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Civil Rights and Affirmative Action
Supreme Court Limits Civil Rights Lawsuits Against States
In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court on April 24 ruled that state action may not be challenged based on their "disparate impact" on minorities. The ruling came in a case brought against the state of Alabama because it only offers drivers license exams in English, a policy that disparately impacts non-English-speaking minorities.
Civil rights attorneys argued that clear proof of discrimination is often difficult to find, even when the results of that discrimination are evident. They argued that Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination by federally funded state agencies, provides the basis for disparate impact lawsuits against such agencies, including the administrators of Alabama's state drivers license exams. The majority ruled against that position. (4/24/01)
Census Bureau Declines to Adjust Official Count
Career officials at the Census Bureau on March 1 decided against adjusting the official 2000 head count based on a concurrent survey indicating that it had missed roughly 3 million people, a disproportionate number of whom were minorities.
The decision was made by a panel of a dozen census officials, who concluded that the survey's results were unreliable. The official count indicated that there were 281 million people in the United States in 2000. The accompanying survey indicated that there were 284 million, and that the official count had missed 2.17 percent of African Americans, 2.85 percent of Hispanics, and between 3-5 percent of native Americans, compared to just 0.67 percent of whites.
The census figures are used to apportion congressional seats among states and to draw legislative boundaries within them. Democrats often argue that the official count misses minorities, who are under represented as a result. The census figures are also factored into formulas distributing federal funds to states for a variety of social programs. The Census Bureau panel left open the possibility of adjusting the official figures for that purpose. (3/1/01)
Directories
- LookSmart: Race
- Yahoo: Affirmative Action
- Yahoo: Civil Rights
- Affirmative Action Texts and Links (US Department of State)
News
- Atlantic Monthly: Race Articles
- Full Coverage: Affirmative Action Debate (Yahoo)
- Full Coverage: African American News (Yahoo)
- Full Coverage: Hate Crime News (Yahoo)
- Full Coverage: Racial Profiling News (Yahoo)
- Washington Post: Special Report on the Melting Pot
Government
- U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
- U.S. Department for Education: Office of Civil Rights
- United States Department of Justice: Civil Rights Division
Organizations
- Americans United for Affirmative Action
- Civil Rights.org: Affirmative Action
- Feminist Majority Foundation: Affirmative Action
- Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
- NAACP
- National Council of La Raza
Articles
- Civil Rights in the United States (US State Department)
- The Conservative Line on Race (Atlantic Monthly: November, 1997)
- Whatever Happened to Integration? (Atlantic Monthly: February, 1997)
- Why Does Race Remain an Important Public Policy Issue? (NewsBatch.com)
- Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: May 24, 2002)
- Hate Crime, A Summary (National Criminal Justice Reference Service: Added August 6, 2003)
- Civil Rights and Native Americans (US Department of Justice: undated)
- Administration for Native Americans Programs (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: February, 2000)
Affirmative Action
- Affirmative Action-History (Clinton White House: July 19, 1995)
- Affirmative Action-Empirical Research (Clinton White House: July 19, 1995)
- Affirmative Action-Justification (Clinton White House: July 19, 1995)