Civil Rights and Due Process

- Eyes on the Prize (video)

o In favor of segregation: God segregated people in the Bible, “everyone” in the South was for
segregation
o University of Alabama admitted first black student in 1956, resulted in riots, so suspended Miss
Lucy “for her own protection”; expelled her after she won her suit against the “mob rule”
because she said that the university used the riots to keep her out
o Eisenhower wanted to go slowly with integration using laws based on education and
understanding
o Thurgood Marshall: NAACP lawyer who argued that Governor Orvil Faubus’s use of the National
Guard to keep black students away from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, had to be
brought into court because the state government was in defiance of federal law
o After graduation of first black student from Central High School, Governor Faubus (Arkansas)
and Governor Lindsay (Virginia) closed down high schools to halt integration
o 1960s, Mississippi was the most militant state against integration
o Citizens’ Council formed solely to stop integration
o James Meredith tried to become the first black student enrolled at the University of Mississippi,
counseled by NAACP lawyer Medgar Evers
o District courts ruled that there was no policy of segregation in the university
o State courts ruled that the university MUST accept Mereith
o Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett said that he was interposing himself between state action
and the federal government’s position by refusing to allow Meredith to register, but the
Supremacy Clause contradicts his position
o Kennedy: even if people disagreed with the law, they couldn’t disobey it
- Civil Rights Legislation
o 1957—voting: federal crime to try to prevent a person from voting in a federal election; created
Civil Rights Commission
o 1960—voting: attorney general was authorized to appoint federal referees to gather evidence
and make findings about allegations that blacks were being deprived of their right to vote;
federal crime to use interstate commerce to threaten or carry out a bombing
o 1964—
 Voting: not allowed to use literacy tests to bar blacks from voting
 Public accommodations: barred discrimination on grounds of race, religion, color, or
national origin in public areas (restaurants, hotels, etc.)
 Schools: authorized attorney general to bring suit to force the desegregation of public
schools on behalf of citizens
 Employment: no discrimination in hiring, firing, or paying employees on grounds of race,
color, religion, national origin, or sex
 Federal funds: barred discrimination in any activity receiving federal assistance
o 1965—
 Voter registration: voting examiners would require registration of all eligible voters in
federal, state, and local elections in areas where discrimination was found to be practiced
or where less than 50 percent of voting age residents were registered to vote in 1964
election (supposed to have expired in 1970, but extended to 2007)
 Literacy tests: suspended use of literacy tests or other devices to prevent blacks from voting

(c) Amy Ho 2010

 o 1968—
 Housing: banned discrimination in sale or rental of most housing (excluding private owners
who sell or rent their homes without the services of a real estate agent)
 Riots: not allowed to use interstate commerce to organize or incite a riot
o 1972—education: no sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal aid
o 1988—discrimination: if any part of an organization receives federal aid, no part of that
organization may discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, or physical handicap
o 1991—discrimination: easier to sue over job discrimination and collect damages; overturned
some Supreme Court decisions
- Case Law
o Dred Scott v. Sanford 1857
 Dred Scott—slave, taken to free territories and then back to a slave state
 Claimed that he had achieved his freedom by residing in free territory
 Ruling: blacks, whether slave or free, could not be citizens of the U.S. because blacks were
not recognized as U.S. citizens when the Constitution was ratified
 Ruling: federal government did not have the right to exclude slavery from the territories
because slaves were property
 Dred Scott is still a slave, and is not free because he was never free
 Although blacks can be state citizens, they cannot be U.S. citizens and therefore have no
right to sue in federal court
 Congress had no right to establish the Missouri Compromise because slaves were property,
and citizens may not be denied their property without due process of the law
 Decision kind of caused Civil War
 7:2 decision, Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney
o Slaughterhouse Cases 1873
 1869, Louisiana granted a corporation a monopoly to maintain slaughterhouses
 Butchers not included claimed that the law deprived them of the right to exercise their
trade, creating an “involuntary servitude” (violation of the 13 th Amendment) and deprived
them of their property without due process (violation of the 14th Amendment)
 Ruling: the 13th and 14th Amendments do not make the procedural guarantees of the Bill of
Rights applicable to the states
 Ruling: 13th Amendment only forbade involuntary individual, not all, servitudes
o Civil Rights Cases 1875
 Private citizens excluded blacks from hotels, theaters, and railroads—violations of the Civil
Rights Act of 1875
 Ruling: 14th Amendment prohibits state action, not the individual invasion of individual
rights; if one individual interferes with the exercise of another’s rights, the aggrieved party’s
civil rights have not been violated unless the other party acted under the shield of state
authority
o Plessy v. Ferguson 1896
 “Separate but equal” legalized segregation for another 50+ years
 “Laws cannot alter long-established customs of society”
 Justice Harlan, in dissent, claims that “the Constitution is colorblind”
 7:1 vote (one justice seat empty)
o Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 1954
 “Separate is inherently not equal”

(c) Amy Ho 2010

  Education is a state power—left up to the states to solve the problem of enforcing it
 Brown II—integration must be done “with all deliberate speed”
 9:0 decision
o Bakke v. Board of Regents of the University of California 1978
 “Reverse discrimination”, 1st major constitutional test of affirmative action
 Ruling: racial criteria may be part of application process, and quotas are legal but cannot be
sole criteria
 5:4 decision
o Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District 1971
 Busing may be used as a tool to achieve desegregation (although very expensive; school
district bussed black children from all over the county to integrate high schools)
 9:0 decision
o Gitlow v. New York 1925
 Gitlow distributed thousands of socialist pamphlets during 1920s (Red Scare)
 Ruling: freedom of speech and press is fundamental to liberty and should be incorporated
(passes “fundamental fairness test”
 Ruling: upheld state decision to jail Gitlow because of the times—should not really be saying
this stuff during a time like the Red Scare
 7:2 decision
o Scottsboro Cases (Powell v. Alabama) 1932
 Ruling: persons charged with capital offenses have the right to an attorney, and only have
to appoint attorney in a civil case if would be an unfair trial without (later changed)
 7:2 decision
o Palko v. Connecticut 1937
 First time: Palko was tried for first-degree murder, but was only convicted of second-degree
murder, so Connecticut appealed—should have been first-degree murder
 Connecticut won appeal, so new trial, and Palko found guilty of first degree
 Palko then appealed—double jeopardy
 Ruling: prohibition against double jeopardy did not apply to states because it was not
essential to guarantee justice
 8:1 decision
o Adamson v. California 1947
 Right to remain silent is not essential to justice
 5:4 decision
o Barron v. Baltimore 1833
 Barron could no longer earn a living because stream under his wharf had been diverted and
he was not compensated
 Violation of 5th Amendment: taking away property without due process of law
 Ruling: the Bill of Rights only restrains the federal government
 Ruling: Americans must look to the state constitutions for protection of their civil and
political liberties

(c) Amy Ho 2010