Download or read book Equal Protection and the African American Constitutional Experience written by Robert P. Green and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2000-05-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trace the roots of the concept of equal protection from the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution through its application today using this collection of 177 primary documents from a variety of sources. Students can use this unique reference resource to examine the tension between the concept of equal protection and recognition of slavery in the constitutional order, to explore the devitalization and revitalization of the 14th and 15th Constitutional amendments from the era of Jim Crow through the Civil Rights movement, and to study current court rulings on equal protection of the law. Petitions, laws, court decisions, personal accounts, and a variety of other documents bring to life the experiences of African Americans in the American constitutional order. Five historical periods are explored with particular emphasis on the concept of equal protection of the law and its particular embodiment in the 14th Amendment. These include: the roots of the concept of equal protection in the Anglo-American experience, the lives of African Americans under a Constitution that incorporated equal protection yet recognized slavery, the 14th and 15th Amendments and the development of Jim Crow, 20th-century developments in the application of equal protection to race, and the accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement and developments since that time. The introductory and explanatory text helps readers understand the nature of the conflicts, the issues being litigated, and the social and cultural pressures that shaped each debate. This welcome resource will provide students with the opportunity to understand the various arguments put forth in different debates, encouraging readers to consider all sides when drawing their own conclusions.

Download or read book Even the Children of Strangers written by Donald Wilson Jackson and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jackson unravels the complex meanings of equal protection doctrine and its various interpretations over the last 134 years. After comparing equal protection laws in the U.S. to those in Canada and India and certain provisions of international law, he offers possible ways to resolve apparently intractable conflicts between individualism and affirmative action policies.

Download or read book Enforcing the Equal Protection Clause written by William D. Araiza and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over a century, Congress’s power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “the equal protection of the laws” has presented judges and scholars with a puzzle. What does it mean for Congress to “enforce” such a wide-ranging, open-ended provision when the Supreme Court has insisted on its own superiority in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment? In Enforcing the Equal Protection Clause, William D. Araiza offers a unique understanding of Congress’s enforcement power and its relationship to the Court’s claim to supremacy when interpreting the Constitution. Drawing on the history of American thinking about equality in the decades before and after the Civil War, Araiza argues that congressional enforcement and judicial supremacy can co-exist, but only if the Court limits its role to ensuring that enforcement legislation reasonably promotes the core meaning of the Equal Protection Clause. Much of the Court’s equal protection jurisprudence stops short of stating such core meaning, thus leaving Congress free (subject to appropriate judicial checks) to enforce the full scope of the constitutional guarantee. Araiza’s thesis reconciles the Supreme Court’s ultimate role in interpreting the Constitution with Congress’s superior capacity to transform the Fourteenth Amendment’s majestic principles into living reality. The Fourteenth Amendment’s Enforcement Clause raises difficult issues of separation of powers, federalism, and constitutional rights. Araiza illuminates each of these in this scholarly, timely work that is both intellectually rigorous but also accessible to non-specialist readers.

Download or read book Controversies in Equal Protection Cases in America written by Anne Richardson Oakes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection engages with current issues on equal protection in the USA, as seen from the perspectives of leading academics in this area. Contributors with a range of perspectives interrogate the legal, theoretical and factual assumptions which shape case law and consider the extent to which they satisfactorily address contemporary concerns with social hierarchies and norms. Divided into five parts, the study focusses on the connections between equal protection jurisprudence, discrimination in its contemporary manifestations, the implications of identity politics and the moral and political conceptualizations of equality that represent the parameters of debate. Drawing on historical analysis and disciplinary insights of the social sciences, the book bridges the gap between theory and practice. The themes presented and analyses developed are among some of the most contentious currently in America, and will be of interest not just to lawyers and legal academics, but also to inter-disciplinary social science researchers, including sociologists, economists and political scientists.

Download or read book Equal Protection written by David L. Hudson Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-06-08 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses primary sources to closely examine the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and to show how legal interpretations of it have had a profound impact on American life as we know it. The Fourteenth Amendment addresses many aspects of American citizenship, including the rights of citizens. The most commonly used—and frequently litigated—phrase in the amendment is "equal protection of the laws." This phrase has figured prominently in a plethora of landmark cases in U.S. history dealing with a variety of issues, including Brown v. Board of Education (racial discrimination), Roe v. Wade (reproductive rights), Bush v. Gore (election recounts), Reed v. Reed (gender discrimination), University of California v. Bakke (racial quotas in college admissions), and Obergefell v. Hodges (gay marriage). This book closely examines the history and development of the Equal Protection Clause and details the many ways in which it has shaped U.S. history. Selections show how the equal protection clause came into being in the post-Civil War era; feature seminal Supreme Court decisions on the nature and extent of applications of the equal protection clause in American life and law through the years; and include documents that consider the impact that the equal protection clause has had and may have on American society in the 21st century.

Download or read book Liberty and Union written by Edgar J. McManus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 966 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This, the concise edition of Liberty and Union, is an abridged constitutional history of the United States, designed for short single-semester courses, comprising the key topics from Volumes 1 and 2. Written in a clear and engaging narrative style, it successfully unites thorough chronological coverage with a thematic approach, offering critical analysis of core constitutional history topics, set in the political, social, and economic context that made them constitutional issues in the first place. Combining a thoughtful and balanced narrative with an authoritative stance on key issues, the authors deliberately explain the past in the light of the past, without imposing upon it the standards of later generations. Authored by two experienced professors in the field, this concise edition presents seminal topics while retaining the narrative flow of the two full original volumes. An accessible alternative to dense scholarly works, this textbook avoids unnecessary technical jargon, defines legal terms and historical personalities where appropriate, and makes explicit connections between constitutional themes and historical events. For students in a short undergraduate or postgraduate constitutional history course, or anyone with a general interest in constitutional developments, this book will be essential reading. Useful features include: Full glossary of legal terminology Recommended reading A table of cases Extracts from primary documents Companion website Useful documents provided: Declaration of Independence Articles of Confederation Constitution of the United States of America Chronological list of Supreme Court justices

Download or read book America s Constitution written by Akhil Reed Amar and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it. We all know this much: the Constitution is neither immutable nor perfect. Amar shows us how the story of this one relatively compact document reflects the story of America more generally. (For example, much of the Constitution, including the glorious-sounding “We the People,” was lifted from existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions.) In short, the Constitution was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius. Despite the Constitution’s flaws, its role in guiding our republic has been nothing short of amazing. Skillfully placing the document in the context of late-eighteenth-century American politics, America’s Constitution explains, for instance, whether there is anything in the Constitution that is unamendable; the reason America adopted an electoral college; why a president must be at least thirty-five years old; and why–for now, at least–only those citizens who were born under the American flag can become president. From his unique perspective, Amar also gives us unconventional wisdom about the Constitution and its significance throughout the nation’s history. For one thing, we see that the Constitution has been far more democratic than is conventionally understood. Even though the document was drafted by white landholders, a remarkably large number of citizens (by the standards of 1787) were allowed to vote up or down on it, and the document’s later amendments eventually extended the vote to virtually all Americans. We also learn that the Founders’ Constitution was far more slavocratic than many would acknowledge: the “three fifths” clause gave the South extra political clout for every slave it owned or acquired. As a result, slaveholding Virginians held the presidency all but four of the Republic’s first thirty-six years, and proslavery forces eventually came to dominate much of the federal government prior to Lincoln’s election. Ambitious, even-handed, eminently accessible, and often surprising, America’s Constitution is an indispensable work, bound to become a standard reference for any student of history and all citizens of the United States.

Download or read book Constitutional Government written by James A. Curry and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Affirmative Action written by John W. Johnson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-05-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Affirmative Action recounts the fascinating history of a civil rights provision considered vital to protecting and promoting equality, but still bitterly contested in the courts—and in the court of public opinion. "Special consideration" or "reverse discrimination"? This examination traces the genesis and development of affirmative action and the continuing controversy that constitutes the story of racial and gender preferences. It pays attention to the individuals, the events, and the ideas that spawned federal and selected state affirmative action policies—and the resistance to those policies. Perhaps most important, it probes the key legal challenges to affirmative action in the nation's courts. The controversy over affirmative action in America has been marked by a persistent tension between its advocates, who emphasize the necessity of overcoming historical patterns of racial and gender injustice, and its critics, who insist on the integrity of color and gender blindness. In the wake of related U.S. Supreme Court decisions of 2007, Affirmative Action brings the story of one of the most embattled public policy issues of the last half century up to date, demonstrating that social justice cannot simply be legislated into existence, nor can voices on either side of the debate be ignored.

Download or read book The Constitution and Race written by Donald E. Lively and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1992-02-28 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race, as this book demonstrates, has been a factor in the Constitution's framing, ratification, and development. Examined specifically and in detail are: * the accommodation of slavery to create a viable republic; * the Union's experience with and eventual undoing by slavery; * reconstruction of the nation pursuant to seminal principles of racial equality; * persisting efforts to limit or defeat constitutional provisions for equality and opportunity; * the desegregation mandate and its devolution; and * modern problems in accounting for a legacy of racial discrimination and disadvantage. The Constitution is the overarching statement of popular will and consent and thus an especially apt prism through which to discern racial truths and the context and values that influence them. Constitutional law affords a particularly useful departure point for acquiring perspective upon moral reality and legal possibility. This book is rich in its analysis of the Supreme Court's response to society's ambiguities, concerns, and conscience in the matters of race. In examining problems and issues which historically have engendered dispute and division, it suggests a potentially consensual basis of ascertaining the Constitution's still unfinished business. The nation's enduring ambivalence and the price it pays in less than consistent constitutional interpretations on racial questions is both enlightening and disturbing. The questions, of course, are at the heart of a democracy and involve personhood, citizenship, liberty, and equality. The Constitution and Race will be valuable to political scientists, historians, sociologists, lawyers, and students.

Download or read book The Fourteenth Amendment written by David L. Hudson and published by Enslow Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the significance of the Fourtheenth Amendment through the country's history and legal cases and discusses why there was a need for this amendment, how it was created, and fully explains the major sections and clauses.

Download or read book Women and the United States Constitution written by Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Divided into three parts--History, Interpretation, and Practice--this provocative volume incorporates law, history, political theory, and philosophy to analyze the U.S. Constitution as a whole in relation to the rights and fate of women.

Download or read book 50 Years After Brown written by Anthony Asadullah Samad and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a history of the African American struggle for equality, looking at executive, legislative, and judicial actions that have impacted the pursuit of equality.

Download or read book The Quest for Equality written by Robert Jennings Harris and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesis of American political theory, constitutional history, and constitutional law with regard to equal protection.

Download or read book On Account of Race written by Lawrence Goldstone and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award An award–winning constitutional law historian examines case–based evidence of the court's longstanding racial bias (often under the guise of "states rights") to reveal how that prejudice has allowed the court to solidify its position as arguably the most powerful branch of the federal government. One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today. Beginning in 1876, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled both the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and what seemed to be the right to vote in the Fifteenth. And so a half million African Americans across the South who had risked their lives and property to be allowed to cast ballots were stricken from voting rolls by white supremacists. This vacuum allowed for the rise of Jim Crow. None of this was done in the shadows—those determined to wrest the vote from black Americans could not have been more boastful in either intent or execution. On Account of Race tells the story of an American tragedy, the only occasion in United States history in which a group of citizens who had been granted the right to vote then had it stripped away. It is a warning that the right to vote is fragile and must be carefully guarded and actively preserved lest American democracy perish.

Download or read book Equality under the Constitution written by Judith A. Baer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The principle of equality embedded in the Declaration of Independence and reaffirmed in the Constitution does not distinguish between individuals according to their capacities or merits. It is written into these documents to ensure that each and every person enjoys equal respect and equal rights. Judith Baer maintains, however, that in fact American judicial decisions have consistently denied individuals the form of equality to which they are legally entitled—that the courts have interpreted constitutional guarantees of equal protection in ways that undermine the original intent of Congress. In Equality under the Constitution, Baer examines the background, scope, and purpose of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment and the history of its interpretation by the courts. She traces the development of the idea of equality, drawing on the Bill of Rights, Congressional records, the Civil War amendments, and other sections of the Constitution. Baer discusses many of the significant equal-protection cases decided by the Supreme Court from the time of the amendment’s ratification, including decisions on reverse discrimination, age discrimination, the rights of the disabled, and gay rights. She concludes with a theory of equality more faithful to the history, language, and spirit of the Constitution.

Download or read book Inherently Unequal written by Lawrence Goldstone and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-17 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ...A potent and original examination of how the Supreme Court subverted justice and empowered the Jim Crow era.In the years following the Civil War, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery; the 14th conferred citizenship and equal protection under the law to white and black; and the 15th gave black American males the right to vote. In 1875, the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in the nation's history granted all Americans "the full and equal enjoyment" of public accommodations. Just eight years later, the Supreme Court, by an 8-1 vote, overturned the Civil Rights Act as unconstitutional and, in the process, disemboweled the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment. Using court records and accounts of the period, Lawrence Goldstone chronicles how "by the dawn of the 20th century the U.S. had become the nation of Jim Crow laws, quasi-slavery, and precisely the same two-tiered system of justice that had existed in the slave era."The very human story of how and why this happened make Inherently Unequal as important as it is provocative. Examining both celebrated decisions like Plessy v. Ferguson and those often overlooked, Goldstone demonstrates how the Supreme Court turned a blind eye to the obvious reality of racism, defending instead the business establishment and status quo--thereby legalizing the brutal prejudice that came to define the Jim Crow era.