Women and Equal Rights

1
Women and Equal Rights

• Women had to argue against the tradition that
  claimed to protect them.

2
Interpreting any person

• Early on the Court looked at this phrase
  traditionally, allowing for a protective type of
  paternalism.
• By the 1970s though, the Court had changed its
  mind. It used two standards
• Reasonableness different treatment must be
  reasonable, not arbitrary
• Strict scrutiny The Court will look at
  differences with scrutiny to see if they are
  clearly necessary to attain a legitimate state
  goal.

3
Illegal Discrimination

• Look at and discuss the different laws on page
  538 in your textbook. Compare it to the decisions
  allowing differences based on sex on page 539.

4
Sexual Harassment

• Two Forms
• Illegal to request sexual favors as a condition
  of employment or promotion. This quid pro quo
  rule holds the employer strictly liable. This
  means the employer can be held at fault even if
  he/she did not know that a subordinate was
  requesting sex in exchange for hiring or
  promotion.
• Illegal for an employee to experience a hostile
  work environment. Employers cannot be strictly
  liable for this type of harassment, but they can
  be found negligent.

5
Abortion

• Until 1973 it was up to the states to decide
  whether or under what conditions a woman could
  obtain an abortion.
• In 1973, in a 7-2 vote, Roe v. Wade made abortion
  an issue of privacy in the first trimester.
• Courts deciding when life begins?

6
Title IX

• "No person in the United States shall, on the
  basis of gender, be excluded from participation
  in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to
  discrimination under any education program or
  activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
• Three prong test
• Prong one - Providing athletic opportunities that
  are substantially proportionate to the student
  enrollment, OR
• Prong two - Demonstrate a continual expansion of
  athletic opportunities for the underrepresented
  gender, OR
• Prong three - Full and effective accommodation of
  the interest and ability of underrepresented
  gender.
• School must show compliance to one of the three.

7
Other Womens Rights Items

• The 19th Amendment in 1920 gave women the right
  to vote.
• The 1960s saw Congress and/or states pass laws
  that made it illegal to pay women less than men
  for equal work, bars discrimination in employment
  based on sex, and creates no fault divorces
  (state law, not Congress).
• The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is passed by
  Congress and sent to the states for ratification
  in 1972. Originally drafted by Alice Paul in
  1923, the amendment reads "Equality of rights
  under the law shall not be denied or abridged by
  the United States or by any State on account of
  sex." It failed to get the necessary states to
  ratify it.

8
Affirmative Action

• Equality of Results The burden of years of
  cultural racism and sexism can only be overcome
  by designing some remedies. Analogy we all want
  to end at the same finish line, but we may have
  to start at different starting lines. Affirmative
  action (preferential hiring treatments) is a form
  of equality of results.
• Equality of Opportunity This type notes that
  while discrimination is wrong, it is also equally
  wrong to give preferential treatment because it
  leads to reverse discrimination.
• Bakke v. California (1978) Explicit number
  quotas could not be used for medical school
  admissions. It is not black and white though,
  other quotas have been upheld. The Court uses
  strict scrutiny to judge.

9
Other minority groups

• Aliens (legal/not legal) Illegal aliens here
  after 1982 are subject to deportation.
• See rights on page 544
• The Rights of the Disabled The Americans with
  Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in
  1990.
• See rights on page 545
• Gays and lesbians Extremely unclear results in
  the Courts.