The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Civil Rights

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Civil Rights issues have been very hot topics in the United States for years now. It always seems that one group thinks they have an unfair disadvantage. The Supreme Court has been involved in many cases regarding Civil Rights. Some rulings have sided with the Civil Rights movement and some have sided against the Civil Rights movement. Some of the groups involved are African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. Overall the Supreme Court has played a role in helping to advance the Civil Rights in the United States.
Dred Scott v. Sandford was a major Supreme Court case that was decided in 1857. This particular case sided against the Civil Rights movement. The case involved a free African American that was a former slave in Missouri. Between 1833 …show more content…

Ferguson was another case that ruled against the civil rights movement. The case was brought on because of a law in Louisiana that required there to be separate railway cars for blacks and whites (www.oyez.org/Plessy). In 1892 Homer Plessy took a seat in the white rail car. He refused to move and he was arrested. The court ruled that the law was constitutional. They ruled that as long as the facilities were equal that blacks and whites could be separated. This became known as the “separate but equal” case. The case was a major blow to the civil rights movement legally. What this case did do was that it made the public aware of what was going on. More people were angered about how blacks were treated as a result of this Supreme Court …show more content…

Bakke was another win for the Civil Rights movement, though this one wasn’t as big as Brown v. Board of Education. The case came about when a thirty-five-year-old man named Allan Bakke was denied entrance to the University of California twice (www.oyez.org/Regents). The University of California reserved sixteen places in each freshman class for qualified minorities, even if a white had better test scores or a higher g.p.a. The university said that they did that to get more minorities in the medical field, a field which at the time was dominated by whites. Allan Bakke claimed that the school 's admission policy violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the fourteenth amendment (www.pbs.org/Regents). The Supreme Court ruled that the university’s use of racial quotas was unconstitutional but the school 's use of affirmative action was constitutional (www.pbs.org/Regents). The court justified their ruling by saying that a college can use race as an admissions factor but they must use other factors as well. So basically being a minority does not mean that you are automatically admitted to a college but it can help thanks to affirmative action. Affirmative action is still used by universities today thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in this case. It helps struggling minority groups get a fair opportunity when it comes to an

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