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Dred Scott v Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri and lived in a free state due to the Missouri Compromise of 1820. He tried to claim that he was free since he was in a free state, but the Supreme Court decided that slaves were property and thus could not be taken away by the government. -
13th Amendment
The 13th amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except in cases of punishment of crimes. The proposed amendment hit a roadblock in the House. The amendment passed with a vote of 119-56. Lincoln was a big supporter of the amendment and the amendment most likely would not have been passed without his support. He was assassinated before its ratification. The amendment has two main articles. The first abolishes slavery and the second says that Congress can enforce the article. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States and guarantees "equal protection of the laws". This was the first of the Reconstruction Amendments aimed at uniting the country. The Amendment has been used extensively in Supreme Court decisions, including Roe v Wade and Bush v Gore. This allows for former slaves to be citizens of the United States and guarantees that they will have equal protection under the law -
15th Amendment
The 15th amendment has two sections. The first section says that the right of citizens to vote can not be denied or abridged because of race or former slave status. The second section says that Congress can enforce the article. This amendment allowed African Americans to vote and gave them more rights. Additionally, most of the Confederate States that had gone back to the Union were controlled by the Republican party because African Americans could now vote. However, states later ignored it. -
Poll Taxes
Poll taxes were taxes that people had to pay to vote. They used to be instituted in Southern States in the Jim Crow era to disenfranchise black voters and prevent them from voting. Poll taxes were discriminatory and oftentimes did not apply to white citizens. People who could not pay could not vote. Poll taxes were abolished with the passing of the 24th amendment. -
White Primaries
The White Primaries were primary elections in the 1890's and 1900's. Whites were only allowed to participate in the elections. The elections were yet another way that Southern states sought to disenfranchise black minorities. The primaries were declared unconstitutional with the Supreme Court case Grovey v Townsend and Smith v Allwright. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was an 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that rationalized the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case came from an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. This then started the creation of the separate water fountains, bathrooms, and schools, but they were anything but equal. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women the right to vote. The amendment came after a movement lasting over 70 years that started with the Seneca Falls Convention. The movement gained a lot of traction over the years, with prominent activists like Susan B. Anthony and others that lobbied the government. The movement culminated with the passing of the 19th Amendment. -
Brown v. Board of Education
This case was a unanimous decision by the justices that re-evaluated the Plessy v. Ferguson "separate bu equal" idea and determined that in many states the "equal" establishments for blacks were not actually equal. This stemmed from a man named Oliver Brown suing the board of education in Topeka because the schools were not actually equal. He used the "equal protection clause" in the 14th amendment to justify his claim. -
24th Amendment
The 24th amendment abolished poll taxes in any primary or major election. This was an overdue response to Southern states trying to suppress the black vote and limit their representation in the government. Mississippi is the only state to have rejected the amendment and Mississippi has not yet ratified the amendment. Poll taxes were a form of Jim Crow laws which sought to minimize minority representation. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. This was a major change in the United States, as segregation and discrimination was the norm since the country was founded. The law was first proposed by President Kennedy, but was filibustered in the Senate. President Johnson later supported the bill and was passed in Congress with the support of mass lobbying and the NAACP. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned discrimination based on race in voting. The goal of the law is to enforce the 14th and 15th amendment. In Southern states, discrimination still occurred with the presence of literacy tests and grandfather clauses. The Voting Rights Act makes sure that there is no unfair Jim Crow era voting restrictions against African Americans. -
Reed v. Reed
The Idaho Probate Code said that, "males must be preferred to females" when appointing administrators to states. Sally and Cecil reed's adopted son dies and the estate was put under Cecil's name since he was the man so Sally sued. The Supreme Court reached a unanimous decision that it was unconstitutional to have a law that allowed for dissimilar treatment on the basis of sex. The Equal Protection Clause was used to justify its unconstitutionality. -
Equal Rights Amendment
It was first introduced in 1923, but was not approved until 1972. 31 states had ratified in 1972 and had 35 ratify it in 1979, and as of 2018 there are 37 states that have ratified, but 38 states are needed to implement the amendment. The Equal Rights Amendment would guarantee equal legal rights for Americans regardless of sex. It would require states to intervene in cases of gender violence, prohibit pregnancy and motherhood discrimination and guarantee equal pay. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
This was a landmark case in deciding the legality of affirmative action. In the case Bakke had been rejected from the UC Med School even though he was more qualified than the 16 out 100 minority applicants that were accepted every year as a form of affirmative action. The court said that the use of race as criterion is constitutionally permissible in higher education, but racial quota are not allowed according to the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
Michael Hardwick was arrested for sodomy under a statute made by the state of Georgia. He then challenged the constitutionality and the case ended up in the Supreme Court. The majority argued that the right to sodomy was not "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" (Palko v. Connecticut, 1937) nor "deeply rooted in the Nation's history and tradition" (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965), therefore, the court could not rule sodomy to be a protected right that is not expressed in the Constitution. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
The Act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in several areas, including employment, transportation, public accommodations, communications and access to state and local government’ programs and services. The Integration Mandate incorporated the Act along with its passing in 1990. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action describes the collection of policies that support minorities and aim to fight discrimination. It overall purpose is to try and bridge any gaps in equality based on race. As in Grutter v. Bollinger and the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, institutions can use race as criteria for admittance which is an example of affirmative action. There are some limits that have been put in place as well such as it is prohibited to institute racial quotas. -
Lawrence v. Texas
This was another case about the constitutionality of state statutes prohibiting sexual intercourse between people of the same-sex. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the Texas statute, under the 14th Amendment Clause, "their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government." This ruling overturned the previous case about state statutes, Bowers v. Hardwick. -
Obergefell v. Hodges
This was about gay marriage and the questions of could a state make it illegal and if it is legal in one state, does another state have to accept that marriage? The Supreme Court ruled that the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment protect the liberty in an equal manner for same-sex marriage as it is protected for opposite-sex marriage. The dissenting opinion was that since the Constitution does not talk about gay marriage, then there is no right to it.
