Legal decision that affected the course of U.S. History

1. +
Part VII
How It Happened: Race and
Gender Issues in U.S. Law

2. +
Indian Tribes: A Continuing Quest
for Survival: U.S. Commission on
Human Rights
 American Indian civil rights issues have unfolded “in reverse
order from those of other minorities”:
 Politically, other minorities started with nothing and
attempted to obtain a voice in the existing economic and
political structure.
 Indians started with everything and have gradually lost
much of what they had to an advancing alien civilization.
 Watch: How the US stole thousands of Native American
children

3. +
Indian Tribes: A Continuing Quest
for Survival: U.S. Commission on
Human Rights
 The consequence of this ongoing racism has been a
sustained view that:
 Indians are wards of the Government who need the
protection and assistance of Federal agencies
 It is the Government’s obligation to recreate their
governments, conforming them to a non-Indian model, to
establish their priorities, and to make or approve their
decisions for them.

4. +
Elk v. Wilkins, 1884
 John Elk was born on a reservation, but later moved
to Nebraska leaving his tribal affiliation. He was
denied the right to vote as not being a U.S. citizen.
 The Supreme Court ruled against him even though
the 14th Amendment granted birth right and
citizenship
 Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
which ended the exclusion of Native Americans from
citizenship rights
 New Mexico was the last state to grant full rights to
NA in 1962

5. +
The Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882
 The Chinese Exclusion Act suspended the migration of Chinese
laborers to the United States.
 The act affected both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese
people employed in mining.
 “[T]he coming of Chinese laborers to this country endangers the
good order of certain localities within the territory…”
 In other words, the Chinese Exclusion Act prevents the disruption
of existing social and racial hierarchies that were believed to be
threatened by the migration of Chinese workers.
 The Chinese Exclusion Act - PBS America

6. +
People v. Hall, 1854
 In People v. Hall, the California Supreme Court stated that
evidence provided by Chinese witnesses is inadmissible
in the court of law
 Several existing laws at the time legally dismissed
evidence produced by “Black, Mulatto or Indian” people if
it was directed “against a white man”
 The court sought to extend the scope of these laws to
include “Asiatic” peoples.
 The ruling resulted in the release of George Hall, a white
man who had been convicted of murdering a Chinese
man

7. + An Act for the Better Ordering
and Governing of Negroes and
Slaves, South Carolina, 1712
 Model slave code in the South during colonial and national periods;
argued that the colony could not operate without enslaved labor
 Empowers white colonists to “beat, maim or … kill” those who resist
enslavement
 Section XII prohibits any form of “mutiny or insurrection, or rise in
rebellion against the authority and government” by slaves or anyone
assisting slave rebellions.
 The fact that this was a measure introduced into law reveals the
degree to which slaves resisted these structures.

8. +
An Act Prohibiting the Teaching of Slaves to
Read
 The laws of this period dehumanized enslaved people and people of color
in order to maintain a society designed for white citizens.
 Reading allowed enslaved people to find other sources of resistance, to
find places of refuge and writing offered ways of traveling and moving
through spaces more freely.
 Enslaved people who were able to read and write could challenge the
legitimacy of slave owners
 Help to dismantle the racist belief that enslaved people were not
intelligent, autonomous, or even human.
 The legal system’s attempts to manage a white supremacist system of
slavery could not hide its own racial hierarchy.

9. +
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857
 “Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold
as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and
brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as
such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities,
guarantied [sic] by that instrument to the citizen?”
 According to the court, “the enslaved African race were not intended to be
included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this
declaration.”
 The Supreme Court reverses the decision of the lower court, declaring that
Dred Scott is not a citizen of the United States and therefore does not have
the right to bring this matter before the court.
 The Dred Scott Case

10. +
The Emancipation Proclamation
 Proclamation issued by President Lincoln during the
Civil War to freed enslaved people:
 “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as
slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States,
shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”
 Role the U.S. military play in this new shift in American
history
 Lincoln notes several concerns regarding the military’s role,
including the recognition of military enforcement of the new law,
as well as military service for “such persons of suitable
condition.”
 The Emancipation Strategy - National Geographic

11. + United States Constitution: Thirteenth (1865),
Fourteenth (1868), and Fifteenth (1870)
Amendments
 The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) makes all forms of slavery and
involuntary servitude illegal in the Unites States.
 Slavery is outlawed except in the case of incarceration: “Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States….”
 The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) addresses several concerns on
determining citizenship, as well as rights and privileges for citizens. It
establishes Due Process of law and Equal Protection under the law.
 The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) protects the right of U.S. citizens,
regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
 U.S. History 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments

12. +
The Black Codes: W. E. B. Du Bois
 The Black Codes are laws—legislation passed mostly by Southern
states—that systematically limited the rights and liberties of black
Americans.
 Du Bois carefully outlines the ways that post-slavery conditions were not
very different from the conditions under legalized systems of slavery:
 “Negroes were liable to a slave trade under the guise of vagrancy and
apprenticeship laws; to make the best labor contracts, Negroes must leave the
old plantations and seek better terms; but if caught wandering in search of
work, and thus unemployed and without a home, this was vagrancy, and the
victim could be whipped and sold into slavery.”
 What were the black codes?

13. +
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
 Plessy v. Ferguson takes up the issue of equal protection
under the law as established in the Fourteenth
Amendment.
 This proposition is rejected on the following grounds: “If
the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it
must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual
appreciation of each other’s merits and a voluntary consent
of individuals.
 Plessy v. Ferguson Summary - Quimbee.com

14. +
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954
 Black children denied admission to schools attended by white
children under laws requiring or permitting segregation
according to race.
 Despite “separate but equal,” the plaintiffs, who are Black
minors, here contend that “segregated public schools are not
‘equal’ and cannot be made ‘equal,’ and that hence are
deprived of the equal protection of the laws.”

15. +
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954
 Citing Sweatt v. Painter on the psychological cost of segregation on black
students, the court states that segregation policies essentially produce
the sentiment that schools for black students are inferior to schools for
white students.
 Quoting the decision in Sweatt v. Palmer, the court asserts: “A sense of
inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn.”
 Segregation with the sanction of the law, therefore, has a tendency to
delay the educational and mental development of Black children and to
deprive them of some of the benefits they receive in a racially integrated
school system.
 Brown v. Board of Education - PBS The Supreme Court

16. +
McCleskey v. Kemp, 1987
 McCleskey challenged his death sentence on the basis that racial
bias permeated the decision. He showed statistical data to show
that people of color were more likely to get the Death Penalty than
Whites in the State of Georgia.
 The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that racial inequalities were
“inevitable” and dismissed the statistical evidence.
 Case “closed the door” to any meaningful challenges to racial bias
in the criminal justice system including racial disparities in stop-
and-frisk practices, arrest patterns, plea bargains, conviction rates,
and criminal penalties
 McCleskey was put to death. Justice Powell, who ruled
in favor of the decision, later stated he regretted it.
 McCleskey v. Kemp Summary - Quimbee.com

17. +
Shelby County v. Holder, 2013
 Overturned a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that
prevented localities with a history of voting discrimination from
establishing new requirements or additional voting requirements in
their jurisdiction (a.k.a. “preclearance”)
 Chief Justice Roberts, who voted in favor, stated that “our country
has changed … and extraordinary measures are no longer
required.”
 Justice Ginsberg, who dissented, noted that voting discrimination
has evolved into more subtle barriers
 Since then States have enacted voter ID laws, voter purges, and
other measures that might have been disallowed by the
“preclearance” requirement
 Suppressing the Vote - Shelby v. Holder

18. +
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,
Seneca Falls Convention, 1848
 The Declaration of Sentiments lists several, including
electoral disenfranchisement, subjection to unequal laws,
and rights withheld from women that are given easily to
men who are “natives and foreigners.”
 What Happened at the Seneca Falls Convention?

19. +
United States Constitution: Nineteenth
Amendment (1920)
 The Nineteenth Amendment protects the right to vote
regardless of sex
 Votes for women: How the Suffragists won

20. +
Equal Rights Amendment (Defeated)
 The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was first
introduced in 1923, but was not passed until 1972.
 The ERA did not become part of the Constitution, however,
because it was not ratified by the required number of
states by the July 1982 ratification deadline.
 She Derailed a Fight for Equal Rights for Women

21. +
Roe v. Wade, 1973
 Roe v. Wade establishes a woman’s right to terminate her
pregnancy by abortion.
 The ruling is based on the right of privacy found in the
language of the Ninth and Fourteenth amendments.
 The decision also recognizes the “interest of the state in
regulating decisions concerning the pregnancy during the
latter period as the fetus developed the capacity to
survive outside the woman’s body.”
 Roe v. Wade, explained - newsy.com

22. + United States v. Bhagat Singh
Thind, 1923
 The question before the court is whether Bhagat Singh Thind,
“a high-caste Hindu, of full Indian blood, born at Amritsar,
Punjab, India,” is a white person.
 Although Caucasian is technically a “scientific” term, the court
said that it is “a conventional word of much flexibility” and that
the meaning commonly ascribed to it is the one that should be
considered. In other words, the common understanding is that
Caucasian means “white” and not a specific ancestral history
or “scientific” or racial category.
 The court states that even if Thind is technically Caucasian,
“the physical group characteristics of the Hindus render them
readily distinguishable from the various groups of persons in
this country commonly recognized as white.”
 The common understanding of what it means to be white is
more important than the “scientific” designation as Caucasian;
Thind can be Caucasian, but not white.
 1923: U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind

23. +
Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015
 The ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges
 Establishes that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a
marriage between two people of the same sex
 And to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their
marriage was lawfully licensed and performed in a different state.
 The four principles that are named to show that the Obergefell decision is
constitutional are:
 The Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects personal
choices central to dignity and autonomy;
 Marriage is fundamental under the Constitution and should be applied with equal
force to same-sex couples;
 The right of same-sex couples to marry is included under the Equal Protection
guarantee in the Fourteenth Amendment;
 The right to marry is a fundamental individual liberty.
 Obergefell v. Hodges Summary - Quimbee.com