1856, Dred Scott v. Sanford: Slave Dred Scott sued for his freedom after his owner's death. SC ruled in favor of Sanford, denying citizenship and basic rights to all blacks.
1883, Civil Rights Cases: A combination of five different cases, all of them suing owners for violating the Civil Rights Act of 1875 by denying blacks access to public accommodations. SC struck down the Civil Rights Act, claiming that individuals had the right to discriminate against blacks.
1896, Plessy v. Ferguson: Plessy argued that the idea of "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. SC declared this idea constitutional, thereby allowing segregation to continue until 1954.
1905 Lochner v. New York: A case that involved a New York law limiting the number of hours a baker could work. SC ruled that the law overstepped the limits of state power, bolstering the "freedom of contract" idea in the 14th Amendment.
*This ruling also marked the beginning of series of SC rulings that struck down state and federal attempts to regulate working conditions.
1923 Adkins v. Children's Hospital: Congress passed a minimum wage law for women and children in D.C. SC held that the law was unconstitutional because it denied women the right to contract as guaranteed in the 14th Amendment.
1937 West Coast Hotel v. Parrish: The SC ruling in this case overruled the Adkins, decision establishing that setting minimum wages for women was constitutional. The decision also marked the end of the Lochner era, a period of time in which the SC invalidated cases aimed at regulating businesses. [worksheet answer for #14!]
1954 Brown v. Board of Education: Four African American children filed a class action suit arguing that segregation in schools violated the 14th Amendment. In a landmark ruling, the SC ruled that segregation was indeed unconstitutional, overturning the Plessy v. Ferguson decision some 60 years ago.
1969 Tinker v. Des Moines: Two high school students sued for their First Amendment rights to wear black armbands to school as a way of protesting against the Vietnam War. SC ruled that the students had the right to wear armbands because they were exercising their freedom of expression and did not disturb the school educational environment.
Feel free to add summaries of additional SC court cases that I overlooked. :)
These are great things to know! Also, I want to add the court cases of Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. These cases were in 1950 and they basically struck down segregation in Graduate schools and law schools. This was another time that the Supreme Court looked back on the Plessy decision, but did not overrule it entirely. Some other important cases are at this website - http://www.civilrights.org/judiciary/supreme-court/key-cases.html
ReplyDeleteYou have a nice list going Katherine; but if I were to add some more I would put Korematsu v. US on the list as well. It was reactionary to the martial law being placed for citizens with Japanese descent, under supervision by military personnel. The issue of this case was brought up by the risk Fred Korematsu took in living out of the Japanese "camps," he decided to disobey the order to relocate into the camps and instead continued to live in San Leornado. Anyway I hope this list gets more additions, because I would be a very good example sheet for people writing about Civil Rights.
ReplyDeleteBarron v. Baltimore (1833) is also an important case. John Barron sued the city of Baltimore for depriving him of private property without compensation—a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. The SC (led by Chief Justice John Marshall) held that Barron had no basis for a lawsuit against the state because the Constitution's Bill of Rights applies only to the federal government, not the state governments. This ruling prevailed until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which subjects states to due process of law and applies most of the Bill of Rights amendments to the states.
ReplyDeleteGreat list. I'd like to add the Scottsboro Boys Case. It's not as well known, but 9 African-American boys from Scottsboro, Alabama, were charged of raping 2 white women in 1931. They were found guilty and either got death sentences or life sentences in prison. However at the SC one of the women withdrew her previous testimony. Five were eventually let off, and others were put on parole. In 2013, three were finally pardoned posthumously. The main controversy of this case was that there was practically no evidence against the boys, just pure racism.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great list! I also want to add the case Loving vs. Virginia. This case was brought before the court 1967. It became a case when Richard and Mildred Loving were each sentenced to a year in jail for having an interracial marriage. At the time this was legal because it violated Virginia's anti-miscegenation law. Virginia was only one of 16 states to have a law against interracial marriage. However once the Supreme court received the case they struck down the law as unconstitutional. This reversed anti interracial marriage laws in all states.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the case New York Times Co. vs. United States in 1971, where a publishing company (The New York Times) was ordered by the US Government through district courts to not publish Vietnam war government documents. The US Government argued that publishing these papers would risk national security, an issue that still exists today (see Snowden). Interestingly enough, the SC ruled in favor of The New York Times but in its dissent, questioned the "wisdom of publishing highly confidential intelligence." It seems that the First Amendment really is inviolable.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting list as several cases contradict each other (I am thinking of Brown v. Board and Plessy v. Ferguson). The way that the state of society shines through these cases is amazing. The idea that the same judicial body that agreed that people should be separated by race was overturned its own decision only 60 years later gives me hope in our governmental process.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great list :D And it was great reviewing all of these past cases, too. I think it's really interesting how some cases overruled the older cases. Did ideas of what was considered constitutional and unconstitutional change? Did people's ideas about segregation change? If so, what brought about these changes? Or maybe the people suing in these cases just brought up really good points? I think having lists like these are really helpful in seeing how people's attitudes and ideas changed over time.
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