Racial Discrimination
| Author | Jeffrey Wilson |
| Pages | 245-252 |
Page 245
Citizens of the United States are protected against racial discrimination by many laws, including Constitutional protections, civil rights statutes, and civil rights regulations. The Fourteenth Amendment, which provides all citizens with equal protection of the laws, was ratified in 1868; however, the most significant changes in the law with respect to racial discrimination have occurred in the last fifty years. In this time, a number of landmark events have occurred and a number of landmark laws have been passed that prevent discrimination on the basis of race in many circumstances.
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited segregation in public schools on the basis of race. The Court then required public school districts to begin the process of integration "with all deliberate speed."
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 brought about the most significant changes in civil rights protection in the history of the country. It prohibited racial and other discrimination in employment, education, and use of public accommodations and facilities.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prevented racial and other forms of discrimination with respect to access to the ballots.
The Fair Housing Act, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibited discrimination in the sale and renting of housing. It also extended these prohibitions to lending and other financial institutions.
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 was designed to strengthen and improve previous civil rights legislation.
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Civil rights laws do not render every form of racial discrimination unlawful. For example, laws do not proscribe general notions of racial prejudice by private individuals in most circumstances. However, when racial prejudices or preferences interfere with the rights of others, then the law is more likely to provide protection. This distinction applies to government entities or business entities engaged in interstate commerce.
The U. S. Supreme Court has been called upon on numerous occasions to address the constitutionality of state actions that may involve racial discrimination. Prior to the enactment of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution, the Court rendered several decisions on the issue of slavery, many of which affected the future of the United States regarding the Civil War. The most significant of these decisions occurred in 1857, when the Court in Scott v. Sanford decided that slaves were not "citizens" as the term was used in the Constitution. The Court also determined Congress could not constitutionally prohibit slavery in the territories.
After the enactment of the Constitutional Amendments during the reconstruction period after the Civil War, the Court was called upon to decide a number of issues related to these amendments and civil rights legislation passed during this period. The most significant of these cases was called the Civil Rights Cases, in which the court restricted considerably the power of Congress to proscribe discrimination by operators of public accommodations. In 1896, the Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the Constitution did not prohibit states from enacting laws that distinguished people of different races. In the fifty years after Plessy v. Ferguson, states could constitutionally segregate members of different races under the "separate-but-equal" doctrine. The Court reversed its position in 1954 with the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which also led to the enactment of the civil rights legislation by Congress.
The Supreme Court has long held that the Constitution applies only to the actions of government, not to the actions of private individuals or entities. This restriction traditionally enabled private individuals to circumvent the rights provided in the Constitution. The first casualty was the civil rights statutes passed during Reconstruction after the Civil War. Subsequent cases involved such efforts as those by private individuals to prevent blacks from voting. Since these actions were not officially considered "state actions," the Court held that the Constitution did not apply.
The Court in more modern times has taken a more liberal view of which actions constitute state actions. In some circumstances, a state's approval of private action may constitute state action. Even if an action is not considered a state action, however, modern civil rights legislation may provide protection against private actions that is equivalent to constitutional protection.
The United States abolished slavery in the United States when it ratified the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Under this amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crimes, were outlawed. The amendment also permitted Congress to enact legislation to enforce this amendment. The Supreme Court restricted Congressional power to enforce the act in the Civil Rights Cases in 1883, and relatively little litigation occurred over the next eighty years. However, the Court held in the 1968 case of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. that Congressional authority to proscribe private discrimination was granted by the Thirteenth Amendment. Since that time, the Thirteenth Amendment has served as part of the basis of authority under which Congress may enact civil rights legislation.
One of the more controversial laws in the history of the United States is the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States. This amendment prohibits government from denying equal protection of the laws or due process of law to the citizens of the United States. Defining "equal protection" and "due process," however, has perplexed the U. S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, and state courts since the ratification of the amendment in 1868. Though ironically the Equal Protection Clause was the basis for such historic doctrines as "separate-but-equal" in Plessy v. Ferguson, it has also served as the basic constitutional protection against racial discrimination by government entities in modern civil rights jurisprudence.
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Laws designed to give preferences to whites to the detriment of members of the minority races are clearly unconstitutional. More difficult questions are raised with respect to affirmative action programs designed to give minorities opportunities they may lack due to a history of discrimination. Since the late 1980's, the Supreme Court has struck down several of these programs as unconstitutional. Similar problems have been raised with respect to efforts to gerrymander voting districts in order to ensure that minority (or nonminority) political candidates have a better chance to win seats. Unless such efforts have been designed to remedy specific instances of discrimination, they are most likely in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
All citizens are guaranteed the right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment. This amendment, ratified in 1870, was designed to eradicate efforts to disenfranchise blacks during Reconstruction following the Civil War. The Supreme Court limited the application of this amendment in several...
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