Tagged: Equal Protection Clause

“Strauder v. West Virginia, [100 U.S. 303 (1880)] described the ‘common purpose’ of the Equal Protection Clause as ‘securing to a race recently emancipated, a race that through many generations had been held in slavery, all the civil rights that the superior race enjoy[s].’ A ‘necessary implication’ of the equal protection guarantee is ‘a positive immunity, or right, most valuable to the colored race’; that immunity included a ‘right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored’ and ‘from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy, and discriminations which are steps towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race.’ Describing African Americans as ‘abject and ignorant’ members of the ‘colored race’ who were ‘unfitted to command the respect of those who had superior intelligence,’ the Court opined that the Fourteenth Amendment ‘was designed to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons, and to give to that race the protection of the general government, in that enjoyment, whenever it should be denied by the States.'”

Source: Ronald Turner. “The Way To Stop Discrimination On the Basis of Race…” Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties. pg. 51. January 2015 (citing Straduer v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 306-308 (1880); see also id. (“[I]t required little knowledge of human nature to anticipate that those who had long been regarded as an inferior and subject race would, when suddenly raised to the rank of citizenship, be looked upon with jealousy and positive dislike, and that State laws might be enacted or enforced to perpetuate the distinctions that had before existed.”)).

“[Chief Justice John] Roberts’s ‘colorblindness’ bears only a superficial resemblance to the concept as understood by past champions of equal rights, since as applied by the conservative majority on the court the approach has had dire consequences for racial minorities. Since Roberts became chief justice, the high court has struck down school desegregation plans, narrowed affirmative action, crippled the Voting Rights Act, limited the circumstances under which Americans can sue for racial discrimination, and enabled the denial of health insurance to millions of financially struggling people of color. Though the opportunity has not yet presented itself, the conservative movement from which Roberts sprung would see the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 destroyed as well.”

With regards to civil rights related cases, especially those involving the rights of African Americans, it is clear that our judicial system is completely rigged and set up in a way that would ensure that many of the gains made during the civil rights movement, would be eviscerated over time while racism continues to thrive. Smdh.

Source: Adam Serwer. “Sonia Sotomayor: Court’s Right Wing ‘Out Of Touch With Reality.’” msnbc. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sonia-sotomayor-slams-supreme-court-right-wing-race-matters.

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter.” — Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Justice Sotomayor stated this in her dissent to the case Bill Schuette v. Coalition To Defend Affirmative Action. Of course, the majority conservative and Republican appoinetd Justices concluded that it was constitutional for the state of Michigan to ban affirmative action in college admissions. It pisses me off that over the last 38 years, it is mostly the Justice of color who has been willing to acknowledge the realities of racism in the 21st century and write a judicial opinion with statements like this. But what good is it if her views on race will always be part of the minority?

Source: Adam Serwer. “Sonia Sotomayor: Court’s Right Wing ‘Out Of Touch With Reality.'” msnbc. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sonia-sotomayor-slams-supreme-court-right-wing-race-matters.