Constitutional colorblindness

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Constitutional colorblindness is an aspect of United States Supreme Court case evaluation that began with Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Prior to this (and for several years afterwards), the Supreme Court considered skin color as a determining factor in many landmark cases. Constitutional colorblindness holds that skin color or race is virtually never a legitimate ground for legal or political distinctions, and thus, any law that is "color-conscious" is presumptively unconstitutional regardless of whether its intent is to subordinate a group, or remedy racial discrimination. The concept, therefore, has been brought to bear both against vestiges of Jim Crow oppression, as well as remedial efforts aimed at overcoming such discrimination, such as affirmative action.

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Color Blindness

The theory behind racial color blindness is that a person should have unlimited opportunities regardless of race. There is a big contemporary debate surrounding affirmative action; some believe that it is beneficial because a person's social class should be considered instead of their race. Others criticize color blindness because,“There are concerns that majority groups use color-blindness as a means of avoiding the discussion of racism and discrimination." This might diminish the hardships that minorities face in the public eye. Another thought that emerges from this concept is that, "color-blindness operates under the assumption that we are living in a world that is "post-race", where race no longer matters." [1]

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

The Plessy v. Ferguson case is an example of how the Supreme Court was not colorblind in their decision which upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine that allowed segregation. While reviewing the case, the Supreme Court looked solely at the race of Plessy and decided that the railroad had every right to arrest him. The Supreme Court would then approve all laws that enforced racial segregation. Justice Harlan was the only person on the case who dissented and responded that the '"arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race"' was equivalent to imposing a '''badge of servitude"' on African Americans. He contended that the real intent of the law was not to provide equal accommodations but to compel African Americans to keep to themselves. This was intolerable because "our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." [2]

In his dissent, Justice Harlan wrote, "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 the 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 in 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..." [3]

Jim Crow

The Jim Crow era was a time period where places in the South were legally allowed to segregate businesses and various other locations based upon race. Jim Crow law, in U.S. history, any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. [4] The Supreme Court didn't object to segregation, but instead made it legal under the" separate but equal" law. Jim Crow, in fact created separate facilities that were highly unequal. Among the inequality, educational institutions for African Americans weren't well funded. [5] In addition to the eradication of civil and political rights, Jim Crow also prevented blacks from bettering themselves economically. [6] Many African Americans were forced to work and if they didn't, they were threatened with being arrested for vagrancy, the act of being unemployed and homeless.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

The Brown v. Board of Education was a turning point in the civil rights era and was a series of laws that worked to overturn segregation. This case was intended to allow black students to attend white schools. The plaintiffs explained that by being racially separated, black people were treated poorly and that the "separate but equal" doctrine didn't uphold in their favor because the services and accommodations they received were low quality. The Court unanimously decided in Brown that laws separating children by race in different schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that "[n]o state shall … deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws." In making its decision, the Court declared that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." [7] The decision in this case influenced the overturning of segregation in other cases that were dealing with separation on buses, trains, and many public places.

Affirmative Action

Affirmative action is an act, policy, plan, or program designed to remedy the negative effects of wrongful discrimination. "Affirmative action" can remedy the perceived injustice of discrimination on the basis of a person's race, national origin, ethnicity, language, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or affiliation. [2] Also known as "positive discrimination", affirmative action originated with Executive Order 10925 signed by John F. Kennedy in 1961 requiring federal government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." As a civil rights policy affecting African Americans, "affirmative action" most often denotes race-conscious and result-oriented efforts undertaken by private entities and government officials to correct the unequal distribution of economic opportunity and education that many attribute to slavery, segregation, poverty, and racism. [2]

Arguments against affirmative action

Related Research Articles

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. The decision partially overruled the Court's 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, which had held that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that had come to be known as "separate but equal". The Court's decision in Brown paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement, and a model for many future impact litigation cases.

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction era (1865–1877).

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), was a landmark case of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning affirmative action in student admissions. The Court held that a student admissions process that favors "underrepresented minority groups" does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause so long as it takes into account other factors evaluated on an individual basis for every applicant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Separate but equal</span> Legal doctrine used for racial segregation in the United States

Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protection" under the law to all people. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities provided to each "race" were equal, state and local governments could require that services, facilities, public accommodations, housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation be segregated by "race", which was already the case throughout the states of the former Confederacy. The phrase was derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the phrase "equal but separate".

Color blindness is a term that has been used by justices of the United States Supreme Court in several opinions relating to racial equality and social equity, particularly in public education. The term metaphorically references the medical phenomenon of color blindness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Marshall Harlan</span> US Supreme Court justice from 1877 to 1911

John Marshall Harlan was an American lawyer and politician who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1877 until his death in 1911. He is often called "The Great Dissenter" due to his many dissents in cases that restricted civil liberties, including the Civil Rights Cases, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Giles v. Harris. Many of Harlan's views expressed in his notable dissents would become the official view of the Supreme Court starting from the 1950s Warren Court and onward. His grandson John Marshall Harlan II was also a Supreme Court justice.

The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.

Homer Adolph Plessy was an American shoemaker and activist, best known as the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. He staged an act of civil disobedience to challenge one of Louisiana's racial segregation laws and bring a test case to force the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation laws. The Court decided against Plessy. The resulting "separate but equal" legal doctrine determined that state-mandated segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as long as the facilities provided for both black and white people were putatively "equal". The legal precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson lasted into the mid-20th century, until a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions concerning segregation, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

The civil rights movement (1896–1954) was a long, primarily nonviolent action to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. The era has had a lasting impact on American society – in its tactics, the increased social and legal acceptance of civil rights, and in its exposure of the prevalence and cost of racism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial segregation in the United States</span> Historical separation of African Americans from American white society

In the United States, racial segregation is the systematic separation of facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation on racial grounds. The term is mainly used in reference to the legally or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, but it is also used in reference to the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority and mainstream communities. While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as prohibitions against interracial marriage, and the separation of roles within an institution. Notably, in the United States Armed Forces up until 1948, black units were typically separated from white units but were still led by white officers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Affirmative action in the United States</span>

Affirmative action in the United States is a set of laws, policies, guidelines, and administrative practices "intended to end and correct the effects of a specific form of discrimination" that include government-mandated, government-approved, and voluntary private programs. The programs tend to focus on access to education and employment, granting special consideration to historically excluded groups, specifically racial minorities or women. The impetus toward affirmative action is redressing the disadvantages associated with past and present discrimination. Further impetus is a desire to ensure public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.

Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908), was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court that upheld the rights of states to prohibit private educational institutions chartered as corporations from admitting both black and white students. Like the related Plessy v. Ferguson case, it was also marked by a strongly worded dissent by John Marshall Harlan. The ruling also is a minor landmark on the nature of corporate personhood.

Laissez-faire racism is closely related to color blindness and covert racism, and is theorised to encompass an ideology that blames minorities for their poorer economic situations, viewing it as the result of cultural inferiority. The term is used largely by scholars of whiteness studies, who argue that laissez-faire racism has tangible consequences even though few would openly claim to be, or even believe they are, laissez-faire racists.

<i>Keys v. Carolina Coach Co.</i> Landmark 1955 US civil rights case

Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, 64 MCC 769 (1955) is a landmark civil rights case in the United States in which the Interstate Commerce Commission, in response to a bus segregation complaint filed in 1953 by a Women's Army Corps (WAC) private named Sarah Louise Keys, broke with its historic adherence to the Plessy v. Ferguson separate but equal doctrine and interpreted the non-discrimination language of the Interstate Commerce Act as banning the segregation of black passengers in buses traveling across state lines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Crow laws</span> State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, "Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African-American. The laws were abolished in 1965. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the South had adopted laws, beginning in the late 19th century, banning discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era.

Racial diversity in United States schools is the representation of different racial or ethnic groups in American schools. The institutional practice of slavery, and later segregation, in the United States prevented certain racial groups from entering the school system until midway through the 20th century, when Brown v. Board of Education forbade racially segregated education. Globalization and migrations of peoples to the United States have increasingly led to a multicultural American population, which has in turn increased classroom diversity. Nevertheless, racial separation in schools still exists today, presenting challenges for racial diversification of public education in the United States.

The Day Law mandated racial segregation in educational institutions in Kentucky. Formally designated "An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School," the bill was introduced in the Kentucky House of Representatives by Carl Day in January 1904, and signed into law by Governor J.C.W. Beckham in March 1904. As well as prohibiting students of color from attending the same school as white students, the law prohibited individual schools from operating separate black and white branches within 25 miles of each other.

Transport and bus boycotts in the United States were protests against the racial segregation of transport services before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed such forms of discrimination.

Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railway Co. v. Mississippi, 133 U.S. 587 (1890), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a Mississippi law that required railroads to racially segregate their passengers. The Court in Hall v. Decuir (1878) had struck down a similar Louisiana law on the grounds that it unreasonably interfered with Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. A railroad challenged the Mississippi law on the same ground, arguing that it violated the Dormant Commerce Clause by burdening interstate commerce. The Supreme Court, dividing 7 to 2, disagreed. Writing for the majority, Justice David Josiah Brewer distinguished Hall on the basis that Mississippi's law, unlike Louisiana's, applied solely to intrastate commerce. Justices John Marshall Harlan and Joseph P. Bradley dissented. According to Harlan, the Mississippi law subjected all trains, including those involved in interstate commerce, to the segregation requirement. Finding no differences between the case and Hall, he voted to strike down the law.

References

  1. ↑ Ansell, Amy E. (March 2006). "Casting a Blind Eye: The Ironic Consequences of Color-Blindness in South Africa and the United States". Critical Sociology. 32 (2–3): 333–356. doi:10.1163/156916306777835349. ISSN   0896-9205. S2CID   143485250.
  2. 1 2 3 Millet, Michelle S. (2007-06-19). "Encyclopedia of African‐American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas (2nd edition)2007245Editor‐in‐chief Colin A. Palmer. Encyclopedia of African‐American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas (2nd edition). Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference 2006. 6 vols., ISBN 978 0 02 865816 2 $730 Also available as an e‐book (ISBN 978 0 02 866071 4)". Reference Reviews. 21 (5): 51–52. doi:10.1108/09504120710755734. ISSN   0950-4125.
  3. ↑ "Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, Judge Harlan's Dissent" . Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  4. ↑ "Jim Crow law | History & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  5. ↑ encyclopedia of African American culture and history.
  6. ↑ Collins, Brian (1994). "Critical Essays on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ed. by Gary Scharnhorst". Western American Literature. 29 (1): 76–77. doi:10.1353/wal.1994.0053. ISSN   1948-7142. S2CID   165801333.
  7. ↑ Wellburn, Peter (2009-09-18). "Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (2nd ed.)2009349Editor‐in‐chief Jay Kinsbruner. Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (2nd ed.). Detroit, MI: Gale 2008. , ISBN 978 0 684 31270 5 $730 6 vols Also available as an e‐book (ISBN 978 0 684 31590 4)". Reference Reviews. 23 (7): 60–62. doi:10.1108/09504120910990542. ISSN   0950-4125.
  8. ↑ "Pros and Cons". www.mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
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