Chapter 5

Lecture Slides
AMERICAN
POLITICS TODAY
FIFTH EDITION
By
Bianco
Canon
Copyright © 2017, W. W. Norton & Company

AMERICAN POLITICS TODAY, FIFTH EDITION
American Politics Today
Chapter 5
Civil Rights

Civil Rights: Joe Arpaio

The Context of Civil Rights
• Civil liberties ≠ civil rights
– Civil liberties: freedoms promised in the Bill of Rights and
“due process” clause of Fourteenth Amendment
– Civil rights: laws protecting us from discrimination and
relevant to the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment

African Americans and the Context
of Civil Rights

African Americans and the Context
of Civil Rights (cont’d)
• Disenfranchised – being denied a right, such as the right
to vote
• Tools used to disenfranchise blacks include:
– Poll tax – a tax levied to exercise the right to vote
– Grandfather clause – a clause permitting people the right
to vote only if their grandfather had that right
– Literacy test – an exam administered at poll booths testing
detailed knowledge of civics; usually targeted at black voters

Native Americans and the Context
of Civil Rights
• Native Americans were systematically removed from their
lands and often eradicated.
• Brought to reservations, prevented from voting until 1924
• Most treaties that Native Americans signed with the U.S.
government were broken or ignored.

Latinos and the Context of Civil Rights
• Latinos have struggled for political and economic equality
• Latinos lack political clout of African Americans
– vote at a lower rate
– More politically diverse

Latinos and the Context of Civil Rights:
Cesar Chavez

Asian Americans and the Context
of Civil Rights
• Experienced discrimination with arrival in 1800s
– Chinese miners and railroad workers victims of violence
– In 1882, Congress attempted to deny Chinese immigrants
from becoming citizens
– Japanese Americans placed in internment camps during
WWII

Women and the Context of Civil Rights
• Women have long been held out of political action – only
received the right to vote in 1920
• Policies preventing women from holding office or owning
property motivated by protectionism

Women and the Context
of Civil Rights

Gays and Lesbians and the Context
of Civil Rights
• Gays and lesbians are the most recent group to
struggle for civil rights.
• Political action began with Stonewall Rebellion in
1969
• Support for gay rights has grown substantially in the
40 years since.

The Racial Divide Today:
Discriminatory Treatment
• Significant progress has been made, but discrimination is
more common today than most realize
• On average, the EEOC files 96,000 cases of employment
discrimination each year

Voting Access
• African Americans now vote more than any other racial
group
• Nonetheless, minority voter turnout is depressed by certain
practices and institutions in many states
• States that purge voter records or create barriers for voter
registration may not target minority voters, but nonetheless
disproportionately impact them

Socioeconomic Indicators
• The income gap
– Three times as many Hispanic and black families are below
the poverty line as white families
– The average white household has more than 6 times the net
worth of a typical nonwhite family
– Unemployment rate for black men is twice as high as that
for white men
• The health gap
– On every measure of health, there is a large gap between
whites and blacks
• These gaps caused in part by government policies and
business decisions

Percentage of People in Poverty, 2014

Percentage of the Population
That Is White, 2014

Criminal Justice and Hate Crimes
• Greatest disparity between minorities and whites may be in
criminal justice system.
• Racial profiling means many innocent blacks are subjected
to intrusive searches
• Tensions between minority communities and police as
dozens of cases of police shooting unarmed black men
have been highly publicized

Racial Inequality in Law Enforcement

Key Players in Conflict over Civil Rights:
Demonstrations—The 1960s

Nonviolent Protest—The 1960s

Nonviolent Protest—Martin Luther King

Civil Rights Time Line

The Courts
• Supreme Court plays important role defining civil rights
• Recently expanded civil rights protections for women and
LGBTs, but limits protections for minorities

The Courts—Desegregation

The Courts—Brown v. Board
• NAACP challenged segregation by focusing on all-white
law schools
• Series of successful lawsuits chipped away at “separate
but equal”
• Landmark Brown v. Board of Education applied Fourteenth
Amendment’s equal protection clause to overturn Plessey
v. Ferguson

The Courts—Segregation
• Court expanded focus on segregation by considering both
de jure segregation as well as de facto segregation
• Court also applied disparate impact standard to
determine if employment practices have a bad effect on a
racial group

The Courts—Women’s Rights
• Court long refused to apply the Constitution to women
• Protectionism finally rejected in series of cases in 1970s
• Established standards for discrimination

Women’s Earnings as a Percentage
of Men’s Earnings, 2014

The Courts—LGBT Rights
• Dramatic shift in treatment of gay rights
– Court ruled in 1986 that homosexual behavior not protected
by Constitution
– Court first endorsed civil rights for gays in 1996
– Court used substantive due process doctrine to overturn
Texas ban on homosexual relations
• Same-sex marriage guaranteed by the Supreme Court in
2015

Congress
• Foundation for civil rights came in 1960s legislation
– Civil Rights Act
– Voting Rights Act (VRA)
– Fair Housing Act

The Policy-Making Process
and Civil Rights: Title IX

Discrimination Cases
in the EEOC, 2015

The President
• Civil rights benefitted greatly by presidential action
– President Truman integrated the armed services in 1948.
– President Eisenhower used the National Guard to enforce a
court order to integrate a high school in Little Rock,
Arkansas.
– JFK and LBJ used executive orders to establish affirmative
action.

Civil Rights Issues Today
• Three main perspectives in direction of civil rights
movement
– Nation must “move beyond” race
– Traditional civil rights advocates
– Separationists

Affirmative Action

Multicultural Issues
• Many states have have made English their official
language, although the federal government
– Allowing states to administer driving tests only in English
could affect education policy
• Immigration policy has been central in many recent
political debates, and played a prominent role in the 2016
presidential campaign

Border Patrol

Public Opinion Poll: Q1
Agree or disagree: Racism is a significant problem in the
United States.
a. strongly agree
b. agree
c. disagree
d. strongly disagree

Agree or disagree: Sexism is a significant problem in the
United States.
a. strongly agree
b. agree
c. disagree
d. strongly disagree

Should the U.S. Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) be allowed to conduct ethnic profiling for safety, or
does this practice violate an individual’s civil rights?
a. It should be allowed.
b. It should not be allowed.

Do you feel Americans should be concerned if schools
become more racially segregated?
a. yes
b. no

Do you believe same-sex couples should be allowed to
marry?
a. yes
b. no

Do you believe same-sex couples should be allowed to
adopt children?
a. yes
b. no

Additional Information
Following this slide, you will find additional slides with
photos, figures, and captions from the textbook.

Representation of Women
and Minorities

Civil Rights: Arrest

Civil Rights: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Civil Rights: Obama Cabinet

Civil Rights: Voting Demographics

Civil Rights: Racism

Senator Hiram Revels

The LGBTQ Equality Movement

Voting Rights and Barriers: Latinos

Hate Crimes: The Charleston Shooting

Affirmative Action: The University of
Texas

Women’s Rights Time Line

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Chapter 5

Editor's Notes