Constitutional Basis of Equal Rights
In 1896, the United States Supreme Court determined that the "separate but equal" doctrine was constitutional in the case Plessy v. Ferguson. Although the Fourteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and intended to end racial segregation, the Southern States initiated Jim Crow Laws, which segregated people of color in public schools, public transportation, restaurants, etc. The ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson meant that as long as facilities for both colored and white individuals was equal, it was constitutional. In 1954, the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. The Supreme Court determined that the establishment of separate schools for whites and blacks inherently unequal, and as a result unconstitutional. This ruling put an end to segregation on the basis of equal rights of protection.
These court cases however had no bearing on women's suffrage or equality. The Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution legislates that neither the individual states of the United States nor its federal government may deny a citizen the right to vote because of the citizen's sex.
Read more about this topic: Right To Equal Protection
Famous quotes containing the words equal rights, basis, equal and/or rights:
“Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of equal rights of men ... ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser; and all better, and happier together.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“They are our brothers, these freedom fighters.... They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“But you must know the class of sweet women—who are always so happy to declare “they have all the rights they want”; “they are perfectly willing to let their husbands vote for them”Mare and always have been numerous, though it is an occasion for thankfulness that they are becoming less so.”
—Eliza “Mother” Stewart (1816–1908)