1. Chapter 21: Civil Rights: Equal Justice Under Law Opener

2. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.
-Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson, 1986

3. Essential Question
Why are there ongoing struggles for civil rights?

4. Guiding Questions Section 1: Diversity and Discrimination
How have various minority groups in American society been discriminated against?
African Americans were once enslaved. Along with Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and women of all races, they have been denied equal political, social, and economic rights for many years.

5. Guiding Questions Section 2: Equality Before the Law
How has the interpretation of the guarantee of equal rights changed over time?
The Supreme Court once upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation and laws that discriminated against women, but legal challenges and Court rulings have outlawed racial segregation and many types of sex-based discrimination.

6. Guiding Questions Section 3: Federal Civil Rights Laws
What is the history of civil rights legislation from Reconstruction to today?
Little civil rights legislation was passed after Reconstruction. In the late 1950s, landmark civil rights laws were passed and affirmative action policies aimed at outlawing discrimination and correcting past inequalities were adopted.

7. Guiding Questions Section 4: American Citizenship
How can American citizenship be attained and how has immigration policy changed over the years?
Citizenship can be gained by birth or by naturalization. Immigration policy has changed from little regulation to the use of strict country quotas to a less restrictive system focused more on fighting illegal immigration.