1. The Challenges of Ensuring Equality

2. By Tristan Wagner and Kelson Marisa
* Affirmative Action involves equal opportunity in getting a job at a company for minorities. The government wants to make up for the discrimination there once was in the U.S. against women, religion, age, and race. The opposite of Affirmative Action is Reverse Discrimination, which is hiring a certain minority group only.
* The government enforces Affirmative Action, so therefore they agree with it. The government wants all sort of different women and minority races in companies to incorporate equality in employment in America. They do not want companies to not hire people due to their race, gender, religion, or age. The government still allows small private companies to hire freely.
* – Pres. Lyndon Johnson issued an executive order (11246) that required federal contractors to take affirmative action when hiring employees without regard to race, religion and national origin. 3 years later in 1968, gender was added.
1970 – Federal District Court and Alabama found that in the 37 years of state patrol, there was never a black state trooper. They ordered provisions that required strict control over the civil service certification procedure and a program that recruited minority job applicants. After 18 months of no blacks being hired for any position connected to the troopers, they gave another order that required at least 1 qualified black trooper to be hired for every white hired, until 25% of the force was made up of blacks.

3. By Kelson Marisa and Tristan Wagner
* Fisher v. University of Texas – Abigail Fisher claimed that she was denied admission to the University of Texas because she is white.
The value of diversity in higher education and the court’s role in deciding how much weight admissions officers should correlate to race was debated.
* Affirmative Action is a good idea because as an American citizen I don't want America to be labeled as a racist country. Everyone deserves the right to have a job no matter what the race, gender, age, or religion.
Abigail Fisher

4. Discrimination Against Women
Issue:
Women all over the world are deprived of some of their human rights because of their gender
Government Stance
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
Made up of 23 experts on women's issues from all around the world
Milena Minarcin & Erin Killen

5. Reed vs. Reed
Sally and Cecil were fighting over who should be named the administer of their sons estate. The Idaho probate court specified that males must be preferred to females, making Cecil the administrator. When Sally and Cecil both appealed, the case was considered by the Supreme Court. Their unanimous decision stated that the preference in favor of males was unconstitutional. For the first time in history the Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment applied to gender as well. Milena Minarcin & Erin Killen

6. Continued... Current Debate Military Draft
Womens pay- in women earned 59.7% of men's earnings. As the years passed the pay keeps increasing and in 1997 it reached to 74.2% of their earnings. Today, women are only paid 72 cents for every dollar a man earns.
Military Draft
Women were most likely to become nurses
They are becoming more and more involved in combat
Women were only allowed to be drafted if they met all requirements
Our Opinion- Women and men shouldn't be treated differently just because of gender. They are humans too and deserve equal treatment.
Milena Minarcin & Erin Killen

7. Citizens Rights to Know By Cam and Makenzie
The government does fight citizens right to know, so they do support it. But they do believe that some documents and records cannot be given out to the public due to it being sensitive or classified information that the government cannot release.
Many government meetings and hearings were held in secret and the public did not like that. So that is where the Sunshine Act would come into place.
I believe that the citizens right to know is a good thing because the government should tell us what is going on because they are the ones who represent us.

8. Government decisions and actions By Cam and Makenzie
The Citizens rights to know is a very touchy subject because the citizens would like to know what their government is doing, but some things just cannot be released by the government.
Freedom of Information Act - This act allows for the full or partial of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the government.
The Sunshine Act - This acts affects the government, congress, federal commissions, and other constituted federal bodies. So an example would be if there is a meeting of government officials, the public would have to be notified before the meeting takes place.
California Public Records Act - spells out the legal right to obtaining government records.

9. Citizens Right to Privacy
Citizens have the right to privacy, and unreasonable searches, and seizures limit this
Adam Jaworski and Jake Reardon

10. Government Stance on the Issue
The government wants to lock down on terrorist groups by wire tapping, and hidden cameras
This increases security, but may violate peoples' right to privacy
Adam Jaworski and Jake Reardon

11. Past Issues on the Topic
Adam Jaworski and Jake Reardon
Past Issues on the Topic
The Patriot act- it was made to detect and stop terrorist acts in the U.S, and improve investigation tools for law enforcement.
Griswold v. Connecticut- Estelle Griswold was a doctor who encouraged people to use birth control which violated the peoples marital rights to privacy. The case was appealed to a higher court because Griswold said that the law was unconstitutional. He was found innocent because the law was indeed Unconstitutional

12. Current Issues on Topic
The most current debate is searching for possible terrorist groups by wire tapping and using hidden cameras under the patriot act
Adam Jaworski and Jake Reardon

13. Opinion
We agree that federal forces should be cracking down on terrorist groups and acts on the United States. We also believe that there has to be a reasonable cause to search and seize important things.
Adam Jaworski and Jake Reardon