2301+M2+Week+8

Week Eight
 * GOVT 2301

Civil Rights and the Problem of Equality**

Civil Rights can be defined as guarantees citizens are entitled to make on the government on legal grounds. The source of these legal grounds is contained in section one of the 14th Amendment which both states that people born in the United States are citizens with privileges and immunities that cannot be violated by states, and that states cannot treat people unequally before the law. Both imply that the national government is in a position to determine how a state can treat its citizens, so civil rights involves an expansion of national power. The nature of this power is to ensure that American's are treated equally before the law, so the concept of equality is central to the idea of civil rights.

The above readings touch on these issues. The chapter on equality discusses the problematic way that the founders dealt with the concept of equality. The 14th Amendment was a response to the fact that the notion of equality that had existed in the U.S. included institutions--notably slavery, and later Jim Crow--that imposed inequality. Recently efforts to ensure equity before the law have led to the use of procedures aimed at eradicating the lingering consequences of past acts of discrimination. The links above to Affirmative Action, and the court case Parents v Seattle (you don't need to read the whole decision. The intro should give you a sense of what the case is about) touch on the nature of this continuing controversy.


 * Sources:**


 * Cornell University Law School: [|Civil Rights].
 * The Founders' Constitution: [|Equality]
 * [|Gettysburg Address]
 * Wikipedia: [|Gettysburg Address.]
 * Wikipedia: [|Fourteenth Amendment].
 * Findlaw: [|The Fourteenth Amendment]
 * Wikipedia: [|Plessy v. Ferguson.]
 * Wikipedia: [|Brown v. Board of Education.]
 * [|Affirmative Action]
 * [|Parents v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson]


 * Assignment:**

Write at least 200 words on each of the following:

1 - The Gettysburg Address is said (by Gary Wills anyway) to have led to a rethinking of the meaning of the Constitution, one that connects it to the egalitarian principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Critically evaluate this claim. 2 - How in fact did the founders deal with the issue of equality and how did the 14th Amendment modify the treatment of equality in the Constitution? 3 - What is Affirmative Action? What controversies are associated with it? What is the Supreme Courts' current position on this issue? How might the decision in Parents v. Seattle have overturned the decision in Brown v. Board?

Due: May 8 email your answers to me.