Alexeyev V.S.

Oles’ Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University (Ukraine)

CIVIL RIGHTS AND PUBLIC POLICY IN THE USA

Americans have never fully come to terms with equality. Civil rights are policies that extend basic rights to groups historically subject to discrimination and concern equality under the Constitution. The history of the struggle for equality is linked with the history of individuals, pitting person against person. Debates about equality typically center on racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, and discrimination based on age, disability, and other factors.The struggle for equality in America is older than the government itself. When Thomas Jefferson wrote about equality in the Declaration of Independence he was referring to equality of opportunity. American society does not emphasize equal results or equal rewards, but rather that everyone should have the same chance Earlv American views of equality did not include equality for slaves or women.

The word equality does not appear in the original Constitution. Although not mentioned in the Bill of. Rights, equality is implied in that the rights guaranteed there are not given to one group or denied to another. The first and only appearance of the idea of equality in the Constitution is in the Fourteenth Amendment which forbade the states from denying to their citizens equal protection of the laws. The equal protection clause generates more business for the Supreme Court than any other part of the Constitution. This clause has been interpreted to mean "equal protection of life, liberty and property," not equal treatment for everyone. The Supreme Court has established three levels of judicial scrutiny for equality questions. The Court has consistently held that a state may treat classes of citizens differently if the classification is reasonable (bears a rational relationship to some legitimate purpose) and not arbitrary. The Court has also ruled that racial and ethnic classifications are inherently suspect. Laws that discriminate on the basis of sex must bear a substantial relationship to an important legislative purpose.

African Americans have been the most visible minority group in the United States. Three eras delineate African Americans' struggle for equality. In the era of slavery, the slave system took firm hold of Southern economies. Public policy consistently accommodated the property interests of slave owners. The case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) declared that a black man had no rights under a white man's government and Congress had no power to ban slavery in the western territories. The civil war and the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery.

After the Civil War many African-American men held state and federal offices until federal troops were pulled out of the South. Afterwards, during the era of reconstruction and resegregation, southern whites reclaimed power and imposed a code of Jim Crow, or segregation, laws on blacks. In this era, every part of an African American's life was affected by racial segregation. The Supreme Court provided a constitutional justification for segregation in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which declared the principle of "separate but equal." More attention was paid/to the "separate" than to the "equal" part of this dictum. Some minor progress was made in the first half of the twentieth century to eliminate segregation.

The era of civil rights began when legal segregation ended with Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In this case the Supreme Court held that school segregation in

Topeka, Kansas was inherently unconstitutional. Despite this ruling, in some areas, public schools threatened to close, enrollment in private schools soared, and schools purposely drew attendance boundaries to promote segregation. In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg County Schools (1971); the Supreme Court upheld the right of judges to order school busing to achieve integration. Racial segregation can be both de jure (by law) and de facto (in reality). School segregation has often been de facto segregation.

The civil rights movement began as both blacks and whites, often led by Martin Luther King, Jr., used sit-ins, marches, and civil disobedience to establish equal economic and political opportunities and end policies which discriminate on the basis of race. The civil rights movement appealed to the national conscience so that by the 1970s the vast majority of white Americans supported integration. The courts were often involved in putting civil rights goals on the nation's policy agenda. The 1950s and 1960s saw a number of public policies to foster racial equality. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made racial discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, and other public places illegal. By the 1980s, few forms of segregation were left to be overturned.

The early Republic limited suffrage, the right to vote, to a handful of the population. The' Fifteenth Amendment, adopted in 1870, guaranteed African Americans the right to vote. Southern states, however, used various methods, such as the grandfather clause, literacy tests, poll taxes (small taxes levied on the right to vote), and the white primary (permitting political parties in the heavily Democratic South to exclude blacks from primary elections), to deny blacks the right to vote. One by one these barriers were eliminated in the 1960s. The Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibited poll taxes in federal elections. The most important policy in expanding suffrage was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited any government from denying a person the vote on the basis of race and sent federal registrars to states and counties that had long histories of discrimination. The result was a dramatic increase in black voting and the number of black elected officials.

Before long minority groups will outnumber Caucasians of European descent (minority majority). The oldest minority group is the American Indians. They did not receive citizenship until 1924 and although they enjoy the same public policy gains won by African Americans, there exists a significant gap between public policy and private realization for Indians. The fastest growing minority group is Asian Americans. The internment of Japanese Americans in encampments during World War II was upheld in Korematsu v. United States (1944). Hispanic Americans will soon be the largest minority group in the United States. They have benefited significantly from the nondiscrimination laws won by African Americans. Like African Americans, these groups have experienced the growth of social movements.

Early women's rights activists were connected to the abolitionist movement. Women's issues centered around the right to vote and the legal doctrine of coverture which deprived married women of any identity separate from that of their husbands. A meeting at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 began a movement that culminated in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, giving women the right to vote. This right, however, did not win equal status for women. The feminist movement lost ground as women disagreed on the role they should play in society. Public policy toward women continued to be dominated by protectionism. State laws often enshrined the traditional family role of women in public policy, resulting in limiting the opportunities of women. Alice Paul, the author of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), was one activist who claimed that the real result of protectionism was to perpetuate sexual inequality.

The feminist movement was reborn in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s as

women activists were able to influence several public policies promoting women's rights through women's groups like the National Organization of Women (NOW). Prior to this women's movement, the Supreme Court upheld sex-based discrimination. In Reed v. Reed (1971), the Court ruled that any arbitrary sex-based classification under state law violated the equal protection clause. In Craig v. Boren (1976), the Court established the .medium scrutiny" standard for sex discrimination cases. The Supreme Court has struck down many laws and rules for discriminating on the basis of gender, whether the victims are women or men. The ERA, first introduced in the 1920s, was revived in the early 1970s. After widespread early support, the ERA lost the ratification battle in 1982.

The number of women in the civilian workforce and the number of female-headed households has increased rapidly. Although not dead, protectionism is being nudged into the background. Important progress has been made to end gender discrimination in employment and business activity through both congressional legislation and Supreme Court decisions.

Traditionally women's jobs have paid lower wages than men's jobs demanding comparable skills. In 1983 the Washington Supremne Court ruled that its state government had for years discriminated against women by denying them equal pay for jobs of comparable worth. So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has remained silent on the issue of comparable worth.

Military service is another controversial aspect of sexual equality. Women have served in the armed forces since World War II and are now a part of the regular service. Two important differences between the treatment of men and women in the military are that only men must register for the draft, and statutes and regulations prohibit women from serving in combat. Women were, however, involved in combat during the Persian Gulf War, reopening the debate on whether women should serve in combat.

The Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas galvanized the issue of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment violates federal policies against sexual discrimination in the workplace. Sexual harassment can occur anywhere, but is most prevalent in male-dominated occupations.

Aging Americans have claimed space under the civil rights umbrella. The greatest champion of victims of age discrimination was Representative Claude Pepper who led the fight for age discrimination laws. In 1975 Congress passed a law cutting federal funds to any corporation or institution discriminating against persons over 40. Mandatory retirement ages are also being phased out. The young have also suffered from inferior treatment under the law as the case of Walter Polovchak of Chicago demonstrates.

Disabled Americans, who comprise 17 percent of the population, have suffered from direct and indirect discrimination. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 added disabled Americans to the list of people protected from discrimination. These protections were strengthened in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Civil rights laws for the handicapped have met with opposition and sluggish enforcement due to costs.

AIDS has brought greater meaning to the gay rights movement. Homosexuals face prejudice in hiring, education, access to public accommodations, and housing. The best estimates are that about ten percent of the population is homosexual. Gay activists may face the toughest battle for equality because there are no positive stereotypes commonly associated with homosexuality. Therefore, homosexuals are safer targets than other minorities.

The public policy paths for women and minorities have converged in the debate about affirmative action which involves special efforts to provide employment, promotion, or missions to overcome the effects of past discrimination.In affirmative action there is emphasis on equal results, not merely equal opportunities. Numerical quotas are the longest and most controversial form of affirmative action. The constitutionality of affirmative action has not been very clear. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Court ruled against the university's affirmative action program. In other issues it has upheld affirmative action. The Court has been more deferential to Congress plan to local government in upholding affirmative action programs. The Court has approved preferential treatment of minorities in promotions and ruled that public employers may use affirmative action promotion plans to counter women and minorities' underrepresentation. Most Americans oppose the idea of preferential hiring for minority groups.

Equality is a basic principle of democracy. Equality tends to favor majority rule under the principle that every citizen has one vote. Majority rule, however, can threaten minority rights and individual liberty. Women and minorities in the United States have made gains through their rights whether it was the right to vote or other rights, such as First Amendment freedoms. The democratic process is a powerful vehicle for disadvantaged groups to use to press their claims.

Civil rights laws increase the size and power of government. Civil rights laws and court decisions give the government power to tell groups and individuals that there arc certain things they may and may not do. Civil rights policies do not conform to the eighteenth century conception of limited government. However, like civil liberties, civil rights is an area in which increased government activity in protecting basic rights can lead to greater checks on the government by those who benefit from such protections.