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Today, a lack of high-paying jobs in many urban areas, combined with persistent racism, has trapped many African Americans in poor neighborhoods. While the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 created opportunities for members of the black middle class to advance economically and socially, and to live in the same neighborhoods as the white middle class did, their departure left many black neighborhoods mired in poverty and without the strong community ties that existed during the era of legal segregation. Many of these neighborhoods also suffered from high rates of crime and violence.
Jacqueline Jones. 1992.
The Dispossessed: America’s Underclasses From the Civil War to the Present . New York: Basic Books, 274, 290–292. Police also appear, consciously or subconsciously, to engage in racial profiling: singling out blacks (and Latinos) for greater attention than members of other racial and ethnic groups, as FBI director James B. Comey has admitted.
James B. Comey. February 12, 2015. “Hard Truths: Law Enforcement and Race” (speech). https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/hard-truths-law-enforcement-and-race. When incidents of real or perceived injustice arise, as recently occurred after a series of deaths of young black men at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri; Staten Island, New York; and Baltimore, Maryland, many African Americans turn to the streets to protest because they believe that politicians—white and black alike—fail to pay sufficient attention to these problems.
The most serious concerns of the black community today appear to revolve around poverty resulting from the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. While the public mood may have shifted toward greater concern about economic inequality in the United States, substantial policy changes to immediately improve the economic standing of African Americans in general have not followed, that is, if government-based policies and solutions are the answer. The Obama administration recently proposed new rules under the Fair Housing Act that may, in time, lead to more integrated communities in the future.
Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Binyamin Appelbaum, “Obama Unveils Stricter Rules Against Segregation in Housing,”
New York Times , 8 July 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/us/hud-issuing-new-rules-to-fight-segregation.html?_r=0. Meanwhile, grassroots movements to improve neighborhoods and local schools have taken root in many black communities across America, and perhaps in those movements is the hope for greater future progress.
One of the major controversies regarding race in the United States today is related to affirmative action , the practice of ensuring that members of historically disadvantaged or underrepresented groups have equal access to opportunities in education, the workplace, and government contracting. The phrase affirmative action originated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246, and it has drawn controversy ever since. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in employment, and Executive Order 11246, issued in 1965, forbade employment discrimination not only within the federal government but by federal contractors and contractors and subcontractors who received government funds.
Clearly, African Americans, as well as other groups, have been subject to discrimination in the past and present, limiting their opportunity to compete on a level playing field with those who face no such challenge. Opponents of affirmative action, however, point out that many of its beneficiaries are ethnic minorities from relatively affluent backgrounds, while whites and Asian Americans who grew up in poverty are expected to succeed despite facing many of the same handicaps.
Because affirmative action attempts to redress discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity, it is generally subject to the strict scrutiny standard, which means the burden of proof is on the government to demonstrate the necessity of racial discrimination to achieve a compelling governmental interest. In 1978, in
Bakke v. California , the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action and said that colleges and universities could consider race when deciding whom to admit but could not establish racial quotas.
Bakke v. California , 438 U.S. 265 (1978). In 2003, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the Bakke decision in
Grutter v. Bollinger , which said that taking race or ethnicity into account as one of several factors in admitting a student to a college or university was acceptable, but a system setting aside seats for a specific quota of minority students was not.
Grutter v. Bollinger , 539 U.S. 306 (2003). All these issues are back under discussion in the Supreme Court with the re-arguing of
Fisher v. University of Texas .
Fisher v. University of Texas , 570 U.S. ___ (2013);
Fisher v. University of Texas , 579 U.S. ___ (2016). In
Fisher v. University of Texas (2013, known as
Fisher I ), University of Texas student Abigail Fisher brought suit to declare UT’s race-based admissions policy as inconsistent with
Grutter . The court did not see the UT policy that way and allowed it, so long as it remained narrowly tailored and not quota-based.
Fisher II (2016) was decided by a 4–3 majority. It allowed race-based admissions, but required that the utility of such an approach had to be re-established on a regular basis.
Should race be a factor in deciding who will be admitted to a particular college? Why or why not?
Following the Civil War and the freeing of all slaves by the Thirteenth Amendment, a Republican Congress hoped to protect the freedmen from vengeful southern whites by passing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, granting them citizenship and guaranteeing equal protection under the law and the right to vote (for black men). The end of Reconstruction, however, allowed white Southerners to regain control of the South’s political and legal system and institute openly discriminatory Jim Crow laws. While some early efforts to secure civil rights were successful, the greatest gains came after World War II. Through a combination of lawsuits, Congressional acts, and direct action (such as President Truman’s executive order to desegregate the U.S. military), African Americans regained their voting rights and were guaranteed protection against discrimination in employment. Schools and public accommodations were desegregated. While much has been achieved, the struggle for equal treatment continues.
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