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Chapter Four: Civil Rights
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Quiet Va. Wife Ended Interracial Marriage Ban
Washington Post, Patricia Sullivan, May 6, 2008
“Mildred Jeter Loving, 68, a black woman whose refusal to accept Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that struck down similar laws across the country, died of pneumonia Friday at her home in Milford, Va.”
The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment requires that the law be applied equally to everyone. This plain reading, however, was contested well into the 20th century. The resistance to “nationalizing” the Bill or Rights enabled states to pass laws intended to maintain white supremacy (see Incorporation via the Fourteenth Amendment, pp. 161-164). Most of these were overturned starting in the 1940s (see Emergence of a Civil Rights Coalition, pp. 130-133) and accelerating with the 1964 Civil Rights Act (see The Civil Rights Movement, pp. 133-133-139). This Washington Post story remembers the life of Mildred Loving, a plaintiff in the 1967 Supreme Court case that overturned laws banning interracial marriages.
For Area Blacks, a House Divided
Washington Post, Nikita Stewart and Avis Thomas-Lester, Feb. 11, 2008
Despite measurable gains since the Civil Rights Era, women, blacks and other groups continue to be underrepresented among local, state and national officeholders (see Who Serves in Congress, pp. 220-224). In this respect, the 2008 presidential election, where a woman and a black man are contending for the Democratic nomination, promises to be a watershed event. Both candidates have pledged to move forward on today’s civil rights challenges, which include increasing political participation by historically underserved groups while safeguarding them from exploitation by government and private-sector actors (see What Are Civil Rights?, pp. 115-116). This Washington Post report finds that in this election cycle, black voters are enjoying an embarrassment of riches. With black elected officials splitting support between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, black voters are heeding other cues in deciding who to support in this year’s presidential primaries (see Voter Cues and Shortcuts, pp. 434-435).
Hate Crime Reporting Uneven
Washington Post, Darryl Fears, Nov. 20, 2007
“The FBI released its yearly hate crime statistics yesterday, showing that more than 9,000 offenses were committed because of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability last year, an 8 percent increase over the year before.”
In 1990, Congress and the U.S. Attorney General directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin collecting statistics on hate crimes. Hate crimes are acts of violence directed at individuals due to their race, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation (see Gay Rights, pp. 149-150). Unfortunately for proponents of hate crimes legislation, Congress failed to require participation, either by financial inducement (see The Carrot: Federal Grants to the States, pp. 103-104) or by mandate (see The Stick: Unfunded Mandates, pp. 104-105). This summary of the latest FBI report underscores the logic of nationalization as a solution to states’ collective dilemmas. Lacking incentives to contribute, states have interpreted their obligations as they see fit. California reported more hate crimes than any other state. Mississippi, with its troubled racial history, reported no hate crimes. Alabama, which does not recognize violent acts directed at homosexuals as hate crimes, reported one hate crime.
High Court Spurns New Rights for Church Groups
Los Angeles Times, David G. Savage, Oct. 2, 2007
“The Supreme Court on Monday refused to expand the rights of church groups, turning down appeals in a pair of cases.”
The First Amendment prohibits governments from passing legislation that seeks to establish a particular religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof (see Freedom of Religion, pp. 176-182). Over the past 60 years, the Supreme Court has spent a great deal of time deciding whether particular state and federal laws violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause. Recently, the Court has also issued several rulings expanding the bounds of free exercise, allowing, for example, religious groups to hold meetings in public schools. This L.A. Times article finds that some religious groups, buoyed by these decisions, are pressing for additional civil rights. So far, the Court has declined to see evangelicals’ attempts to eliminate laws perceived as inconsistent with their religious beliefs as equivalent to the struggles of women, blacks, and other traditional targets of discrimination (see What Are Civil Rights?, pp. 115-116).
Recalling Struggle for Civil Rights, Democrats Battle for Black Votes
New York Times, Jeff Zeleny, Mar. 4, 2007
“Representative John Lewis, whose political career grew out of the civil rights movement, had longed for the day he could vote for someone that he believed could become the nation's first black president.”
Differences between blacks and whites on issues like affirmative action, federal government intervention, and the death penalty represent the sharpest divide in public opinion between major groups in the U.S. (see Race and Ethnicity, pp. 411-413). The views of a majority of black voters on these issues are closer to the positions of the Democratic than Republican Party. Blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats and are a crucial block of that party’s coalition. The origins of this relationship date back to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, when Democratic presidents supported high-profile legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 (see The Civil Rights Movement, pp. 133-143). This recent New York Times story illustrates the continuing importance of both black voters and the civil rights issue to Democratic Party politics. The party’s 2008 presidential nominee is likely to be the candidate best able to connect with black voters.
D.C. Vote's Stars Are Aligning, Davis Says
Washington Post, Lori Montgomery and Elissa Silverman, May 12, 2006.
“A bipartisan proposal to give the nation's capital a vote in Congress has ‘more than enough votes’ to win approval in one House committee, the panel's chairman said yesterday, the first step in a process that could add two seats to the House and permanently expand its membership for the first time in nearly 100 years.”
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 admitted Missouri as a slave state, but also admitted Maine as a free state, thereby maintaining the balance between free and slave states (see The Missouri Compromise, pp. 118). The compromise was a classic political solution, bringing together unlike-minded politicians for pursuit of a common course of action (see Politicians, pp. 27). This article reports on efforts to secure congressional representation for residents of Washington, DC. To neutralize the partisan implications of granting the vote to residents who tend to elect Democrats, proponents of the bill have proposed a partisan gerrymander -- adding a seat to Republican Utah's House delegation (see Congressional Districts, pp. 209-211). The bipartisan coalition of conservative Thomas M. Davis (R-VA) and DC activists supporting the bill shows again that politics makes strange bedfellows.
Omaha Schools Split Along Ethnic Lines
Washington Post, Associated Press, April 13, 2006.
“In a move decried by some as state-sponsored segregation, the legislature voted Thursday to divide the Omaha school system into three districts -- one mostly black, one predominantly white and one largely Hispanic.”
The 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education committed the country to the principle of school desegregation (see Brown Trumps Plessy, pp. 130-132). However, in 1962, less than one percent of black students were attending desegregated schools. Serious progress was made only after the 1964 Civil Rights Act authorized withholding federal funds from districts that failed to integrate their schools (see The 1964 Civil Rights Act and Integration of Public Schools, p. 137). Today, many of the nation’s schools remain highly segregated, a function of de facto segregation in urban housing markets and the failure of remedial policies like busing. This story reports on a plan by state legislators in Nebraska to split Omaha’s school district along racial lines—a move that implicitly acknowledges the gap between the principle of desegregation and the political will needed to achieve it.
325,000 Names on Terrorism List
Washington Post, Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen, February 15, 2006
“The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.”
The Framers designed the Constitution to function effectively during war as well as peace. In periods of national urgency however, leadership gravitates toward the presidency, though Article II lacks the kind of emergency powers that enable presidents to menace political opponents (see The Presidency, pp. 261-264); wars often shift the balance between national security concerns and civil liberties (see Nonthreatening Speech and Expression, pp. 169-171). In 1917, for example, Congress outlawed open opposition to World War I (see Cracking Down on Dissent in Wartime, pp. 168-169). Such measures impose costs on citizens, and support for them tends to dissipate as the crisis fades. This story, which describes new efforts to combat international terrorism, exemplifies the competing demands for conformity and autonomy brought about by the events of September 11, 2001.
Rosa Parks, 92, Founding Symbol of Civil Rights Movement, Dies
New York Times, E. R. Shipp, October 25, 2005
“Rosa Parks, a black seamstress whose refusal to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., almost 50 years ago grew into a mythic event that helped touch off the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's, died yesterday at her home in Detroit.”
In emphasizing the role of institutions in motivating and structuring political behavior, Logic presents few individuals as making a difference. Rosa Parks who died this week is one of those fascinating, consequential individuals whose obituary appropriately appears on the first page of the New York Times.
Catalyst of Feminist Revolution
Los Angeles Times, Elaine Woo, February 5, 2006
“Betty Friedan, the visionary feminist who launched a social revolution with her provocative 1963 book ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ died Saturday, her 85th birthday.”
The National Organization of Women (NOW) has 550 chapters in 50 states and boasts a contributing membership of over half a million. It is difficult to believe that in its early years NOW was headquartered in Betty Friedan’s New York City apartment. One of the organization’s first activities (aside from the basic goal of survival) was to pressure the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the workplace sex discrimination protections in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (see Equal Rights for Women, pp. 146-149). In the late 1960s and early 70s, NOW perfected many of the outsider tactics—demonstrations, grassroots lobbying, litigation—used by black activists during the civil rights movement (see Outsider Tactics: Altering the Political Forces, pp. 524-532). This article is among the many this week that remember Friedan’s lasting impact on efforts to guarantee equal rights for women.
Profiling Fears Surface in Subway
New York Times, Josh Getlin, August 8, 2005
As subway riders poured into Pennsylvania Station, a police officer stopped Ahmed Mohammed and asked him to open his backpack. The Pakistani-born engineer, who was visiting New York with his family, shrugged and agreed to the search.
After the deadly subway explosions in London police in New York began checking backpacks of subway passengers. This reintroduced the issue of profiling in law enforcement's efforts to prevent a terrorist attack.
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