• SUPREME COURT• Justices serve for life and
are appointed by the President.
• Power of judicial review• Decides what law is• Decides the meaning of
laws.• Not a court of personal
justice ex: Roe v. Wade
Essential Question
• How far should the government go to make sure minorities and women are not discriminated against in jobs, education and housing?
• Use the 14th amendment only? • Busing? • Affirmative action?
Landmark Civil Rights Cases
• DRED SCOTT V SANFORD (1857)
• PLESSY V FERGUSON (1896)
• BROWN V BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA, KS (1954)
• BAKKE V UC DAVIS REGENTS (1978)
• PARENTS OF COMMUNITY SCHOOLS V SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT (2006)
The anatomy of a court case: there must be a constitutional issue
at stake Brown v Board of Education (1954)
Plaintiff : person/group who is bringing the lawsuit or on whose behalf
the lawsuit is brought
Accused:
person or group being sued
Year case decided
The court’s decision
• Majority opinion –the decision that most justices voted for. (5 or more)
• Concurring opinion- agrees with majority but for different reasons/part of majority
• Dissenting opinion- the losing opinion but can still be important.
1857: Dred Scott case = Blacks had no standing to sue because they were property
1896: Plessy v Ferguson: “separate but equal”
1954: Brown v BOE: separate is NOT equal, schools must desegregate with “all deliberate speed.” white flight
1971: Swann v Mecklenburg BOE: forced busing to achieve racially balanced schools
2006: Parents of Community Schools v Seattle School District: Students cannot be assigned to schools solely on the basis of race only.
Dred Scott v Sanford (1857) • Sued for his freedom • S C ruled that slaves
were property and thus could never be citizens
• SC rules that therefore, Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the territories.
Plessy v Ferguson (1896):“separate but equal”
• Plessy said that being forced to ride in a “colored” rail car violated the 14th amendment
(= protection clause)• SC ruled 8-1 that separate
facilities did not violate his rights as long as they were “equal.”
PRECEDENT
• Relying on what court decisions said in the past
• Using previous court rulings to decide today’s cases
• But the Warren Court realized that the Plessy decision was flawed and so they overturned it.
Brown v Board of Education (1954)page 708
• Overturned “separate but equal”
• In an 9-0 decision the SC said that separate schools and facilities were inherently unequal.
• Why do you think it was important that this was a unanimous decision?
Essential Question
• How far should the federal government go to make sure minorities and women are not discriminated against in jobs, education and housing?
• Use the 14th amendment only? • Busing? • Affirmative action? • What do you think?
Affirmative Action
• A policy which gives special consideration to minorities and women to make up for past discrimination.
TWO TYPES
“GOALS ANDTIME TABLES” QUOTAS
Why was Affirmative Action created?
• “Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with and the neighborhood you live in — by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child and, finally, the man.”
Lyndon Johnson, on why he created Affirmative Action
More on Affirmative Action
• “You do not take a person hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all others’”
Lyndon Johnson
Regents of the University of California v Bakke(1978):
Affirmative Action case p. 818
• Bakke had claimed that racial quotas in admissions had cost him a seat in medical school
• Divided SC ruled that race could be used as a factor in admissions but that quotas were not permissible
CASE
Issues
Plessy v Ferguson
(1896)
p. 290
Brown v. BOE(1954) p. 708
Facts of the case
Law (s) being interpreted
Related cases
(precedent)
Legal reasoning
Impact
Quiz 1
Plessy v Ferguson (1896)
1) 2) 3)
4) The above case established the doctrine of
“ ______________ but ____________”
5) Supreme Court justices are appointed for_________.
Quiz 2• 1) Identify the person
first and last name
• 2) Why did he sue for his freedom? Be specific using names of states, etc.