The Long Civil Rights Act and Criminal Justice (original) (raw)
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Toward a Jurisprudence of the Civil Rights Acts
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Toward a Jurisprudence of the Civil Rights Acts Robin L. West What is the nature of the "rights," jurisprudentially, that the 1964 Civil Rights Act 1 legally prescribed? And, more generally, what is a "civil right"? Today, lawyers tend to think of civil rights and particularly those that originated in the 1964 Act, as antidiscrimination rights: our "civil rights," on this understanding, are our rights not to be discriminated against, by employers, schools, landlords, property vendors, hoteliers, restaurant owners, and providers of public transportation, no less than by states and state actors, on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality or disability. Contemporary civil rights scholarship overwhelmingly reflects the same conception: our civil rights are quasiconstitutional rights to be free of discrimination in the private as well as public world. 2 But this conventional lawyerly understanding-basically, that "civil rights" are "antidiscrimination rights"-is clearly inadequate, certainly with respect to civil rights generally but also, and more tellingly, even with respect to the rights created and then protected by the '64 Act itself. First, on the general point: some of the "civil rights" sought or held across our history have not been antidiscrimination rights of any sort at all-labor rights, welfare rights, free speech rights, and the constitutional rights of criminal defendants have all, at various times, been championed as "civil rights," and these rights are neither logically nor jurisprudentially tied to any conception of antidiscrimination. 3 But furthermore, even the "civil rights" which are defined and then protected against discrimination by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as by various Civil Rights Acts both before and subsequent to it, are not, in circular fashion,
The 1964 Civil Rights Act: Narrating the Past, Authorizing the Future
Studies in American Political Development, 2004
Civil rights legislation of the sixties and seventies sought to end racial discrimination in the United States; doing so required that the federal government establish an official ethnoracial taxonomy in order to specify who was and was not covered by the various statutes. Specifically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, and the Home Mortgage Act of 1975 required federal agencies to identify particular groups to be monitored for evidence of discrimination. Since these statutes were enacted, scholars and activists have argued over their political effects. In fact, the questions raised are legion: Who has benefitted from civil rights protections? Has discrimination diminished or simply morphed into new forms? Who counts as a minority and on what grounds? How has the massive immigration of the last four decades intersected civil rights reform? Should foreign nationals qualify for civil rig...
We shall overcome - again: The US Civil Rights Movement Revived
Political consciousness is in the process of a major revival in the US, ever since the outbreak of riots in Ferguson in August 2014. This article traces the rising arc of resistance and uses the literature of civil rights activists from the 1960s to make a comparison with the situation in 2015. It concludes that there are many parallels within this phenomenon and employs some of the arguments employed by sociologists of deviance in that era to make the case for re-politicising Criminology and appreciating deviance. Key words: Civil rights Ferguson Black lives matter Policing Institutional Racism David Matza
US: the revocation of civil rights
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In the United States today we are witnessing a reversal of many of the legal and political reforms stimulated by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This repeal of what may be termed the Second Reconstruction is proceeding in much the same manner as the reversal, a hundred years ago, of the First Reconstruction reforms that followed the American Civil War. In both cases, the executive and judicial branches of the federal government worked together in an increasingly racist, popular and intellectual culture to turn the clock back. In the last decades of the nineteenth and the twentieth
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POWER, PRIVILEGE AND LAW: A CIVIL RIGHTS READER 1-2 (1995) (citing Alice Walker's discussion of her poem Silver Writes" and its relationship to the civil rights movement in In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens 335 (1983)). Walker notes that the term "civil rights" does not capture the vibrancy of the movement she joined. 3 The goals of the Project, according to the brochure are to: [I]nvestigate the role of state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies and courts in protecting civil rights activities and activists during the mid-century movement. The Project examines the geo-politics that led to the large-scale breakdown of law enforcement, the wide-0scale repression of movement activists, and the reforms that have been designed to rectify the abuses. CRRJ initiates and assesses policy measures designed to redress the workings caused by government repression. The Project assesses legislative approaches and marshals support for state and federal laws addressing the personal harms suffered by activists in the civil rights movement. Program Brochure on file with author. 4 See SINGH supra note 1, at 1-14 (describing the typical account of the civil rights era as a "King-centric" account and a "short civil rights era" and suggesting that it misrepresents modern US history, portrays the South as an exception to national racial norms, fails to recognize the depth and heterogeneity of black struggles, narrows "the political scope of black agency" while reinforcing a "formal legalistic view of black equality." Also noting that this history obscures a violent history of black opposition to white supremacy well underway in urban areas before the southern civil rights movement, particularly in the north in reaction to de facto racial hierarchies of state and private agencies in housing, labor markets, policing and criminal justice practices."
Civil Rights Violations in the Criminal Justice System
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Civil rights violations within the criminal justice system present a significant challenge to the principles of fairness and justice. These violations, including wrongful arrests, prosecutorial misconduct, and disparities in sentencing, often extend beyond racial discrimination to impact individuals across economic and social boundaries. This case study explores the systemic nature of civil rights violations, highlighting how due process and constitutional protections are frequently overlooked. It examines landmark cases, such as Brown v. Plata and Roper v. Simmons, to illustrate the broader implications of these injustices. Additionally, this paper provides actionable steps for individuals to take when their rights are violated, including documenting incidents, seeking legal counsel, filing formal complaints, and pursuing civil rights lawsuits. By addressing these violations and advocating for systemic reforms, this study underscores the need for a justice system that upholds the fundamental rights and dignity of all individuals.