Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) by J

Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896) by Justice Brown
So far, then, as a conflict with the fourteenth amendment is
concerned, the case reduces itself to the question whether the
statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and with respect
to this there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of
the legislature. In determining the question of reasonableness, it
is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages,
customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the
promotion of their comfort, and the preservation of the public
peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot say
that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of
the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more
obnoxious to the fourteenth amendment than the Acts of
Congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the
District of Columbia, the constitutionality of which does not
seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding acts of state
legislatures.
We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to
consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two
races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this
be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely
because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon
it. . . . The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be
overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured
to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two
races. We cannot accept this proposition. 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. . . . Legislation is
powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions
based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can
only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present
situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal

one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one
race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the
United States cannot put them upon the same plane.
Excerpts from the Dissenting Opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896) by Justice Harlan
The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this
country. And so it is in prestige, in achievements, in education,
in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be
for all time if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast
to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the
Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no
superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste
here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor
tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all
citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of
the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no
account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights
as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is
therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final
expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the
conclusion that it is competent for a State to regulate the
enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis
of race.
In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time,
prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this
tribunal in the Dred Scott Case. It was adjudged in that case
that the descendants of Africans who were imported into this
country and sold as slaves were not included nor intended to be
included under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and
could not claim any of the rights and privileges which that
instrument provided for and secured to citizens of the United
States; that, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, they

were
considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who
had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether
emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and
had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power
and the government might choose to grant them.
The recent amendments of the Constitution, it was supposed,
had eradicated these principles from our institutions. But it
seems that we have yet, in some of the States, a dominant race -
- a superior class of citizens, which assumes to regulate the
enjoyment of civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis
of race. The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will
not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and
irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will
encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state
enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people
of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent
amendments of the Constitution, by one of which the blacks of
this country were made citizens of the United States and of the
States in which they respectively reside, and whose privileges
and immunities, as citizens, the States are forbidden to abridge.
Sixty millions of whites are in no danger from the presence here
of eight millions of blacks. The destinies of the two races in
this country are indissolubly linked together, and the interests
of both require that the common government of all shall not
permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of
law. What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more
certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between
these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the
ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that
they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by
white citizens. That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of
such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana.

Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Lum v. Rice (1927) by
Chief Justice Taft
As we have seen, the plaintiffs aver that the Rosedale
Consolidated High School is the only school conducted in that
district available for Martha Lum as a pupil. They also aver that
there is no school maintained in the district of Bolivar County
for the education of Chinese children, and none in the county.
How are these averments to be reconciled with the statement of
the state supreme court that colored schools are maintained in
every county by virtue of the constitution? This seems to be
explained, in the language of the state supreme court, as
follows:

"By statute it is provided that all the territory of each county of
the state shall be divided into school districts separately for the
white and colored races -- that is to say, the whole territory is to
be divided into white school districts, and then a new division
of the county for colored school districts. In other words, the
statutory scheme is to make the districts, outside of the separate
school districts, districts for the particular race, white or
colored, so that the territorial limits of the school districts need
not be the same, but the territory embraced in a school district
for the colored race may not be the same territory embraced in
the school district for the white race, and vice versa, which
system of creating the common school districts for the two
races, white and colored, do not require schools for each race as
such to be maintained in each district, but each child, no matter
from what territory, is assigned to some school district, the
school buildings being separately located and separately
controlled, but each having the same curriculum, and each
having the same number of months of school term, if the
attendance is maintained for the said statutory period, which
school district of the common or public schools has certain
privileges, among which is to maintain a public school by local
taxation for a longer period of time than the said term of four
months under named conditions which apply alike to the
common schools for the white and colored races."
We must assume, then, that there are school districts for colored
children in Bolivar County, but that no colored school is within
the limits of the Rosedale Consolidated High School District.
This is not inconsistent with there being at a place outside of
that district and in a different district, a colored school which
the plaintiff Martha Lum may conveniently attend. If so, she is
not denied, under the existing school system, the right to attend
and enjoy the privileges of a common school education in a
colored school. If it were otherwise, the petition should have
contained an allegation showing it. Had the petition alleged
specifically that there was no colored school in Martha Lum's
neighborhood to which she could conveniently go, a different

question would have been presented, and this without regard to
the state supreme court's construction of the state constitution
as limiting the white schools provided for the education of
children of the white or Caucasian race. But we do not find the
petition to present such a situation.
The case then reduces itself to the question whether a state can
be said to afford to a child of Chinese ancestry, born in this
country and a citizen of the United States, the equal protection
of the laws by giving her the opportunity for a common school
education in a school which receives only colored children of
the brown, yellow, or black races.
The question here is whether a Chinese citizen of the United
States is denied equal protection of the laws when he is classed
among the colored races and furnished facilities for education
equal to that offered to all, whether white, brown, yellow, or
black. Were this a new question, it would call for very full
argument and consideration; but we think that it is the same
question which has been many times decided to be within the
constitutional power of the state legislature to settle, without
intervention of the federal courts under the federal Constitution
In Plessy v. Ferguson,163 U. S. 537, 163 U. S. 544-545, in
upholding the validity under the Fourteenth Amendment of a
statute of Louisiana requiring the separation of the white and
colored races in railway coaches, a more difficult question than
this, this Court, speaking of permitted race separation, said:
"The most common instance of this is connected with the
establishment of separate schools for white and colored
children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the
legislative power even by courts of states where the political
rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly
enforced."
Most of the cases cited arose, it is true, over the establishment
of separate schools as between white pupils and black pupils,
but we cannot think that the question is any different, or that
any different result can be reached, assuming the cases above
cited to be rightly decided, where the issue is as between white

pupils and the pupils of the yellow races. The decision is within
the discretion of the state in regulating its public schools, and
does not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Brown v. Board of
Education (1954) by Chief Justice Warren
. . . Here . . . there are findings below that the Negro and white
schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized,
with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications, and salari es
of teachers, and other "tangible" factors. Our decision,
therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible
factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of these
cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself
on public education. . . .
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state
and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and
the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our
recognition of the importance of education to our democratic
society. . . . Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the
child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional
training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his
environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may
reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the
opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the
state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made
available to all on equal terms. . . .
To separate them [children in grade and high schools] from
others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their
race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the

community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way
unlikely to ever be undone. . . . Whatever may have been the
extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy
v.Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern
authority. . . .
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of
"separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational
facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the
plaintiffs and other similarly situated . . . are . . . deprived of
the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Regents of the
University of California v. Bakke (1978) by Justice Powell
In such an admissions program,race or ethnic background may
be deemed a "plus" in a particular applicant's file, yet it does
not insulate the individual from comparison with all other
candidates for the available seats. The file of a particular black
applicant may be examined for his potential contribution to
diversity without the factor of race being decisive when
compared, for example, with that of an applicant identifi ed as
an Italian-American if the latter is thought to exhibit qualities
more likely to promote beneficial educational pluralism. Such
qualities could include exceptional personal talents, unique
work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity,
demonstrated compassion, a history of overcoming
disadvantage, ability to communicate with the poor, or other
qualifications deemed important. In short, an admissions
program operated in this way is flexible enough to consider all
pertinent elements of diversity in light of the particular
qualifications of each applicant, and to place them on the same
footing for consideration, although not necessarily according
them the same weight. Indeed, the weight attributed to a[p318]
particular quality may vary from year to year depending upon
the "mix" both of the student body and the applicants for the

incoming class.
This kind of program treats each applicant as an individual in
the admissions process. The applicant who loses out on the last
available seat to another candidate receiving a "plus" on the
basis of ethnic background will not have been foreclosed from
all consideration for that seat simply because he was not the
right color or had the wrong surname. It would mean only that
his combined qualifications, which may have included similar
nonobjective factors, did not outweigh those of the other
applicant. His qualifications would have been weighed fairly
and competitively, and he would have no basis to complain of
unequal treatment under the Fourteenth Amendmen t.
It has been suggested that an admissions program which
considers race only as one factor is simply a subtle and more
sophisticated -- but no less effective -- means of according
racial preference than the Davis program. A facial intent to
discriminate, however, is evident in petitioner's preference
program, and not denied in this case. No such facial infirmity
exists in an admissions program where race or ethnic
background is simply one element -- to be weighed fairly
against other elements -- in the selection process. "A boundary
line," as Mr. Justice Frankfurter remarked in another
connection, "is none the worse for being narrow." McLeod v.
Dilworth, 322 U.S. 327, 329 (1944). And a court would not
assume that a university, professing to employ a faciall y
nondiscriminatory admissions policy, would operate it as a
cover for the functional equivalent of a quota system. In short,
good faith would be presumed in the absence of a showing to
the contrary in the manner permitted by our cases.
B
In summary, it is evident that the Davis special admissions
program involves the use of an explicit racial classification
never before countenanced by this Court. It tells applicants who
are not Negro, Asian, or Chicano that they are totally excluded
from a specific percentage of the seats in an entering class. No

matter how strong their qualifications, quantitative and
extracurricular, including their own potential for contribution to
educational diversity, they are never afforded the chance to
compete with applicants from the preferred groups for the
special admissions seats. At the same time, the preferred[p320]
applicants have the opportunity to compete for every seat in the
class.
The fatal flaw in petitioner's preferential program is its
disregard of individual rights as guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. at 22. Such rights are
not absolute. But when a State's distribution of benefits or
imposition of burdens hinges on ancestry or the color of a
person's skin, that individual is entitled to a demonstration that
the challenged classification is necessary to promote a
substantial state interest. Petitioner has failed to carry this
burden. For this reason, that portion of the California court's
judgment holding petitioner's special admissions program
invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment must be affirmed.
C
In enjoining petitioner from ever considering the race of any
applicant, however, the courts below failed to recognize that the
State has a substantial interest that legitimately may be served
by a properly devised admissions program involving the
competitive consideration of race and ethnic origin. For this
reason, so much of the California court's judgment as enjoins
petitioner from any consideration of the race of any applicant
must be reversed.
VI
With respect to respondent's entitlement to an injunction
directing his admission to the Medical School, petitioner has
conceded that it could not carry its burden of proving that, but
for the existence of its unlawful special admissions program,
respondent still would not have been admitted. Hence,
respondent is entitled to the injunction, and that portion of the
judgment must be affirmed.

Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Bush v. Gore (2000) by
The Justices of the Supreme Court
The State Supreme Court ratified this uneven treatment. It
mandated that the recount totals from two counties, Miami-Dade
and Palm Beach, be included in the certified total. The court
also appeared to hold sub silentio that the recount totals from
Broward County, which were not completed until after the
original November 14 certification by the Secretary of State,
were to be considered part of the new certified vote totals even
though the county certification was not contested by Vice
President Gore. Yet each of the counties used varying standards
to determine what was a legal vote. Broward County used a
more forgiving standard than Palm Beach County, and
uncovered almost three times as many new votes, a result
markedly disproportionate to the difference in population
between the counties.
In addition, the recounts in these three counties were not
limited to so-called undervotes but extended to all of the
ballots. The distinction has real consequences. A manual
recount of allballots identifies not only those ballots which
show no vote but also those which contain more than one, the
so-called overvotes. Neither category will be counted by the
machine. This is not a trivial concern. At oral argument,
respondents estimated there are as many as 110,000 overvotes
statewide. As a result, the citizen whose ballot was not read by
a machine because he failed to vote for a candidate in a way
readable by a machine may still have his vote counted in a
manual recount; on the other hand, the citizen who marks two
candidates in a way discernable by the machine will not have
the same opportunity to have his vote count, even if a manual

examination of the ballot would reveal the requisite indicia of
intent. Furthermore, the citizen who marks two candidates, only
one of which is discernable by the machine, will have his vote
counted even though it should have been read as an invalid
ballot. The State Supreme Court’s inclusion of vote counts
based on these variant standards exemplifies concerns with the
remedial processes that were under way.
That brings the analysis to yet a further equal protection
problem. The votes certified by the court included a partial total
from one county, Miami-Dade. The Florida Supreme Court’s
decision thus gives no assurance that the recounts included in a
final certification must be complete. Indeed, it is respondent’s
submission that it would be consistent with the rules of the
recount procedures to include whatever partial counts are done
by the time of final certification, and we interpret the Florida
Supreme Court’s decision to permit this. See ____ So. 2d, at
____, n. 21 (slip op., at 37, n. 21) (noting “practical
difficulties” may control outcome of election, but certifying
partial Miami-Dade total nonetheless). This accommodation no
doubt results from the truncated contest period established by
the Florida Supreme Court in Bush I, at respondents’ own
urging. The press of time does not diminish the constitutional
concern. A desire for speed is not a general excuse for ignoring
equal protection guarantees.
In addition to these difficulties the actual process by which
the votes were to be counted under the Florida Supreme Court’s
decision raises further concerns. That order did not specify who
would recount the ballots. The county canvassing boards were
forced to pull together ad hoc teams comprised of judges from
various Circuits who had no previous training in handling and
interpreting ballots. Furthermore, while others were permitted
to observe, they were prohibited from objecting during the
recount.
The recount process, in its features here described, is
inconsistent with the minimum procedures necessary to protect
the fundamental right of each voter in the special instance of a

statewide recount under the authority of a single state judicial
officer. Our consideration is limited to the present
circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election
processes generally presents many complexities.
The question before the Court is not whether local entities, in
the exercise of their expertise, may develop different systems
for implementing elections. Instead, we are presented with a
situation where a state court with the power to assure
uniformity has ordered a statewide recount with minimal
procedural safeguards. When a court orders a statewide remedy,
there must be at least some assurance that the rudimentary
requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are
satisfied.
Given the Court's assessment that the recount process
underway was probably being conducted in an unconstitutional
manner, the Court stayed the order directing the recount so it
could hear this case and render an expedited decision. The
contest provision, as it was mandated by the State Supreme
Court, is not well calculated to sustain the confidence that all
citizens must have in the outcome of elections. The State has
not shown that its procedures include the necessary safeguards.
The problem, for instance, of the estimated 110,000 overvotes
has not been addressed, although Chief Justice Wells call ed
attention to the concern in his dissenting opinion. See ____ So.
2d, at ____, n. 26 (slip op., at 45, n. 26).
Upon due consideration of the difficulties identified to this
point, it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in
compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due
process without substantial additional work. It would require
not only the adoption (after opportunity for argument) of
adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal
vote, and practicable procedures to implement them, but also
orderly judicial review of any disputed matters that might arise.
In addition, the Secretary of State has advised that the recount
of only a portion of the ballots requires that the vote tabulation
equipment be used to screen out undervotes, a function for

which the machines were not designed. If a recount of overvotes
were also required, perhaps even a second screening would be
necessary. Use of the equipment for this purpose, and any new
software developed for it, would have to be evaluated for
accuracy by the Secretary of State, as required by Fla. Stat.
§101.015 (2000).
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges
(2015) by Justice Kennedy
The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and
tradition, but rights come not from ancient sources alone. They
rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how
constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in
our own era. Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong
reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious
or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are
disparaged here. But when that sincere, personal opposition
becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary
consequence is to put the imprimatur of the State itself on an
exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own
liberty is then denied. Under the Constitution, same-sex couples
seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex
couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their
personhood to deny them this right.
The right of same-sex couples to marry that is part of the liberty
promised by the Fourteenth Amendment is derived, too, from

that Amendment's guarantee of the equal protection of the laws.
The Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause are
connected in a profound way, though they set forth independent
principles. Rights implicit in liberty and rights secured by equal
protection may rest on different precepts and are not always co-
extensive, yet in some instances each may be instructive as to
the meaning and reach of the other. In any particular case one
Clause may be thought to capture the essence of the right in a
more accurate and comprehensive way, even as the two Clauses
may converge in the identification and definition of the right.
See M. L. B., 519 U. S., at 120 121; id., at 128 129 (Kennedy,
J., concurring in judgment); Beardenv. Georgia, 461 U. S. 660,
665 (1983) . This interrelation of the two principles furthers our
understanding of what freedom is and must become.
Indeed, in interpreting the Equal Protection Clause, the Court
has recognized that new insights and societal understandings
can reveal unjustified inequality within our most fundamental
institutions that once passed unnoticed and unchallenged. To
take but one period, this occurred with respect to marriage in
the 1970's and 1980's. Notwithstanding the gradual erosion of
the doctrine of coverture, see supra, at 6, invidious sex-based
classifications in marriage remained common through the mid-
20th century. See App. to Brief for Appellant in Reedv. Reed,
O. T. 1971, No. 70 4, pp. 69 88 (an extensive reference to laws
extant as of 1971 treating women as unequal to men in
marriage). These classifications denied the equal di gnity of men
and women. One State's law, for example, provided in 1971 that
"the husband is the head of the family and the wife is subject to
him; her legal civil existence is merged in the husband, except
so far as the law recognizes her separately, either for her own
protection, or for her benefit." Ga. Code Ann. 53 501 (1935).
Responding to a new awareness, the Court invoked equal
protection principles to invalidate laws imposing sex-based
inequality on marriage . . . Precedents show the Equal
Protection Clause can help to identify and correct inequalities in

the institution of marriage, vindicating precepts of liberty and
equality under the Constitution.
scenarios 5 & 6
Please make sure you answer the appropriate questions for the
above scenarios- no submissions accepted. Remember all of
these scenarios have a cultural aspect to them, so you may need
to research the assumption being made in the scenario about the
specific culture mentioned, to assist you with your response.
5. You are discharging a patient of Chinese heritage. You begin
to ask all the pertinent discharge questions and notice that their
answer to every question is “yes”. What might be your

assumption? How could you better assess, in a culturally
competent manner, this individual’s comprehension of the very
critical discharge plans?
6.An elderly couple, of Mexican heritage, is discussing their
care needs at a skilled nursing facility. As the team members
discuss the couple’s needs they notice the couple is not making
or maintain eye contact and that they are always looking down.
One of the team members asks the couple if there is something
wrong or if they are not understanding all that is being
discussed. Why might this couple not be initiating or
maintaining eye contact? How might you have handled this
situation differently?
Assessment Overview
This section houses all the assessments in this course. Only
assessments submitted into Bb will be graded, completing an
assessment on your computer but not submitti ng it does not
count as completing the assessment. If you have difficulty
uploading an assessment then please email the instructor of
record and contact OIT. Tracking statistics are on in this course
therefore I can track when you have been active in the course so
please be responsible for your submissions. Use outside sources
and cite to support your insight.
Please use APA formatting for citations here is a
resource https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_
style/apa_style_introduction.html
It is important to understand these definitions and to be able to
use them in your scenarios, discussions, book review and final
exam. Please review the definitions and apply them as needed to
the assignments.
Culture- An integrated pattern of learned beliefs and behaviors
that can be shared among groups, including thoughts, styles of
communicating and ways of interacting, views on roles and

relationships, values, practices, and customs.
Rose (2013) stated, "Cultural competence involves ensuring that
the needs of diverse patients/clients/customers are met by health
service professionals based on the acquisition of specific skill
sets, valuing diversity, and taking concrete steps to ensure
efficacy in serving minority populations" (pg.50).
Rose, P. R. (2013). Cultural competency for the health
professional. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Cultural Awareness - the ability of healthcare providers to
appreciate and understand their client's values, beliefs,
lifeways, practices, and problem-solving strategies.
Cultural Blindness - Scenarios in which all people are viewed
the same without taking into consideration that cultural
differences matter.
Cultural Competence -cultural and linguistic competence is a
set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come
together in a system, agency, or among professionals that
enables effective work in cross-cultural situations., Per the
cultural competence continuum: involves ensuring that the
needs of diverse patients/clients/customers are met by health
service and public health organizations based on the acquisition
of specific skill sets, valuing diversity and taking concrete steps
to ensure efficacy in serving minority populations.
Cultural Desire -the ability of the healthcare provider/health
service administrator/public health practitioner to possess a
drive to achieve cultural competence.
Cultural Humility -ability to maintain an interpersonal stance
that is other-oriented (or open to the other) in relation to
aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the
[person]” APA
Cultural Destructiveness - characterized by attitudes, policies,
structures, and practices within a system or an organization that
are destructive to a cultural group.
Cultural Incapacity - the lack of capacity to respond effectively
to culturally and linguistically diverse groups.

Cultural Knowledge - the ability to have insight and knowledge
about physical, psychological, and biological variations
among groups as well as having knowledge about various
cultures to better understand their clients.
Cultural Sensitivity - An awareness of and respect for a
patient's cultural beliefs and values.
Cultural Pre-competence - When a healthcare organization is
aware of its strengths and areas for growth and there is a clear
commitment to human and civil rights.
Cultural Proficiency - Takes the process of cultural competence
a step further by employing staff and consultants with cultural
expertise, ensuring assessment and training efforts, and
reviewing policies and procedures to ensure the inclusion of
culturally competent language.
Paradigm Shift - A revolutionary change from one way of
thinking to another, which does not just happen but is driven by
agents of change.
Rose, P. R. (2013). Cultural competency for the health
professional. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Civil Rights Law
Part II
Civil Rights Efforts Before Brown
Anti-Lynching Campaigns
World War II:
Double-V Campaign
Executive Order 8802
Post-World War II:

Jackie Robinson - 1947
Organizations:
NAACP
CORE
SNCC
SCLC
Brown Decision Implications
Court enters politics
Decision declares practice unconstitutional but does not suggest
remedy.
Necessitates Brown II (May 1955) → Desegregation with “all
deliberate speed”
Ambiguity?
NAACP wanted a date
White segregationists wanted to slow the process
Court imagined real integration:
Moving boundaries, teachers, busing, etc.
Supreme Ct. thwarted when it tried to lead on social change.
Southern Manifesto → 1956

The Warren Court & The Evolution of the Supreme Court
Changing profile of the court from the 1950s, on.
Earl Warren (1953 - 1969)
California Governor
Politically savvy
Short Brown opinion
Activist court → High point of judicial power
Constitutional overreach? Legislating from the bench?
Civil Rights After Brown
Legal and Constitutional equality.
Securing Equal Protection
Ending legally established discrimination
Equal Access
Education reform
Housing
Voting
Civil Rights Movement - Goals
Montgomery Bus Boycott

December 1955 - December 1956
Emmett Till Murder - August 1955
42,000 activists
Claudette Colvin/Rosa Parks
Martin Luther King, Jr.
King and 88 others indicted, convicted, and jailed.
Vicious white response.
Economically crippled public transportatio n system.
Browder v. Gayle (1955)
NAACP legal challenge during direct action in Montgomery.
Browder → Black Montgomery woman
Gayle → Mayor of Montgomery
The ghost of Plessy
Major Question: Did the district court err in striking down the
racially separate but equal bus system in Montgomery,
Alabama?
District Ct. Decision and Per Curiam Supreme Court Decision
Important Developments in the Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Act of 1957
Civil Rights Commission → Voting
Banned intimidation and coercion during federal elections
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights → Civil Rights
Division
Southern Christian Leadership Conference Formed (1957)
Little Rock Crisis (1957)
Bethel Baptist Church bombed by KKK, killing four girls
(1958)
Cooper v. Aaron (1958)
Open opposition in Arkansas to Brown.
5 months after Little Rock 9 Crisis
School board filed suit:
Return African-American students to segregated schools
Delay integration for two years
Major Question:
Were Arkansas officials bound by federal court orders
mandating desegregation?
Unanimous Decision

NAACP v. Alabama (1958)
Alabama attempted to drive the NAACP out of existence
Restraining Order
Subpoena → Records/Membership Lists
Major Question:
Did Alabama’s requirements violate the due process clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment?
Unanimous Decision
Discrimination and Segregation
The Growth of Direct Action
In concert with non-violence
Methods:
Litigation
Mass media
Boycotts
Demonstrations
Sit-Ins
Civil Disobedience
Relationship between legal victories and direct action

“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey
just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey
unjust laws.”
1960:
Greensboro, NC sit-ins
SNCC formed
Nashville, TN sit-ins
Civil Rights Act of 1960 → Voting
King arrested during Atlanta sit-in
What rights was it imperative for Civil Rights activists to be
able to exercise?
Was it imperative for the federal courts to protect their exercise
of these rights?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.
First Amendment

1961:
Executive Order 10925 → EEO
Freedom Rides begin → Assaulted in Montgomery and arrested
in Georgia
1962:
James Meredith barred from enrolling at U. of Miss → Riot
ensues
Executive Order 11063 → Discrimination in federally funded
housing.
1963:
George Wallace → “Segregation forever . . .”
Birmingham campaign begins
King arrested in Birmingham → Letter
University of Alabama confrontation
March on Washington → I Have a Dream
16th St. Baptist Church bombed in Birmingham → 4 girls killed
Boynton v. Virginia (1960)
Bruce Boynton - Virginia Law Student
Bus from D.C. to Alabama
Stop in VA → sat on white side of segregated restaurant at
station
Asked to move, refused. Arrested, tried, convicted, and fined
for unlawfully remaining on the premises.
Filed suit that treatment violated Interstate Commerce Act.
7 - 2 Decision:
ICA should be interpreted to ban all forms of segregation by
race in any public transportation.

OFFENSES AFFECTING THE
GENERAL PEACE AND ORDER
§103. Disturbing the peace
A. Disturbing the peace is the doing of any of the following in
such manner as would foreseeably disturb or alarm the public:
(1) Engaging in a fistic encounter; or
(2) Addressing any offensive, derisive, or annoying words to
any other person who is lawfully in any street, or other public
place; or call him by any offensive or derisive name, or make
any noise or exclamation in his presence and hearing with the
intent to deride, offend, or annoy him, or to prevent him from
pursuing his lawful business, occupation, or duty; or
(3) Appearing in an intoxicated condition; or
(4) Engaging in any act in a violent and tumultuous manner by
any three or more persons; or
(5) Holding of an unlawful assembly; or
(6) Interruption of any lawful assembly of people; or
(7) Intentionally engaging in any act or any utterance, gesture,
or display designed to disrupt a funeral, funeral home viewing,
funeral procession, wake, memorial service, or burial of a
deceased person.
(8) Intentionally blocking, impeding, inhibiting, or in any other
manner obstructing or interfering with access into or from any
building or parking lot of a building in which a funeral, wake,
memorial service, or burial is being conducted, or any burial
plot or the parking lot of the cemetery in which a funeral, wake,
memorial service, or burial is being conducted.
B.(1) Whoever commits the crime of disturbing the peace shall
be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned for

not more than ninety days, or both.
(2) Whoever commits the crime of disturbing the peace as
provided in Paragraphs (A)(7) and (8) of this Section shall be
fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned for not
more than six months, or both.
Sample Breach of the Peace State Statute
Edwards v. South Carolina (1963)
Peaceful student assembly at South Carolina State House
187 Arrested and convicted of breach of the peace.
Arrests followed disregard of order to disperse.
Major Question:
Did the arrests and convictions of the marchers violate their
freedom of speech, assembly, and petition for redress of their
grievances as protected by the First and Fourteenth
Amendments?
8 - 1 Decision
Cox v. Louisiana (1965)
23 members of CORE arrested on charge of illegal picketing
Cox → Leading member of CORE
Protestors demonstrate during hearing
Protestors ordered to disperse, then arrested
Cox was charged with four offenses under Louisiana law:
criminal conspiracy, disturbing the peace, obstructing public
passages, and picketing before a courthouse.
Major Questions:

Does Cox's conviction based on violation of the Louisiana
statute prohibiting "disturbing the peace" violate his rights to
free speech and assembly under the First and Fourteenth
Amendments?
Does Cox's conviction based on violation of the Louisiana
statute prohibiting "obstructing public passages" violate his
rights to free speech and assembly under the First and
Fourteenth Amendments?
Adderley v. Florida (1966)
Student protest against segregation in non-public jail driveway
Protesting arrests of students, state and local segregation, jail
segregation.
32 Arrested and convicted for "trespass with a malicious and
mischievous intent.
Major Question → Were the petitioners denied their rights of
free speech, assembly, petition, due process of law and equal

protection of the laws as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth
Amendments?
5 - 4 Decision
1964
Banned discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or
national origin” in employment and public accommodations.
Freedom Summer → Voter registration
24th Amendment abolished poll tax
King awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1965
Bloody Sunday → Selma
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Federal oversight and enforcement of voter registration with a
discriminatory history. Prohibits discriminatory practices.
Commerce Clause and 14th Amendment
Congressional power “to regulate commerce with foreign
nations, and among the several states . . .”
“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

“Self-Help” vs. Reliance
Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 intended to stifle direct
action?
Was the hope that demonstrations and protests would dwindle as
the movement sought reliance on civil suits provided for by the
act?
Should protestants be required to litigate discrimination before
relying on self-help?
What is the relationship between the Civil Rights Act, “self-
help,” and judicial precedent of the type set in the Civil Rights
Cases of 1883?
Hamm v. City of Rock Hill (1964)
Sit-Ins
South Carolina
5 & 10; purchases/lunch counter
Manager/Police
Trespassing
CRA during appeal
Question:
Did the Civil Rights Act forbid discrimination towards black
customers at McCrory’s Five and Ten Cent Store if Hamm’s
appeal was pending when the law took effect?
5 - 4 Decision:
Abatement
Trespass v. Sit-In

Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. U.S. (1964)
Civil Rights Act
Motel refused to service African-American customers
Government took action against motel to uphold Civil Rights
Act
Counter-suit by Motel.
Major Question:
Did Congress, in passing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
exceed its Commerce Clause powers by depriving places of
public accommodation of the right to choose their own
customers?
Unanimous Decision
1966
Evolution of Black Power and the founding of the Black Panther
Party
1967
Newark and Detroit Riots
Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first African-American Supreme
Court justice.
1968
King shot and killed in Memphis, TN
Riots in Chicago, D.C., Baltimore, Louisville, KC, and 150
other cities
Fair Housing Act

Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Mildred Jeter (black woman) and Richard Loving (white man)
married in Washington, D.C.
Virginia Residents → Returned after marriage
Charged with violated anti-miscegenation statute
Major Question: Did Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law violate
the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Unanimous Decision
Assess the trajectory of the court in relationship to the
trajectory of the civil rights movement.
Civil Rights Timeframe . . .
Civil War & Reconstruction → 1860 - 1877
Gilded Age → 1870s - 1900
Progressive Era → 1890s - 1920
American Imperialism → 1880s - 1914
World War I → 1914 - 1918
The Roaring Twenties → 1920 - 1929
Great Depression & New Deal → 1929 - 1941
World War II → 1941 - 1945

Post-War Boom → 1946 - 1959
Cold War → 1945 - 1991
Civil Rights Movement → 1954 - 1968
New Frontier & Great Society → 1960 - 1968
Vietnam War - 1954 - 1975
Era of Social Change - 1960 - 1980
End of the Century → 1980 - 2000
New Millenium → 2001 -
American Legal History II
Civil Rights
What is the role of law in society?
How does law impact society?
How does context impact law?
How did the HISTORY of the Civil Rights Movement impact
Supreme Court decisions and law?

To what extent did Supreme Court decisions reflect the
achievement of the goals of the Civil Rights Movement?
To what extent did Supreme Court decisions protect and
preserve the Civil Rights Movement?
Viewing civil rights through the lens of law as an arena of
struggle in which contending groups and individuals try to put
their own stamp on what citizenship means in American life.
Methodological considerations - Focus on state and federal
statutes, along with court decisions, or the social change
promoted by organizations and subsequent protests?
Legal and Constitutional equality.
Securing Equal Protection
Ending legally established discrimination

Equal Access
Education reform
Housing
Voting
Civil Rights Movement - Goals
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.
Fourteenth Amendment
“Nadir of American Race Relations”
Outcome of Reconstruction
1877 → Early 20th Century
Slaughterhouse Cases
1883 → Civil Rights Cases → State Actor (Action) vs. Private
or Individual Action
1883 → Racial Purity → Pace v. Alabama
1899 → Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education →
de jure segregation
Nullifying 13th, 14th, and 15th . . .
Civil Rights Act

Enforcement Act
Ongoing, evolving segregation in public and private
accommodations
Consistent denial of legal protections and civil liberties
guaranteed by the Bill of Rights
De Jure in the South → De Facto in the North and West
Jim Crow Examples
Accomplishments of Reconstruction
Permanent destruction of legal slavery
Guarantee that slavery would not expand westward
Immediate, blanket citizenship for African-Americans
Promise of full legal and political equality for African-
Americans
Promise of a more just society free of racism.
Laws and Constitution rewritten to incorporate equal
citizenship.
Mobilization of African-Americans:
Education
Economy
Military
Voters
Reconstruction Amendments

Pre-Brown Developments/Decisions
Race and the Justice System
Lynching
Fallout of Plessy
Jury Exclusion
Apathetic legal defense
Systemic Bias
Origins of Lynching Culture in the U.S. → The Mob
The Elaine Massacre
Rights of the Accused
Habeas Corpus
Procedural Due Process, Equal Protection

The right to trial by jury;
The right to trial in a timely manner;
The right to be informed of the nature and cause of all
accusations against you;
The right to confront witnesses against you;
The right to have legal counsel available to you; and
The right to compel witnesses to testify on your behalf.
Protection against excessive bail or cruel and unusual
punishment.
Moore v. Dempsey (1923)
1st case related to treatment of African-Americans by criminal
justice system.
1919 Arkansas
Meeting of Black Tenant Farmers Union
White RR security guard killed
Governor deploys federal troops
Race Riot kills nearly 200 blacks
Round-up, torture, indictments, and prosecution → 12
defendants sentenced to death
Irregular efforts by counsel
Trial swarmed by mobs of armed whites.
Investigation and NAACP appeal
Habeas Petition and alleged violation of Due Process Clause of
14th Amendment
6 -2 Decision
Significance:
Wider use of habeas to oversee state court convictions
Stricter scrutiny by Supreme Court of state criminal trials to
ensure BoR compliance
Reduced capacity for local denial.

Walter F. White
Powell v. Alabama (1932)
First of the Scottsboro Boys Cases
Alleged Rape on freight train → Fight, eventual retraction
Denied legal counsel or contact with families
9 sentenced to death
All white jury.
Major Question: Did the trials of the Scottsboro Boys violate
the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment?
7 -2 Decision
Excerpt
Norris v. Alabama (1935)
Second of the Scottsboro Boys Cases
Retrial after first Powell.
Focused on the issue of the systematic exclusion of African-
Americans from jury service.
8 - 0 Decision
Larger Significance:
Changing Constitutional view of racial discrimination.
All-white juries were commonplace and not considered
unconstitutional.
Racial diversity and proportionality necessitated

Which branch of government should be responsible for social
change?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of changes to laws that are
Constitutional? Legislative?
What is the difference between the following:
Executive Orders/Actions
Legislation
Judicial Decisions
Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)
Missouri
Restrictive Covenants on properties
“People of the Negro or Mongolian Race” prevented from
occupying specific properties
“Ran with the land”
Kraemer sued to prevent Shelley family from occupying the
purchased home.

Lower Courts → Constitutional because restrictive covenants
were individual actions.
Major Question(s):
Are racially based restrictive covenants legal under the
Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution?
Can they be enforced by a court of law?
6 - 3 Decision
Excerpts from the District Court Opinion in Browder v. Gayle
(1955)
The ultimate question is whether the statutes and ordinances
requiring the segregation of the white and colored races on the
common carrier motor buses in the City of Montgomery and its
police jurisdiction are unconstitutional and invalid. Unless
prohibited by the Constitution of the United States, the power to
require such segregation is reserved to the States or to the
people.
In their private affairs, in the conduct of their private
businesses, it is clear that the people themselves have the
liberty to select their own associates and the persons with whom
they will do business, unimpaired by the Fourteenth Amendment
(The Civil Rights Cases). Indeed, we think that such liberty is
guaranteed by the due process clause of that Amendment.
There is, however, a difference, a constitutional difference,
between voluntary adherence to custom and the perpetuation
and enforcement of that custom by law (Shelley v. Kraemer).
The Fourteenth Amendment provides that "No State shall
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws."
Those provisions do not interfere with the police power of the
States so long as the state laws operate alike upon all persons
and property similarly situated.

We cannot in good conscience perform our duty as judges by
blindly following the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson . . . that
the separate but equal doctrine can no longer be safely followed
as a correct statement of the law. In fact, we think that Plessy v.
Ferguson has been impliedly, though not explicitly, overruled,
and that, under the later decisions, there is now no rational
basis upon which the separate but equal doctrine can be validly
applied to public carrier transportation within the City of
Montgomery and its police jurisdiction. The application of that
doctrine cannot be justified as a proper execution of the state
police power.
We hold that the statutes and ordinances requiring segregation
of the white and colored races on the motor buses of a common
carrier of passengers in the City of Montgomery and its police
jurisdiction violate the due process and equal protection of the
law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Cooper v. Aaron (1958)
What has been said, in the light of the facts developed, is
enough to dispose of the case. However, we should answer the
premise of the actions of the Governor and Legislature that they
are not bound by our holding in the Brown case. It is necessary
only to recall some basic constitutional propositions which are
settled doctrine.
Article VI of the Constitution makes the Constitution the
"supreme Law of the Land." In 1803, Chief Justice Marshall,

speaking for a unanimous Court, referring to the Constitution as
"the fundamental and paramount law of the nation," declared in
the notable case of Marbury v. Madison, that "It is emphatically
the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the
law is." This decision declared the basic principle that the
federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the
Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by
this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable
feature of our constitutional system. It follows that the
interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment enunciated by this
Court in the Brown case is the supreme law of the land, and Art.
VI of the Constitution makes it of binding effect on the States
"any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the
Contrary notwithstanding." Every state legislator and executive
and judicial officer is solemnly committed by oath taken
pursuant to Art. VI, cl. 3 "to support this Constitution."
No state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war
against the Constitution without violating his undertaking to
support it. Chief Justice Marshall spoke for a unanimous Court
in saying that: "If the legislatures of the several states may at
will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and
destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the
constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery. . . ."
A Governor who asserts a power to nullify a federal court order
is similarly restrained. If he had such power, said Chief Justice
Hughes, in 1932, also for a unanimous Court, "it is manifest
that the fiat of a state Governor, and not the Constitution of the
United States, would be the supreme law of the land; that the
restrictions of the Federal Constitution upon the exercise of
state power would be but impotent phrases. . . ."
It is, of course, quite true that the responsibility for public
education is primarily the concern of the States, but it is equally
true that such responsibilities, like all other state activity, must

be exercised consistently with federal constitutional
requirements as they apply to state action. The Constitution
created a government dedicated to equal justice under law. The
Fourteenth Amendment embodied and emphasized that ideal.
State support of segregated schools through any arrangement,
management, funds, or property cannot be squared with the
Amendment's command that no State shall deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The right
of a student not to be segregated on racial grounds in schools so
maintained is indeed so fundamental and pervasive that it is
embraced in the concept of due process of law. The basic
decision in Brown was unanimously reached by this Court only
after the case had been briefed and twice argued and the issues
had been given the most serious consideration. Since the first
Brown opinion, three new Justices have come to the Court. They
are at one with the Justices still on the Court who participated
in that basic decision as to its correctness, and that decision is
now unanimously reaffirmed. The principles announced in that
decision and the obedience of the States to them, according to
the command of the Constitution, are indispensable for the
protection of the freedoms guaranteed by our fundamental
charter for all of us. Our constitutional ideal of equal justice
under law is thus made a living truth.
Excerpts from the Southern Manifesto (1956)
Though there has been no constitutional amendment or act of
Congress changing this established legal principle almost a
century old, the Supreme Court of the United States, with no
legal basis for such action, undertook to exercise their naked
judicial power and substituted their personal political and social
ideas for the established law of the land.
This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to
the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States
principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations
between the white and Negro races that have been created

through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both
races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been
heretofore friendship and understanding.
Without regard to the consent of the governed, outside
mediators are threatening immediate and revolutionary changes
in our public schools systems. If done, this is certain to destroy
the system of public education in some of the States.
With the gravest concern for the explosive and dangerous
condition created by this decision and inflamed by outside
meddlers:
We reaffirm our reliance on the Constitution as the fundamental
law of the land.
We decry the Supreme Court's encroachment on the rights
reserved to the States and to the people, contrary to established
law, and to the Constitution.
We commend the motives of those States which have declared
the intention to resist forced integration by any lawful means.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Cooper v. Aaron (1958)
As this case reaches us, it raises questions of the highest
importance to the maintenance of our federal system of
government. It necessarily involves a claim by the Governor and
Legislature of a State that there is no duty on state officials to
obey federal court orders resting on this Court's considered
interpretation of the United States Constitution. Specifically, it
involves actions by the Governor and Legislature of Arkansas
upon the premise that they are not bound by our holding in
Brown v. Board of Education.
We come now to the aspect of the proceedings presently before
us. On February 20, 1958, the School Board and the
Superintendent of Schools filed a petition in the District Court
seeking a postponement of their program for desegregation.
Their position, in essence, was that, because of extreme public
hostility, which they stated had been engendered largely by the

official attitudes and actions of the Governor and the
Legislature, the maintenance of a sound educational program at
Central High School, with the Negro students in attendance,
would be impossible. The Board therefore proposed that the
Negro students already admitted to the school be withdrawn and
sent to segregated schools, and that all further steps to carry out
the Board's desegregation program be postponed for a period
later suggested by the Board to be two and one-half years.
Thus, law and order are not here to be preserved by deprivi ng
the Negro children of their constitutional rights. The record
before us clearly establishes that the growth of the Board's
difficulties to a magnitude beyond its unaided power to control
is the product of state action. Those difficulties, as counsel for
the Board forthrightly conceded on the oral argument in this
Court, can also be brought under control by state action.
The controlling legal principles are plain. The command of the
Fourteenth Amendment is that no "State" shall deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
"A State acts by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial
authorities. It can act in no other way. The constitutional
provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or
of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws. Whoever, by virtue of public position under a State
government, . . . denies or takes away the equal protection of
the laws violates the constitutional inhibition; and, as he acts in
the name and for the State, and is clothed with the State's
power, his act is that of the State. This must be so, or the
constitutional prohibition has no meaning."
The basic decision in Brown was unanimously reached by this
Court only after the case had been briefed and twice argued and
the issues had been given the most serious consideration. Since
the first Brown opinion, three new Justices have come to the
Court. They are at one with the Justices still on the Court who
participated in that basic decision as to its correctness, and that
decision is now unanimously reaffirmed. The principles

announced in that decision and the obedience of the States to
them, according to the command of the Constitution, are
indispensable for the protection of the freedoms guaranteed by
our fundamental charter for all of us. Our constitutional ideal of
equal justice under law is thus made a living truth.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Boynton v. Virginia
(1960)
Under § 216(d) of the Interstate Commerce Act, which forbids
any interstate common carrier by motor vehicle to subject any
person to unjust discrimination, petitioner had a federal right to
remain in the white portion of the restaurant, he was there
"under authority of law," and it was error to affirm his
conviction.
The basic question presented in this case is whether an
interstate bus passenger is denied a federal statutory or
constitutional right when a restaurant in a bus terminal used by
the carrier along its route discriminates in serving food to the
passenger solely because of his color.
Petitioner, a Negro law student, bought a Trailways bus ticket
from Washington, D.C., to Montgomery, Alabama. He boarded a
bus at 8 p.m. which arrived at Richmond, Virginia, about 10:40
p.m. When the bus pulled up at the Richmond "Trailways Bus
Terminal," the bus driver announced a forty-minute stopover
there. Petitioner got off the bus and went into the bus terminal
to get something to eat. In the station, he found a restaurant in
which one part was used to serve white people and one to serve
Negroes. Disregarding this division, petitioner sat down on a
stool in the white section. A waitress asked him to move over to
the other section where there were "facilities" to serve colored
people. Petitioner told her he was an interstate bus passenger,
refused to move, and ordered a sandwich and tea. The waitress
then brought the Assistant Manager, who "instructed" petitioner
to "leave the white portion of the restaurant and advised him he
could be served in the colored portion." Upon petitioner's
refusal to leave, an officer was called and petitioner was

arrested and later tried, convicted and fined ten dollars in the
Police Justice's Court of Richmond on a charge that he
"[u]nlawfully did remain on the premises of the Bus Terminal
Restaurant of Richmond, Inc. after having been forbidden to do
so" by the Assistant Manager. (Emphasis supplied.) The charge
was based on § 18-225 of the Code of Virginia of 1950, as
amended (1958), which provides in part:
"If any person shall without authority of law go upon or remain
upon the lands or premises of another, after having been
forbidden to do so by the owner, lessee, custodian or other
person lawfully in charge of such land, . . . he shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be
punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars or by
confinement in jail not exceeding thirty days, or by both such
fine and imprisonment."
All of these things show that this terminal building, with its
grounds, constituted one project for a single purpose, and that
was to serve passengers of one or more bus companies --
certainly Trailways' passengers. The restaurant area was
specifically designed and built into the structure from the
beginning to fill the needs of bus passengers in this "up-to-date,
modern bus terminal." Whoever may have had technical title or
immediate control of the details of the various activities in the
terminal, such as waiting room seating, furnishing of schedule
information, ticket sales, and restaurant service, they were all
geared to the service of bus companies and their passengers,
even though local people who might happen to come into the
terminal or its restaurant might also be accommodated. Thus we
have a well coordinated and smoothly functioning plan for
continuous cooperative transportation services between the
terminal, the restaurant, and buses like Trailways that made
stopovers there. All of this evidence plus Trailways' use on this
occasion shows that Trailways was not utilizing the terminal
and restaurant services merely on a sporadic or occasional
basis. This bus terminal plainly was just as essential and
necessary, and as available, for that matter, to passengers and

carriers like Trailways that used it, as though such carriers had
legal title and complete control over all of its activities.
Interstate passengers have to eat, and the very terms of the lease
of the built-in restaurant space in this terminal constitute a
recognition of the essential need of interstate passengers to be
able to get food conveniently on their journey and an
undertaking by the restaurant to fulfill that need. Such
passengers in transit on a paid interstate Trailways journey had
a right to expect that this essential transportation food service
voluntarily provided for them under such circumstances would
be rendered without discrimination prohibited by the Interstate
Commerce Act. Under the circumstances of this case, therefore,
petitioner had a federal right to remain in the white portion of
the restaurant. He was there under "authority of law" -- the
Interstate Commerce Act -- and it was error for the Supreme
Court of Virginia to affirm his conviction.
Because the evidence shows that this terminal restaurant was
utilized as an integral part of the transportation of interstate
passengers, we need not decide whether discrimination on the
basis of color by a bus terminal lessee restaurant would violate
§ 216(d) in the absence of such circumstances.

Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Edwards v. South
Carolina (1963)
It has long been established that these First Amendment
freedoms are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from
invasion by the States.
he circumstances in this case reflect an exercise of these basic
constitutional rights in their most pristine and classic form. The
petitioners felt aggrieved by laws of South Carolina which
allegedly "prohibited Negro privileges in this State." They
peaceably assembled at the site of the State Government, and
there peaceably expressed their grievances "to the citizens of
South Carolina, along with the Legislative Bodies of South
Carolina." Not until they were told by police officials that they
must disperse on pain of arrest did they do more. Even then,
they but sang patriotic and religious songs after one of their
leaders had delivered a "religious harangue." There was no
violence or threat of violence on their part, or on the part of any
member of the crowd watching them. Police protection was
"ample."
This, therefore, was a far cry from the situation in Feiner v.
New York, where two policemen were faced with a crowd which
was "pushing, shoving and milling around," where at least one
member of the crowd "threatened violence if the police did not
act," where "the crowd was pressing closer around petitioner
and the officer, “and where "the speaker passes the bounds of
argument or persuasion and undertakes incitement to riot." And
the record is barren of any evidence of "fighting words."

These petitioners were convicted of an offense so generalized as
to be, in the words of the South Carolina Supreme Court, "not
susceptible of exact definition." And they were convicted upon
evidence which showed no more than that the opinions which
they were peaceably expressing were sufficiently opposed to the
views of the majority of the community to attract a crowd and
necessitate police protection.
The Fourteenth Amendment does not permit a State to make
criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Heart of Atlanta Motel,
Inc. v. U.S. (1964)
Since the commerce power was not relied on by the Government
and was without support in the record, it is understandable that
the Court narrowed its inquiry and excluded the Commerce
Clause as a possible source of power. In any event, it is clear
that such a limitation renders the opinion devoid of authority
for the proposition that the Commerce Clause gives no power to
Congress to regulate discriminatory practices now found
substantially to affect interstate commerce. We therefore
conclude that the Civil Rights Cases have no relevance to the
basis of decision here, where the Act explicitly relies upon the
commerce power and where the record is filled with testimony
of obstructions and restraints resulting from the discriminations
found to be existing.
We therefore conclude that the action of the Congress in the
adoption of the Act as applied here to a motel which concededly

serves interstate travelers is within the power granted i t by the
Commerce Clause of the Constitution, as interpreted by this
Court for 140 years. It may be argued that Congress could have
pursued other methods to eliminate the obstructions it found in
interstate commerce caused by racial discrimination. But thi s is
a matter of policy that rests entirely with the Congress, not with
the courts. How obstructions in commercemay be removed --
what means are to be employed -- is within the sound and
exclusive discretion of the Congress. It is subject only to one
caveat -- that the means chosen by it must be reasonably
adapted to the end permitted by the Constitution. We cannot say
that its choice here was not so adapted. The Constitution
requires no more.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Cox v. Louisiana (1965)
Our conclusion that the record does not support the contention
that the students' cheering, clapping and singing constituted a
breach of the peace is confirmed by the fact that these were not
relied on as a basis for conviction by the trial judge, who,
rather, stated as his reason for convicting Cox of disturbing the
peace that "[i]t must be recognized to be inherently dangerous
and a breach of the peace to bring 1,500 people, colored people,
down in the predominantly white business district in the City of
Baton Rouge and congregate across the street from the
courthouse and sing songs as described to me by the defendant
as the CORE national anthem carrying lines such as 'black and

white together' and to urge those 1,500 people to descend upon
our lunch counters and sit there until they are served. That has
to be an inherent breach of the peace, and our statute 14:103.1
has made it so."
Finally, the State contends that the conviction should be
sustained because of fear expressed by some of the state
witnesses that "violence was about to erupt" because of the
demonstration. It is virtually undisputed, however, that the
students themselves were not violent, and threatened no
violence. The fear of violence seems to have been based upon
the reaction of the group of white citizens looking on from
across the street. One state witness testified that "he felt the
situation was getting out of hand" as, on the courthouse side of
St. Louis Street, "were small knots or groups of white citizens
who were muttering words, who seemed a little bit agitated." A
police officer stated that the reaction of the white crowd was
not violent, but "was rumblings." Others felt the atmosphere
became "tense" because of "mutterings," "grumbling," and
"jeering" from the white group. There is no indication, however,
that any member of the white group threatened violence. And
this small crowd, estimated at between 100 and 300, was
separated from the students by "seventy-five to eighty" armed
policemen, including "every available shift of the City Police,"
the "Sheriff's Office in full complement," and "additional help
from the State Police," along with a "fire truck and the Fire
Department." As Inspector Trigg testified, they could have
handled the crowd
This situation, like that in Edwards . . ."showed no more than
that the opinions which . . . [the students] were peaceably
expressing were sufficiently opposed to the views of the
majority of the community to attract a crowd and necessitate
police protection."
From these decisions, certain clear principles emerge. The

rights of free speech and assembly, while fundamental in our
democratic society, still do not mean that everyone with
opinions or beliefs to express may address a group at any public
place and at any time. The constitutional guarantee of liberty
implies the existence of an organized society maintaining public
order, without which liberty itself would be lost in the excesses
of anarchy. The control of travel on the streets is a clear
example of governmental responsibility to insure this necessary
order. A restriction in that relation, designed to promote the
public convenience in the interest of all, and not susceptible to
abuses of discriminatory application, cannot be disregarded by
the attempted exercise of some civil right which, in other
circumstances, would be entitled to protection. One would not
be justified in ignoring the familiar red light because this was
thought to be a means of social protest. Nor could one, contrary
to traffic regulations, insist upon a street meeting in the middle
of Times Square at the rush hour as a form of freedom of speech
or assembly. Governmental authorities have the duty and
responsibility to keep their streets open and available for
movement. A group of demonstrators could not insist upon the
right to cordon off street, or entrance to a public or private
building, and allow no one to pass who did not agree to listen to
their exhortations.
We emphatically reject the notion urged by appellant that the
First and Fourteenth Amendments afford the same kind of
freedom to those who would communicate ideas by conduct
such as patrolling, marching, and picketing on streets and
highways, as these amendments afford to those who
communicate ideas by pure speech.

Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Adderley v. Florida
(1966)
Disturbed and upset by the arrest of their schoolmates the day
before, a large number of Florida A. & M. students assembled
on the school grounds and decided to march down to the county
jail. Some apparently wanted to be put in jail too, along with
the students already there. A group of around 200 marched
from the school and arrived at the jail singing and clapping.
They went directly to the jail-door entrance where they were
met by a deputy sheriff, evidently surprised by their arrival. He
asked them to move back, claiming they were blocking the
entrance to the jail and fearing that they might attempt to enter
the jail. They moved back part of the way, where they stood or
sat, singing, clapping and dancing, on the jail driveway and on
an adjacent grassy area upon the jail premises. This particular
jail entrance and driveway were not normally used by the
public, but by the sheriff's department for transporting prisoners
to and from the courts several blocks away and by commercial
concerns for servicing the jail. Even after their partial retreat,
the demonstrators continued to block vehicular passage over
this driveway up to the entrance of the jail. 5 Someone called
the sheriff who was at the moment apparently conferring with

one of the state court judges about incidents connected with
prior arrests for demonstrations. When the sheriff returned to
the jail, he immediately inquired if all was safe inside the jail
and was told it was. He then engaged in a conversation with two
of the leaders. He told them that they were trespassing upon jail
property and that he would give them 10 minutes to leave or he
would arrest them. Neither of the leaders did anything to
disperse the crowd, and one of them told the sheriff that they
wanted to get arrested. A local minister talked with some of the
demonstrators and told them not to enter the jail, because they
could not arrest themselves, but just to remain where they were.
After about 10 minutes, the sheriff, in a voice loud enough to be
heard by all, told the demonstrators that he was the legal
custodian of the jail and its premises, that they were trespassing
on county property in violation of the law, that they should all
leave forthwith or he would arrest them, and that if they
attempted to resist arrest, he would charge them with that as a
separate offense. Some of the group then left. Others, including
all petitioners, did not leave. Some of them sat down. In a few
minutes, realizing that the remaining demonstrators had no
intention of leaving, the sheriff ordered his deputies to surround
those remaining on jail premises and placed them, 107
demonstrators, under arrest. The sheriff unequivocally testified
that he did not arrest any persons other than those who were on
the jail premises. Of the three petitioners testifying, two
insisted that they were arrested before they had a chance to
leave, had they wanted to, and one testified that she did not
intend to leave. The sheriff again explicitly testified that he did
not arrest any person who was attempting to leave.
Under the foregoing testimony the jury was authorized to find
that the State had proven every essential element of the crime,
as it was defined by the state court. That interpretation is, of
course, binding on us, leaving only the question of whether
conviction of the state offense, thus defined, unconstitutionally
deprives petitioners of their rights to freedom of speech, press,
assembly or petition. We hold it does not. The sheriff, as jail

custodian, had power, as the state courts have here held, to
direct that this large crowd of people get off the grounds. There
is not a shred of evidence in this record that this power was
exercised, or that its exercise was sanctioned by the lower
courts, because the sheriff objected to what was being sung or
said by the demonstrators or because he disagreed with the
objectives of their protest. The record reveals that he objected
only to their presence on that part of the jail grounds reserved
for jail uses. There is no evidence at all that on any other
occasion had similarly large groups of the public been permitted
to gather on this portion of the jail grounds for any purpose. 6
Nothing in the Constitution of the United States prevents
Florida from even-handed enforcement of its general trespass
statute against those refusing to obey the sheriff's order to
remove themselves from what amounted to the curtilage of the
jailhouse.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Loving v. Virginia
(1967)
This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by
this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of
Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the
basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and

Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For
reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those
constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot
stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment.
There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation
statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race.
The statutes proscribe generally accepted conduct if engaged in
by members of different races. Over the years, this Court has
consistently repudiated "[d]istinctions between citizens solely
because of their ancestry" as being "odious to a free people
whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality."
Hirabayashi v. United States, 100 (1943). At the very least, the
Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications,
especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the "most
rigid scrutiny," Korematsu v. United States, 216 (1944), and, if
they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary
to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective,
independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object
of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate.
There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent
of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this
classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial
marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial
classifications must stand on their own justification, as
measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.
These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due
process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been
recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the
orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.
To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis
as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes,

classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality
at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive
all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The
Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to
marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations.
Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a
person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot
be infringed by the State.
These convictions must be reversed.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Moore v. Dempsey
(1923)
In Frank v. Mangum, it was recognized, of course, that if, in
fact, a trial is dominated by a mob so that there is an actual
interference with the course of justice, there is a departure from
due process of law, and that, "if the State, supplying no
corrective process, carries into execution a judgment of death or
imprisonment based upon a verdict thus produced by mob
domination, the State deprives the accused of his life or liberty
without due process of law."
We assume in accordance with that case that the corrective
process supplied by the State may be so adequate that
interference by habeas corpus ought not to be allowed. It
certainly is true that mere mistakes of law in the course of a
trial are not to be corrected in that way. But if the case is that
the whole proceeding is a mask -- that counsel, jury and judge
were swept to the fatal end by an irresistible wave of public
passion, and that the State Courts failed to correct the wrong;
neither perfection in the machinery for correction nor the
possibility that the trial court and counsel saw no other way of
avoiding an immediate outbreak of the mob can prevent this
Court from securing to the petitioners their constitutional

rights.
We shall not say more concerning the corrective process
afforded to the petitioners than that it does not seem to us
sufficient to allow a Judge of the United States to escape the
duty of examining the facts for himself when, if true as alleged,
they make the trial absolutely void. We have confined the
statement to facts admitted by the demurrer. We will not say
that they cannot be met, but it appears to us unavoidable that
the District Judge should find whether the facts alleged are true
and whether they can be explained so far as to leave the state
proceedings undisturbed.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Powell v. Alabama
(1932)
It is true that great and inexcusable delay in the enforcement of
our criminal law is one of the grave evils of our time.
Continuances are frequently granted for unnecessarily long
periods of time, and delays incident to the disposition of
motions for new trial and hearings upon appeal have come in
many cases to be a distinct reproach to the administration of
justice. The prompt disposition of criminal cases is to be
commended and encouraged. But, in reaching that result, a
defendant, charged with a serious crime, must not be stripped of
his right to have sufficient time to advise with counsel and
prepare his defense. To do that is not to proceed promptly in the

calm spirit of regulated justice, but to go forward with the haste
of the mob.
In the light of the facts outlined in the forepart of this opinion -
- the ignorance and illiteracy of the defendants, their youth, the
circumstances of public hostility, the imprisonment and the
close surveillance of the defendants by the military forces, the
fact that their friends and families were all in other states and
communication with them necessarily difficult, and, above all,
that they stood in deadly peril of their lives -- we think the
failure of the trial court to give them reasonable time and
opportunity to secure counsel was a clear denial of due process.
But passing that, and assuming their inability, even if
opportunity had been given, to employ counsel, as the trial
court evidently did assume, we are of opinion that, under the
circumstances just stated, the necessity of counsel was so vital
and imperative that the failure of the trial court to make an
effective appointment of counsel was likewise a denial of due
process within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Whether this would be so in other criminal prosecutions, or
under other circumstances, we need not determine. All that it is
necessary now to decide, as we do decide, is that, in a capital
case, where the defendant is unable to employ counsel and is
incapable adequately of making his own defense because of
ignorance, feeble mindedness, illiteracy, or the like, it is the
duty of the court, whether requested or not, to assign counsel
for him as a necessary requisite of due process of law, and that
duty is not discharged by an assignment at such a time or under
such circumstances as to preclude the giving of effective aid in
the preparation and trial of the case.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Norris v. Alabama
(1935)
When a federal right has been specially set up and claimed in a
state court, it is our province to inquire not merely whether it

was denied in express terms, but also whether it was denied in
substance and effect. If this requires an examination of
evidence, that examination must be made. Otherwise, review by
this Court would fail of its purpose in safeguarding
constitutional rights. Thus, whenever a conclusion of law of a
state court as to a federal right and findings of fact are so
intermingled that the latter control the former, it is incumbent
upon us to analyze the facts in order that the appropriate
enforcement of the federal right may be assured.
We are of the opinion that the evidence required a different
result from that reached in the state court. We think that the
evidence that, for a generation or longer, no negro had been
called for service on any jury in Jackson County, that there
were negroes qualified for jury service, that, according to the
practice of the jury commission, their names would normally
appear on the preliminary list of male citizens of the requisite
age, but that no names of negroes were placed on the jury roll,
and the testimony with respect to the lack of appropriate
consideration of the qualifications of negroes established the
discrimination which the Constitution forbids. The motion to
quash the indictment upon that ground should have been
granted.
showing as to the long-continued exclusion of negroes from jury
service, and as to the many negroes qualified for that service,
could not be met by mere generalities. If, in the presence of
such testimony as defendant adduced, the mere general
assertions by officials of their performance of duty were to be
accepted as an adequate justification for the complete exclusion
of negroes from jury service, the constitutional provision --
adopted with special reference to their protection -- would be
but a vain and illusory requirement. The general attitude of the
jury commissioner is shown by the following extract from his
testimony:

I do not know of any negro in Morgan County over twenty-one
and under sixty-five who is generally reputed to be honest and
intelligent and who is esteemed in the community for his
integrity, good character and sound judgment, who is not an
habitual drunkard, who isn't afflicted with a permanent disease
or physical weakness which would render him unfit to discharge
the duties of a juror, and who can read English, and who has
never been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude.
In the light of the testimony given by defendant's witnesses, we
find it impossible to accept such a sweeping characterization of
the lack of qualifications of negroes in Morgan County. It is so
sweeping, and so contrary to the evidence as to the many
qualified negroes, that it destroys the intended effect of the
commissioner's testimony.
Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Shelley v. Kraemer
(1948)
Not only does the restriction seek to proscribe use and
occupancy of the affected properties by members of the
excluded class, but, as construed by the Missouri courts, the
agreement requires that title of any person who uses his
property in violation of the restriction shall be divested. The
restriction of the covenant in the Michigan case seeks to bar
occupancy by persons of the excluded class. It provides that
"This property shall not be used or occupied by any person or
persons except those of the Caucasian race."
It should be observed that these covenants do not seek to
proscribe any particular use of the affected properties. Use of
the properties for residential occupancy, as such, is not
forbidden. The restrictions of these agreements, rather, are
directed toward a designated class of persons and seek to
determine who may and who may not own or make use of the
properties for residential purposes. The excluded class is

defined wholly in terms of race or color; "simply that, and
nothing more."
It cannot be doubted that among the civil rights intended to be
protected from discriminatory state action by the Fourteenth
Amendment are the rights to acquire, enjoy, own and dispose of
property. Equality in the enjoyment of property rights was
regarded by the framers of that Amendment as an essential pre-
condition to the realization of other basic civil rights and
liberties which the Amendment was intended to guarantee.
We conclude, therefore, that the restrictive agreements,
standing alone, cannot be regarded as violative of any rights
guaranteed to petitioners by the Fourteenth Amendment. So
long as the purposes of those agreements are effectuated by
voluntary adherence to their terms, it would appear clear that
there has been no action by the State, and the provisions of the
Amendment have not been violated.
These are not cases, as has been suggested, in which the States
have merely abstained from action, leaving private individuals
free to impose such discriminations as they see fit. Rather, these
are cases in which the States have made available to such
individuals the full coercive power of government to deny to
petitioners, on the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of
property rights in premises which petitioners are will ing and
financially able to acquire and which the grantors are willing to
sell. The difference between judicial enforcement and
nonenforcement of the restrictive covenants is the difference to
petitioners between being denied rights of property available to
other members of the community and being accorded full
enjoyment of those rights on an equal footing.
The enforcement of the restrictive agreements by the state
courts in these cases was directed pursuant to the common law
policy of the States as formulated by those courts in earlier
decisions.

In the Missouri case, enforcement of the covenant was directed
in the first instance by the highest court of the State after the
trial court had determined the agreement to be invalid for want
of the requisite number of signatures. In the Michigan case, the
order of enforcement by the trial court was affirmed by the
highest state court. The judicial action in each case bears the
clear and unmistakable imprimatur of the State. We have noted
that previous decisions of this Court have established the
proposition that judicial action is not immunized from the
operation of the Fourteenth Amendment simply because it is
taken pursuant to the state's common law policy. Nor is the
Amendment ineffective simply because the particular pattern of
discrimination, which the State has enforced, was defined
initially by the terms of a private agreement. State action, as
that phrase is understood for the purposes of the Fourteenth
Amendment, refers to exertions of state power in all forms. And
when the effect of that action is to deny rights subject to the
protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is the obligation of
this Court to enforce the constitutional commands.
We hold that, in granting judicial enforcement of the restrictive
agreements in these cases, the States have denied petitioners the
equal protection of the laws, and that, therefore, the action of
the state courts cannot stand. We have noted that freedom from
discrimination by the States in the enjoyment of property rights
was among the basic objectives sought to be effectuated by the
framers of the Fourteenth Amendment. That such discrimination
has occurred in these cases is clear. Because of the race or color
of these petitioners, they have been denied rights of owners hip
or occupancy enjoyed as a matter of course by other citizens of
different race or color.
The historical context in which the Fourteenth Amendment
became a part of the Constitution should not be forgotten.
Whatever else the framers sought to achieve, it is clear that the
matter of primary concern was the establishment of equality in

the enjoyment of basic civil and political rights and the
preservation of those rights from discriminatory action on the
part of the States based on considerations of race or color.
Seventy-five years ago, this Court announced that the
provisions of the Amendment are to be construed with this
fundamental purpose in mind. Upon full consideration, we have
concluded that, in these cases, the States have acted to deny
petitioners the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the
Fourteenth Amendment. Having so decided, we find it
unnecessary to consider whether petitioners have also been
deprived of property without due process of law or denied
privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States.
Tonight’s Timeframe . . .
Reconstruction → 1865 - 1877
Gilded Age → 1870s - 1900
Progressive Era → 1890s - 1920
American Imperialism → 1880s - 1914
World War I → 1914 - 1918
The Roaring Twenties → 1920 - 1929
Great Depression & New Deal → 1929 - 1941

World War II → 1941 - 1945
American Legal History II
Citizenship and the 14th Amendment
What is the role of law in society?
How has the definition of citizenship changed over the course
of American history? WHY?
Did the 14th Amendment bring about a revolution in citizenship
in America?
Citizenship - Background
Is citizenship constitutional or statutory?
Statutory → Naturalization Acts
Constitutional
Is birthright citizenship territorial or national?
Jus Soli (Soil) vs. Jus Sanguinis (Blood)
Subjects vs. Citizens
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) → Context
Ongoing Concerns:
Northern enthusiasm

Southern opposition
Enforcement & Reconciliation
Previous denial of citizenship:
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
Army Surgeon
Residence in free state/territory
7 - 2 Decision:
Majority Opinion written by Chief Justice Roger Taney
Excerpts
How did the Dred Scott decision restrict citizenship?
How did the Dred Scott decision reflect Antebellum America?
How might the Dred Scott decision have impacted American
society?
14th Amendment → Citizenship Clause
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Clarifying Citizenship Under the 14th Amendment
Elk v. Wilkins (1884) - Context
Indian Wars, Expansion, Manifest Destiny
“Going the way of the buffalo . . .”
Warfare and Reservations
1871 → Treaty system eliminated → Railroads
Assimilation → National Unity → Boarding Schools
Dawes Act (1887)
Tribal Land → Individual Parcels
Elk v. Wilkins (1884)
John Elk - Born Winnebago on a Reservation
Renounced Tribal Allegiance → Claimed U.S. Citizenship
Attempted Voter Registration in Omaha
Denied by Voting Registrar (Wilkins)
Elk files suit based on the Citizenship Clause of the 14th
Amendment.
Decision:
7 - 2; Majority Opinion written by Justice Gray
Excerpts
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924

How did the Elk decision restrict citizenship?
How did the Elk decision reflect 19th century America?
How might the Elk decision have impacted American society?
19th Century Chinese Immigration & Labor
Declining American Economy and opposition
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Geary Act (1892)
"Because the first duty of governments is to their own citizens,
and securing to them protection and enjoyment of their life and
liberty the consideration of the effect on other people is not of
consequence."
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) - Context
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
Born in San Francisco to Chinese Parents - 1873
Parents returned to China - 1890
Visits parents in China twice - 1890 & 1894/1895
Readmitted in 1890, denied in 1895

Excerpts from the Majority Opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) by J

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