Substantive Equality And The Constitution

“In what way and to what extent does the Declaration of Independence serve as a benchmark for the actions of disenfranchised or otherwise oppressed citizens of the United States of America?”

The Equal rights Amendment was proposed to set equality for every citizen no matter the sex. The amendment has three sections. The first one states “equality of rights under the law should not be denied by the U.S on the account of one's sex.” Section two says that “congress has the power to enforce this law.” Last but not least, section three says the amendment will take effect two years after ratification.

What could be more important than the equality of rights for all American citizens? Women have tried without success for 80 years to be acknowledged as equals in our Constitution through an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Currently there is nothing in the United States Constitution that guarantees a woman the same rights as a man. The only equality women have with men is the right to vote. In order to protect women’s rights on the same level as men, I am in favor of an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution today.

Caliendo and Mcllwain (2011) have suggested that the historical claims of white supremacy within nations such as the UK and South Africa, has created racial conflicts and segregation between ethnic communities. Relating back to Weber’s example of the caste system, the “authentically white” (Caliendo and Mcllwain, 2011:22) communities are dominant and control the minority communities. Caliendo and Mcllwain (2011) argue that the “authentically white” have increased wealth and status, which they use to create boundaries and exclude the ethnic groups within the community. An example of this would be the issue of Apartheid in South Africa throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Apartheid can be defined by the New Oxford English Dictionary (1998) as “a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race” (Guelke, 2005:61). Throughout the period Guelke (2005) discussed the fact that the minority white communities within South Africa ruled over the black majority, living “a lifestyle with a standard of living matching the very richest countries in the world” (Guelke, 2001:1-2), whilst the black communities lived in extreme poverty. Linking back to the system of monopolistic social closure, the white population viewed themselves as the elite members of society, and via legislation such as the native policy, used their power to justify the exploitation and segregation of the black South African

The Equal Protection Clause derives from the Fourteenth Amendment, which specifies “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…” As a part of the Reconstruction Amendments, the aforementioned clause was meant to ensure racial equality in the Reconstruction Period and has been applied successfully against the affirmative action. Introduced in United States v. Carolene Products Co., the strict scrutiny has been applied to the cases, in which a fundamental constitutional rights have been infringed or a government action applies to a suspect classification (i.e. race, religion, national background). Specifically, in regards to Bakke v. Regents of University of California, the Supreme Court (“the Court”) concluded that, considering that the University of California, Davis received several Caucasian applicants for its special admission program in 1973 and 1974 and that none of the applicants received the admission to the program since the start, the program unfairly administered in favor of minority races and, therefore, violated the rights of the white applicants under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, from Hopwood v. State of Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled under strict scrutiny that, the affirmative action imposed by the University of Texas School of Law (“the law school”) violates the Fourteenth Amendment since neither the law school nor the University of Texas system has proved a proof of

Civil liberty and social inequality has been one of the most protested and talked about subject, even before the civil rights movement that began in the mid-50s. Many different people find the courage to bring these injustices to light and speak out against the subject, creating a more equal and truly bringing justice to all, no matter race, religion, ethnicity, or gender. Whether it be through a peaceful protest or moving speech, courageous minorities help resolve civil issues within America and demand change. Civil liberty issues have been, and still is being, resolved through vocal advocates willing to protest and use the first amendment to speak out against discrimination and unfair treatment towards minorities.

Our 14th amendment is perhaps the most important amendment because it helps defend some of our fundamental rights. This amendment extends the due process procedure to all citizens when trying to deprive them of life, liberty, or property. The amendment also ensures that everyone born in the United States or naturalized is guaranteed citizenship. This helped grant the right to vote for many americans who before were excluded from this right. It was ratified on july 9th in 1868 following the civil war along with 13th and 15th amendment. These are known as the civil war amendments and had to be accepted by the southern states in order for them to be brought back into the union. The 14th amendment in particular was designed to protect the basic civil rights granted in the constitution to all americans. However a lot of issues have arose over time in regarding the 14th amendment equal protection clause. Movements like Black Lives Matter have brought forth some of these issues happening today. The supreme court has made interpretations of the 14th amendment in cases like Plessy vs Ferguson, Brown vs the Board of Education, and even in when overturning the case Dred Scott vs Sanford. To better understand the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause we have to take a closer look at the interpretations made by the supreme court to

The Equal Rights Amendment proposition to the United States Constitution was sent down to the state level in 1972, but was met by an organized opposition of religious conservative women trying to save the country and the family home from the secularizing transition to modernity. The ERA embodied all the fears of the conservative woman.

Liberty and equality has always been a controversial issue in America. Based on the readings, people during the American Revolution had a different view on what liberty and equality meant to them, then what it means to most people in modern society. Liberty is defined as “the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views” (Dictionary.com). Today’s definition of equality is the “state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities” (Dictionary.com). In the times of the American revolution the focus of liberty and equality only affected white men. In modern day and age, the focus is for all mankind to have the same rights, and people are no longer viewed as property. Throughout time since the American Revolution, the ideas of what liberty and equality mean has been influenced and evolved as the opinions and citizens within society have changed.

Is it possible to achieve equality based on the Constitution? It is possible to achieve equality for individuals in society.

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville’s memorable claim that there is an incredible tension between liberty and equality in America is certainly true. His secondary argument is equally justifiable—that Democratic nations, especially American, will grow to love equality more “ardently and enduringly” than liberty (Tocqueville, 202), and can be proved by observing current American political patterns and events.

This report reviews and analyzes individual rights afforded by the constitution and their applicability to the suit for wrongful termination in the case of Korb versus Raytheon. The specific constitutional rights under review are the freedom of speech, freedom of information and challenges associated with employment law. Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and current employee of Raytheon, a large equipment manufacturing company for the U.S. military was terminated after making public statements criticizing defense spending and calling for a reduction of Navy’s fleet. Raytheon, a manufacturer of

Too good to be true or too hard to achieve is the writer’s conclusion of how far the United States has achieved the Founders’ vision of political equality, economic opportunity, and social mobility. Throughout centuries, the American citizens and the immigrants that moved to the United States have lived and built their lives with the foundation of the American dream, a belief that every person will be able to “grow to fullest development as men and women [through hard work and individual effort]”(Adams XI). The dream that derived from the Founding Fathers’ statement “that all men are created equal, [and] they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and that the government is formed to protect this right (US 1776). The Founding Fathers surely have a grand vision that the United States will become a nation where everyone will be treated equally and the only thing that separates them from their success in life is their own effort to achieve their wildest dream; yet in reality, a widely known fact that man is an egotistic creature who is driven by his own self-interest made it nearly impossible for the United States to adopt the Founders’ vision of equality thoroughly. If one would conclude, the only way for the United States to achieve the Founders’ vision of political equality, economic opportunity, and social mobility in full is by collective efficacy, a sacrificial method in which an

one of the most important and complicated dilemmas of human philosophy: how do we choose

In one of his speeches, Archbishop Desmond Tutu suggested that the South African government should promulgate legislation which will impose the beneficiaries of apartheid in South Africa have to pay a special tax, which ultimately facilitates transformative constitutionalism. In this essay, I will critically analyse the advantages and disadvantages of the promulgation of such legislation, its challenges and whether I think it should be promulgated or not.