Civil Rights Act(s) What they did and why

Civil Rights Act of 1875  State Action doctrine  Civil Rights (equality) vs. Social rights (equality)  Plessey v Ferguson (1898)

Civil Rights Acts of , and EPAct of 1963  Addressed voting rights  Equal Pay Act of 1963: addressed women’s equal pay: not civil rights as such

Civil Rights Act of 1964  10 Years after Brown  Much more bold, but still tardy  Enacted in the face of violence and threats of violence

Public Accomodations  Rest rooms, restaurants, etc.  Recent evidence that this is not a dead issue.

School Desegregation, Phase 2  Outlawed discrimination by pirae employers and state governments!  Created administrative agencies to aid enforcement: Title IV: Justice Dept. could seek federal court orders to desegregate schools and do so w/o waiting for parental complaints

Title VI Title VI: federal grants in aid must be withheld from state and local governments if they are guilty of discrimination. For school year 1999–2000, local and intermediate sources made up 43 cents of every dollar in revenue, state revenues comprised 50 cents, and the remaining 7 cents came from federal sources. This was most significant outside the South…. The political equation outside the south.. Thus : The president could, through Office for CR of JD withhold funds Off of AG initiate suits wherever a “pattern or practice” was of discrimination discovered.

Bussing  De facto as the target  The Boston case  Withdrawal from bussing Rehnquist court 1991: Board of Ed. Vs. Dowel KC case of 1995: interdistrict resource re allocation was improper.

Discrimination in Employment  Outlawed in all employment, including gov. agencies  Used Interstate commerce clause  Title VII: EEOC 1972 EEOC can start suits.  Problem: who has to show proof. Statistical evidence….  Even apparently “neutral” standards which had the impact of exclusion were suspect  Had to show that a test or standard had a demonstrable connection to job performance.

Voting Rights  Set criminal penalties  Replacement of local registrars in selected counties designated by the AG.  24 th amendment in 1964  1975: no literacy tests Also bilingual ballots  Racial Gerrymandering

Housing  1968: Fair Housing Act  Discrimination in housing not a matter of law, but of thousands of individual decisions AND local government policies involving public housing, federal guidelines out of the FHA and mortgage lenders Had the impact of preventing blacks form joining move to suburbs in 50’s and 60’s.  Still hard to prove. 1988: Fair Housing Amendments Act HUD could initiate legal actions in cases of discrimination.  Other efforts: mixed results Open communities effort Lending efforts: more success? Redlining