Sierra’s blog

Monday, December 13, 2021

Final Blog

The First Amendment is an important reminder of the rights we enjoy and the rights we must protect. The First Amendment connects all Americans together, regardless of race or social status. The ability to practice a faith or not, speak freely, publish ideas, gather in support, or protest, and petition the government for change is far more important than most people realize. To protect these fundamental rights, we all need to understand them not just for ourselves or others. Those 45 words of the First Amendment is far more than guaranteed free expression is calls for people to speak and be heard and to listen to others.

The Eight Values of Free Expression contains a Marketplace of Ideas stemming from American democracy. The First Amendment guarantees us freedoms to speak on any truth, injustice, and promote a change. By exercising our First Amendment freedoms we can make sure that democracy is to its fullest potential for everyone.

The six freedoms: religion, of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Throughout the course of this class, we learned about events that shaped the world as we know it today and just showed us that the first amendment is vital to Americans.

The first amendment was seen as crucial tool for the Civil Rights Movement. Ministers preached, protestors marched, litigation from organizations, petitions, and press on racial discrimination paved the way for a greater sense of equality in America today.

Freedom of Speech:

- Bates v. Little Rock (1960)- reinforced the principle that freedom of association for the purpose of advocating ideas and airing grievances finds protection within the First Amendment’s free speech and assembly clauses.

- Brandenburg v Ohio (1969)- Supreme Court said that the first amendment protected speech advocating violence at the KKK rally because speech did not all for “imminent lawless action.”

- The ability for anyone to speak freely about the movement at the time is a n example of freedom of speech both good and bad. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B Du Bois are examples.

First Amendment paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The expressive actions of protesting and activism led to growth of the First Amendment that we know today. Harry Kalven Jr. was best known for his advocacy of and thoughtful writings about freedom of speech and free expression. Due to the civil rights movement expanding free expression principles of the First Amendment led scholars like Kalven to write in 1965, “we may come to see the Negro as winning back for us the freedoms the Communists seemed to have lost for us.” Kalven was confident the civil rights and liberties were making a positive strive forward.

Freedom of Association:

- NAACP v Alabama (1958)- ruled that Alabama could not force the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to disclose its membership list.

- NAACP v. Button (1963)- further established the right of an organization to litigate, signaling the birth of the public interest law firm. The Court ruled that NAACP had the right to refer individuals who wanted to sue in public school desegregation cases to lawyers and to pay their litigation expenses.

The NAACP’s actions were modes of expression and association protected by the First Amendment.

Freedom of Press:

- New York Times Co. v Sullivan (1964)- The Court said the right to publish all statements is protected under the First Amendment.

Freedom of Assembly and Petition:

- Garner v. Louisiana (1961)- overturned the disturbing-the-peace convictions of five African-Americans who had engaged in sit-ins at an all-white restaurant counter in Baton Rouge.

- Edwards v. South Carolina (1963)- the arrest of the 187 African Americans students for the breach of the peace for peacefully assembling at the South Carolina State Government was ruled as violating the students’ freedom of assembly and petition rights, noting that the students’ expressive actions “reflect an exercise of these basic constitutional rights in their most pristine and classic form.”

- Brown v. Louisiana (1966)- relied similarly on the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition to invalidate the convictions of several protesters who had engaged in a sit-in at a public library.

White Like Me Reflection Post

White Like Me is a 2013 film written by Tim Wise based on his 2007 book, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. The book and the documentary were about Wise's view on racism in America. Wise explains white privilege and the damage that it does not only to people of color but also to white people.

As a country making huge strides towards racial equality, it seems like America is becoming more hopeful and ahead of racism, but that is not true, according to Wise. Wise talks about his experiences growing up in New Orleans, seeing his privilege. He was getting better treatment from teachers in school things such as that. By watching the documentary, I think the takeaway is Wise wants people to think about how race and skin color can change the way you go through life. There are far too many new stories with the race being the headline, so I know that America must acknowledge race being at the forefront of everyone's mind.

Growing up, I have heard people say to me, "I don't see color." I take that as not accepting all the hardships African Americans and other minorities face. Rather "colorblindness" being seen as "post-racial harmony" and people thinking that race problems are mainly behind us is not a fair statement. Yes, we are far from slavery, the Civil War, and elected a black president; racial inequality still exists today. Those terrible events and life-changing times shaped America and its citizens' mindsets today. Racial biases still affect how we act today and judge people by what we see.

EOTO About Board of Regents of the University of California v Bakke

Background:

- A thirty-five-year-old white man, Allan Bakke, had twice applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. He was rejected both times. The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession as part of the university's affirmative action program. Bakke's qualifications (college GPA and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years Bakke's applications were rejected. Bakke contended, first in the California courts, then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely based on race.

Questions that needed to be answered about the case:

- Did the quota system of University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke's application for admission to its medical school?

Arguments of my classmates of the Regents side:

- Used Title 2, 4, 6, 7, and 9 Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Brown v. Board of Education decision to establish diversity.

- Quotas create a hospitable environment to historically underserved students constitutional because equal opportunities.

- Quotas guarantees diversity.

- Quotas are a compelling state interest that is agreed through Brown v. Board of Education, 14^thamendment, and Civil Rights Act of 1964 to end segregation.

- Quotas evens the playing field and helps blacks get better education

- Did the University of California violate 1964 civil rights at or 14th amendment? No

- This case should not be about whether Mr. Bakke got his feelings hurt but about oppression that African Americans face

- Morally quotas establish a fair fight in the education system, and we are all God’s children seen in Proverbs 16:16.

- Multiple elements in the application process- race was just a factor. Bakke needed more than just test scores. He received the same treatment and process that everyone else did, admitted or not.

Arguments of my classmates of Bakke’s side:

- Affirmative action looks at too much. Allowing an unfair to African Americans who are qualified.

- Quotas judge the color of the skin rather than qualifications

- “Meeting a quota” is setting students up to failure, they are not going to succeed if they aren’t academically not up to par, but Bakke will succeed.

- Lower yearly revenue, quota system schools will fail, students will not apply, failing the entire school system.

- Race over academics is not what school is about.

- Quotas give minorities too much of an advantage. Trying to make them equal to whites not greater.

- Race should not be considered a factor at all

- There has been a bad track record in reaction to black progress- riots and crimes.

White Flight and Segregation Academies

White Flight

· Def: The departure of whites from places (such as urban neighborhoods or schools) increasingly or predominantly populated by minorities

· White flight primarily took place in the postwar years, roughly from the 1940s through the 1970s.

o Great Migration: 6 million Black people from the South moved northward to flee persecution, leaving their rural homes behind for urban opportunities from 1916 to 1970.

· Many whites moved after desegregation to ensure that their children would not have to go to school with African Americans. And many whites felt that moving to all-white suburbs would help them to achieve higher social status among their peers who might look down on them for staying in the city.

· Catalysts:

o Legal exclusion

§ Blacks were barred from buying homes, even when they were able to afford it

§ Federal Housing Administration- instructing banks not to write mortgages in redlined neighborhoods, or areas with Black residents that were deemed undesirable. Also subsidized the construction of entire suburbs preventing developers from selling to Black homebuyers.

§ GI Bill- made it possible for millions of World War II veterans to purchase a home—but not Black veterans, because the Veterans Administration adhered to FHA policy on matters of housing.

o Roads

§ Interstate Highway System- made it possible for white people to begin leaving industrial cities for new housing in suburbs. Local governments used highway road constructions to deliberately divide and isolate black neighborhoods from goods and services.

o Blockbusting- a white person will sell their home to a black person into previously all white neighborhoods in order to spark rapid white flight and housing price decline. This was a profit driven motive for real estate agents.

o Urban decay- White flight contributed to the draining of cities' tax bases when middle-class people left. through majority-black neighborhoods eventually reduced the populations to the poorest proportion of people fina
ncially unable to leave their destroyed community. These communities were known as the “ghettos.”

o Systemic racism

§ Wealth inequality- only whites were really able to afford such a move to the suburb

o Government- aided white flight- withheld maintenance capital mortgages, making it difficult for the communities to either retain or attract middle-class residents.

o Desegregation of Schools- allowed parents to prevent their children from being enrolled in racially mixed schools

Segregation Academies:

· In the context of education, white flight refers to decreasing white enrollment in poor-performing, inner-city public schools.

· Private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools.

· They were founded between 1954, when the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional (Brown v. Board) and 1976, when the court rules similar y about private schools (Runyon v McCrary).

· As a result, segregation academies changed their admission policies, ceased operations, or merged with other private schools.

· Usually be identified by the word "Christian", "church", or “Country Day” in the school's name

· Many segregation academies claimed they were established to provide a "Christian education", simply a "guise" for the schools' actual objective of allowing parents to avoid enrolling their children in racially integrated public schools.

· Reasons people used:

· Whites: quality fueled their exodus

· Blacks: white parents refused to allow their children to be schooled alongside blacks

· While many of these schools still exist – most with low percentages of minority students even today – they may not legally discriminate against students or prospective students based on any considerations of religion, race or ethnicity that serve to exclude non-white students.

Sources:

· https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232833305_White_Flight_in_the_Context_of_Education_Evidence_from_South_Carolina

· https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/in-southern-towns-segregation-academies-are-still-going-strong/266207/

· https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/school-segregation-and-integration/

· https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a34319800/what-is-white-flight/

· https://www.datacenterresearch.org/pre-katrina/tertiary/white.html

· https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-neighbors-new-evidence-on-the-possibility-of-stable-racial-integration/

· https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/white-flight-2-36805862

· https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/blockbusting/

· https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0527/052708.html