
 
1. Gay (or homosexual) activists may face the toughest battle for equality.
 
a. Homosexual activity is illegal in some states, and homosexuals often face prejudice in hiring, education, access to public accommodations, and housing.

b. There are no positive stereotypes commonly associated with homosexuality.

c. Homophobia (fear and hatred toward gay men and lesbian women) has many causes, and homosexuals are often seen as safe targets for public hostility.

d. A substantial percentage of the American public express opposition to homosexuals entering many common occupations.

e. In 1993, President Clinton announced a new policy that barred the Pentagon from asking recruits or service personnel to disclose their sexual orientation. Popularly known as the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, it also reaffirmed the Defense Department's strict prohibition against homosexual conduct.
 

2. Despite some setbacks, gay activists have won some important victories.
 
a. Seven states and more than one-hundred communities have passed laws protecting homosexuals against some forms of discrimination.

b. Most colleges and universities now have gay rights organizations on campus.

A. The interests of women and minorities have converged on the issue of affirmative action (policies requiring special efforts on behalf of disadvantaged groups).
 
1. Affirmative action programs: Programs established by government, universities, employers, and unions that give preference in admissions or jobs to minorities.

2. The goal of affirmative action is to move beyond equal opportunity, but rather, to move toward equal results.

3. The federal government has mandated that all state and local governments and organizations that receive money from them to have an affirmative action program.
 

B. Some groups have claimed that affirmative action programs constitute "reverse discrimination."
 
1. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) [ORAL ARGUMENT], the Court rejected a plan at the University of California at Davis that set aside 16 of a total of 100 places in the entering medical school class for "disadvantaged groups."
 
a. In Bakke, the Court upheld affirmative action programs, but limited their scope, and outlawed racial quota set-asides.

b. However, the Court said that a university could adopt an "admissions program where race or ethnic background is simply one element ... in the selection process." c.f.Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) [ORAL ARGUMENT] (Supreme Court held that that the University of Michigan's use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions violates both the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI) andGrutter v. Bollinger (2003) [ORAL ARGUMENT], (the Supreme Court held Court held that the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.).
 

2.  In 1995, the Supreme Court in Adarand Constructors v. Pena, [ORAL ARGUMENT], changed direction and began to curtail federal use of affirmative action programs. Adarand involved a case of reverse discrimination in the construction bid process for highway work in Colorado.
 
C. Supporters of affirmative action believe that affirmative action produces so important a social goal that some reverse discrimination is acceptable.

D. Opposition to affirmative action policies:
 

1. Surveys find that most Americans oppose affirmative action programs, even though Americans in general support nondiscrimination in employment and education.

2. Opposition is especially strong when critics view affirmative action as reverse discrimination where less qualified individuals get hired or admitted to educational or training programs.

A. Civil rights and democracy
 
1. Democracy is often in conflict with itself. Both equality and individual liberty are important democratic principles, but they may conflict with each other.
 
a. Equality tends to favor majority rule, but equality threatens individual liberty in situations where the majority wants to deprive the minority of its rights.

b. Majority rule is not the only threat to liberty: minorities have suppressed majorities as well as other minorities.
 

2. Even when they lacked the power of the vote, both African Americans and women made many gains by using other rights (such as the First Amendment freedoms) to fight for equality.
 
B. Civil rights and the scope of government
 
1. Civil rights laws increase the scope and power of government.
 
a. These laws place both restrictions and obligations on individuals and institutions — they tell individuals and institutions that there are things they must do and other things they cannot do.

b. Libertarians and those conservatives who want to reduce the size of government are uneasy with these laws (and sometimes hostile to them).
 

2. Civil rights is an area in which increased government activity in protecting basic rights can lead to greater checks on the government by those who benefit from such protections.

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GOVT 2305  American Government and Politics
Cathedral High School, El Paso, Texas
Last updated:  November 2006