This document discusses various laws and court cases from Reconstruction to the Cold War that sanctioned discrimination and curtailed civil rights in the United States. It highlights how the 14th and 15th Amendments failed to provide equal rights, and mechanisms like the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow laws, immigration quotas, internment of Japanese Americans, and McCarthyism restricted rights and advanced discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and political ideology. The document is intended to raise awareness of how equality was undermined through official policies and legal rulings.