• Voting Rights Act of 1965

 ◦ In 1965, president Lyndon B. Johnson singed the Voting Rights Act into law. This law prevented African Americans from being denied the right to exercise their voting privileges granted by the 15th amendment. This law prevented the south from setting barriers making impossible for African Americans to vote. It made illegal literacy tests, poll taxes, and federal oversight of voter registration. This act led to the 24th amendment which made poll taxes unconstitutional. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave legal means to challenge the boundaries implemented by states and improved black voter turnouts. This law prohibited racial discrimination in voting and energized the black community to bring about change on who becomes an elected official. 

• Minority-Majority districts

 ◦ Section II of the Voting Rights Act makes it illegal for government officials to dilute the votes of a minority by manipulating or gerrymandering district lines. The drawing must show a clear concentration of a minority population being polarized by a majority. This section gives legal grounds to the black community to file suit against racial gerrymandering. However, majority-minority districts are not prohibited unless they are drawn to dilute the votes of a race. The prohibition of racial gerrymandering gives weight to each minority vote, making the voice of the black community impactful.

• “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation  in, be denied the befits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

• Schools are required by law to “respond and remedy hostile educational environments”

• If they don’t, the school could lose federal funding.

• Schools must have a notice of nondiscrimination in their student handbook. 

History of Title IX

• Signed into law on June 23, 1972

• Signed into law by Nixon

• Most recent history on April 4, 2011- Department of Education made Title IX apply to all students, including athletes.

Class Action Suit- A law suit filed on behalf of a group of people, and whose result affects that group of people as a whole. Interest groups such as the NAACP often use these as a means of asserting their influence over policies; civil court procedure under which one party, or a group of parties, may sue as representatives of a larger class. To proceed, the court must permit the class action. If the class action is certified, members of the class must be given notice, and the opportunity to exclude themselves from the proceeding. Only the class members who opt out are not bound by the judgment in the case.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke- Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action programs could not use quotas to meet civil rights goals; however, it did say that gender and race could be considered among other factors by schools and businesses practicing affirmative action;; imposed limitations on affirmative action to ensure that providing greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority. The Supreme Court ruled that while race was a legitimate factor in school admissions, the use of such inflexible quotas as the medical school had set aside was not. 

Gratz v. Bollinger- university's argument was as follows: just as preference is granted to children of alumni, scholarship athletes, and others groups for reasons deemed beneficial to the university, so too does the affirmative action program serve "a compelling interest" by providing educational benefits derived from a diverse student body; The Court held that the OUA’s policies were not sufficiently narrowly tailored to meet the strict scrutiny standard. Because the policy did not provide individual consideration, but rather resulted in the admission of nearly every applicant of “underrepresented minority” status, it was not narrowly tailored in the manner required by previous jurisprudence on the issue.

Grutter v. Bollinger- Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. Justice O'Connor wrote, "in the context of its individualized inquiry into the possible diversity contributions of all applicants, the Law School's race-conscious admissions program does not unduly harm nonminority applicants."

In the 60’s there was a debate on a fundamental constitutional question: Does the Constitution's prohibition of denying equal protection always ban the use of racial, ethnic, or gender criteria in an attempt to bring social justice and social benefits? In 1964 Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241), popularly known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. It was clear that although the 14th amendment has already been passed, the law was not being enforced as discrimination continued to happen everywhere. Like the 14th amendment, the Civil rights law did not immediately go into effect but took time for people to stand up against injustices and use the law in lawsuits and actually begin to win. This was a small step in the big battle to end discrimination.

Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination because of race, color, religion, or national origin in certain places of public accommodation, such as hotels, restaurants, and places of entertainment. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion. It generally applies to employers with 15 or more employees, including federal, state, and local governments.

This case addressed the consitutional question, “Does the federal government have the power to outlaw the racial discrimination of private businesses?” 

The Supreme Court unanimously held that the federal government could regulate interstate commerce within a state in order to eliminate discrimination. This case outlawed racial discrimination in public accommodations and was a major step toward racial equality and the desired symbolic freedom and enjoyment that African Americans would be able to enjoy as free American citizens. 

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

The objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX has fought against discrimination in 10 key areas: access to higher education, athletics, career education, education for pregnant and parenting students, employment, learning environment, math and science, sexual harassment, standardized testing, and technology. Since Title IX it passed in 1972 by Richard Nixon, it has been the subject of over 20 proposed amendments, reviews, Supreme Court cases and other political actions. Under Title IX, schools are legally required to respond and remedy hostile educational environments and failure to do so is a violation that means a school could risk losing its federal funding.

• Segregation allowed for blacks and whites to be treated separately but equally which meant that as long as both were given the accommodations, it didn’t matter if one was in better condition than the other. 

• The Jim Crow Laws normalized discrimination to blacks because it legalized and promoted to discriminate. 

• The racial restrictive covenant prevents blacks from living in white neighbors which promoted segregation and discrimination