The Supreme Courts Failures Culminated Together

“It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never

The position of the Supreme Court in American society is quite simple: to interpret the Constitution and settle case disputes with the limitations that are binded by our law. While one perspective of the debate states that the court is unbending in their ability to make policy, while the other claims that the court breaks free from these limitations that are binded by our law and are politically dynamic in nature.These are known as The dynamic court and the constrained court are two alternative constructions of the role of U.S. courts in producing significant social reform (Rosenberg, 1991). The balance of these two views rely on the interaction between doctrinal,

In 1788, the ratification of the United States Constitution sought to establish the fundamental aspects of the nation’s government, laws, and protections of its citizens’ unalienable rights. Robert G. McCloskey’s The American Supreme Court (2016) explains that, during this period, the prospects of the Supreme Court were essentially unknown. As time progressed, however, the Court began strengthening its legitimacy with its decisions in major landmark court cases which, in turn, established its crucial role in shaping the judicial interests and values of the nation. As such, McCloskey (2016) traces the country’s judicial history by highlighting the Court’s great transitional periods regarding state rights, nation rights, property rights, and slavery. By the start of the 20th century, however, discrepancies began to emerge with the rise of

Fulfilling it’s duty to interpret the Constitution the Supreme Court did rule in a way that seemed to make new law as suggested by Mr. Byrd, author of The Southern Manifesto. Further it appears that Mr. Byrd was generally correct in his assertion that race relations were generally amicable in the south. However, this amicability was predicated upon blacks “behaving” and not improving their conditions by accepting a separate but equal system of law. Therefore, in reality the amicability that hairy bird refers to in the southern Manifesto is not 1 of mutual respect and general fairness. Rather, It is forced by law and upheld by courts until Brown versus education. The problem was separate but equal, although the law, had been recognized

The Color-Blind Constitution by Andrew Kull summarizes 125 years of history from 1840 to 1960; in order to expand on the theory on whether the Constitution is color-blind or not. While reading The Color-Bind Constitution, it is clear that Kull does not believe that the constitution is color-blind or that it has ever been color-blind. This essay will prove that Kull does not believe that the Constitution is colorblind by following his examination of the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Harlan’s dissenting opinion on Plessy, examining the contradicting decisions of Supreme Court cases and looking at the at more current policies that are based exclusively on the color of someone’s skin.

In the David Wecht's civil rights text, “ 'Showdown': A look at Thurgood Marshall's historic rise to the Supreme Court,” he shows that people

Harlan thus courageously argues that the “separate but equal” doctrine not only violates the fundamental principles of democracy, namely equality and freedom, but also contravenes the U.S.

Although the majority correctly avoided the constitutional question, Justice Scalia authored a concurring opinion addressing the issue. Justice Scalia’s opinion poses the question: “[w]hether or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection?” Id. at 2682, 174 L. Ed. 2d 490, 515. Justice Scalia’s assertion that “Title VII’s disparate-impact provisions place a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes” mischaracterizes the Act. Id. The disparate-impact provision of Title VII simply allows for and encourages employers to be cognizant of the racial impact of their business practices so that they can craft fair assessment procedures that gives everyone equal opportunity. Justice Scalia callously classified the City’s action as racial decision-making. This contention disregards the fact that race consciousness was deemed

Rosenburg, Friedman, Altman, Rossum and Tarr all illustrate societies past history and race within the court system. Race has always played a big factor in American history since the very beginning of the colonial time period. The United States has had a long history of oppressing minorities such as the enslavement of Africans, harassment of those who immigrated to the states, and

Throughout America’s history the franchise has been withheld from different groups. This has been possible due to weakly written laws that do not provide adequate protections. In 1965 PL 89-110 was passed, this law, commonly known as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, finally provided real protections for minorities living in southern states. In recent years the language of the law was modified within the Supreme Court to take away the law’s primary power. In the following mock Congressional testimony we will go back to 1848, 13 years before the American Civil War, and provide evidence of why a law like PL 89-110 is necessary and commendable.

The judicial branch, in its conception as outlined in Article III of the constitution was designated the “power to interpret the law, determine the constitutionality of the law, and apply it to individual cases (The White House)”. However, since the ratification of the constitution, much like the other two branches of government, the judicial branch has also experienced an expanded delegation of authority and power. This notion is evidenced in the 1803 decision on the case of Marbury v. Madison where the Supreme Court asserted its power of judicial review by ”blocking last-minute appointments by outgoing President John Adams (Chegg)” by declaring that these actions should not be permitted because the supreme court, under chief justice john Marshall declared them unconstitutional(Cornell). This set forth a very powerful precedent for judicial review, one that continues to play a critical role in political discourse today. Although the evolution of the judiciary commenced following the fallout of the 1803 decision, the courts have delegated to themselves a controversial role as policy-makers in response to societal demands and stresses placed upon the political system specifically during and after the civil rights movement that occurred in the United States during the 20th century. This expanded role into the realm of actual policy making is derived from the belief that the constitution is indeed a living and flexible document that must retain the capability for change. As the

The criminal justice system of America is deeply scarred with racial bias. Crimes are being committed and, in turn, are resulting with innocent people doing hard-time. Thankfully, newfound methods of appealing court rulings are finding justice for these minorities; however, the results are as shocking as the crimes being committed. When it was found that the majority of successful appeals were of minorities, the true defects of the system was apparent. The minority community is being critically judged for things they’re not doing.

To look closely at many of the mechanisms in American society is to observe the contradiction between constitutional equality and equality in practice. Several of these contradictions exist in the realm of racial equality. For example, Black s often get dealt an unfair hand in the criminal justice system. In The Real War on Crime, Steven Donziger explains,

There are three women on the Supreme Court, one of whom is Latina, and there is one black justice serving on the Supreme Court (Brown, 2016). This is a major issue. The United States, the “melting pot”, has an extreme lack of diversity in their court system. This is an issue that affects several aspects of society. Decisions made by judges will affect the lives of men, women, and their families. The decisions made by judges can also create law. Unlike political officials, the people do not always have the power to vote judges into their positions. Instead, the people hope that their peers with the power to affect the system choose a candidate that will fight for them. Often times, this does not happen.

Three court cases that played a huge role in the relationship between citizenship, rights to suffrage and representation of the American democracy are The People of the State of California v. George W. Hall, Dred Scott v. Sandford and Guinn v. United States, where each case left a lasting change in the minority group’s flight for equality. In the case of The People of the State of California v. George W. Hall, the Supreme Court ruled that a White defendant was falsely convicted of murdering a Chinese person on the basis of the testimony from a Chinese witness. On appeal, the defendant’s lawyer argued that a non-white witness could not testify against a white person (Shaw et al., 2015, p. 141), where in the state of California, blacks, mulattos, and Indians could not testify in any case against a white person because they were not reliable in court because they were, “no recognize the Chinese and other Asians as a full person whose testimony were admissible in court,” (Shaw et al., 2015, p. 142). The court decision emulated the prejudice that was heavily present in the United States, especially Anti-Asian Movement, because they were seen as, “inferior, who were incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point,” or “claim any citizenship rights” (Shaw et al., 2015, p. 142) and were left unable to protect themselves or their rights because the ruling ultimately dehumanized them into being seen as mediocre asinine individuals. In the case Dred Scott v.