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Supreme Court's Treatment of Discrimination At different times there were different Supreme Courts treatments of discrimination based on race and discrimination based on gender. All of them were closely connected with the history of the state and the Constitution. The Supreme Courts treatment appeared at that time when people began to understand their equal rights in the world. Under the Constitution discrimination is an action or behavior that limits an individuals or groups right to their opportunities in housing, jobs, education or participation in an organization. So, all discriminations, whether it is discrimination on race or on gender, are an action addressed to elimination of an individuals or groups right.
In this aspect all the forms of discrimination are the same. Discriminations based on race and on gender are the same from the historic point of view as well. They were the result of slavery (in direct and indirect meaning). For a long time women have been regarded as a weaker sex. They were treated as appendages of their husbands. The main roles of them were the roles of wives and mothers, completely depended on their husbands.
The discrimination was based on cultural stereotypes. The historical grounds for discrimination based on race were slavery. Thomas Jefferson was the author of the words about equality of all citizens. But in culture black slaves were not considered citizens by him. Jefferson's attitude towards his slaves was contradictory. The nation had to suffer a bloody Civil War; and over one hundred years of racial discrimination were needed to come to the time when more equal rights became available to all Americans.
Thanks to the Constitution and its words that all men are equal in the eyes of our Creator, people started to defend their constitutional rights. The movement against discrimination based on race and on gender started in the beginning of the 19 th century. In 1872, the Us Supreme Court had to examine the case Bredwell v. Illinois. The case dealt with Myra Bredwell, who wanted to practice law in Illinois. The Illinois Supreme Court refused to admit her to the bar because she was a woman.
Myra Bredwell appealed to the Us Supreme Court. She argued that the refusal to grant her a license violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Us Supreme Court rejected her argument. It explained its decision that the Privileges and Immunities Clause involved US citizenship and not state citizenship.
As Bradley, one of the justices, said the "paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. " But some historical events have played a decisive role in Supreme Courts treatments. In the late 19 th century, mass emigration from Europe to the industrialized cities of the US made emigrant women seek work in factories. The Supreme Court had to protect women in the workplace.
In the case Muller v. Oregon the Court adopted a law that prohibited the employment of women for more then ten hours a day. The decision emphasized the difference between women and men. The Court agreed that "woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence. " The idea that women were the weaker sex and needed special treatment constituted discrimination based on gender.
World War II changed the social status of women. A great number of them entered the industrial workplace instead of men who joint the army. They performed jobs that were considered to be beyond their physical and mental ability. By the 1970 s, women began to compete with man for managerial and professional positions. The Supreme Court has declined a number of sex based cases under intermediate scrutiny test.
In the 1980 s female employees in certain industries complained that the employers refused to give them certain jobs. They explained women that the jobs could affect their health and their ability to reproduce. The Supreme Court found that the exclusion of the women violated title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court stated that such policy singled out women on this basis of gender and child bearing.
From these examples we can see that the Supreme Courts treatments of discrimination based on gender are constantly changing in all spheres of life. The changes in the Courts treatment of discrimination based on race are being taken as well. As we have said, the first decisions of the Supreme Court ruled segregation in America, for example, the case Plessey v. Ferguson in 1896. Homer Plessey refused to move from a seat for whites, so, he was arrested. The case was moved up to the Supreme Court which stated that if racially separate facilities were equal they did not contradict the Constitution.
Thus the Court constitute discrimination on race; and only in 1954 the US Supreme Courts decision in Brown v. Board of Education marked an important point in the history of racial divisions in the United States. It made equal opportunity in education abolished sanctions for segregation by race. Having examined both types of discrimination, one can come to conclusion that they have a lot of common as well as different. Both cases such as discrimination based on race as well as discrimination based on gender are being studied taking into account The Fourteenth Amendment about the equal rights for all citizens. But there are different standards while speaking about these discriminations.
Race discrimination has more well-defined features. People can be treated differently because of their color of skin, ethnic traditions and customs, their way of behavior; while borders of gender discrimination are vague. The standards of this type of discrimination are based more on moral factors that directly depend on humans personal perception of the surrounding. The programs of racial affirmative action have been upheld as a remedy for past injustice. Racial affirmative action began forty years ago. In 1964 - 1965, President Johnson came to the thought that it was not enough to remove legal barriers confronting minorities.
It was needed to take affirmative action to help them overcome decades of prior discrimination. So, on September 24, 1965, he issued an executive order to take affirmative action to recruit, higher and promote more racial minorities. Two years later Johnson added women to the groups covered by previous anti discrimination. The efforts of it were to make sure that people were not being treated because of their race. The programs conferred special treatment based on race, especially, in higher education and employment.
The groups now regularly designated for favorable treatment are Black, Latinos and Native Americans. The programs have been praised for increasing minority access to business and professional careers and blamed for debasing standards in the process. The general question before the Supreme Court was whether such a policy is constitutional. The framework for answering the question had been indicated in decisions: since the policy requires the classification of people based on race or ethnicity by a state agency, it may be a violation of the Constitutions Equal Protection Clause. Nowadays, the affirmative action is being debating as a part of the process of democracy. Proponents of affirmative action argue that because of prior discrimination in education unemployment women and minorities are handicapped when they seek decent jobs, look for promotions or apply to good schools.
They believe that colleges and employees ought to give some sort of preferred treatment to minorities and women, either by seeking minority applicants or by setting up a quarter of jobs or school spaces reserved for them. Opponents said that nowadays whites are in an unfavorable situation. For example, if the white male has lost his chance to enter a college or a job he will be penalized unfairly. They say that individual minority has more advantages today than whites. Bibliography: "Sex Discrimination. " West's Encyclopedia of American Law. The Gale Group, Inc, 1998.
Answers. com 27 Mar. 2006. web Race-based affirmative action vs racial nondiscrimination: the moral dilemma. Curtis Crawford, Mar. 2004.
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Research essay sample on Supreme Court Treatment Of Discrimination
