Equal Protection and Race: Plessy v' Ferguson

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Equal Protection and Race Plessy v. Ferguson

• Professor Garcia
• www.cwsl.edu/rgarcia
• Office Hrs 2-3 MWF Seqouyah 121
• Rjgarcia_at_ucsd.edu

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Today

• Review Constitutional Moments
• Review Dworkin, Constitutional Drama
• Briefing Cases
• Background on Plessy
• Text of the Thirteenth Amendment
• Text of the Fourteenth Amendment
• The Plessy Decision
• Rationale of the Majority Decision
• Harlans Dissent
• Impact of Plessy

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Constitutional Moments

• Marbury v. Madison (1803)
• Dred Scott (1857)
• Liberty of Contract (1895-1937) e.g. Lochner
  v N.Y., Muller v Oregon.
• The Death and Rebirth of the First Amendment
• Court Packing and the Switch that Saved the Nine
• The New Deal and the Reaffirmation of
  Congressional Power (1937-?)
• Law in Wartime e.g., Koremastu, Boumedienne
• Bush v. Gore (2000) and the Politics of Law

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Ronald Dworkin The Constitutional Drama, Reader
p. 47

• Judicial Integrity is
• Judicial decisions as a matter of principle
• Coherence in principles
• Fundamental principles must be based on Supreme
  Court precedent and the main structures of our
  constitutional arrangement
• A principle in one case must be applied equally
  in other cases

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Briefing Cases

• Think first about the Main Issue or Question
  thats being asked
• Then think about the Answer that the Court is
  Giving
• Then write down what the main facts that are
  important in the decision to answering that
  question
• Then look at the rationales that the court uses
• Identify the previous cases that the court
  discusses and how the court finds them
  applicable or inapplicable
• Identify any concurrences and why they agree with
  the result but not the reasoning
• Identify any dissenting opinions and the reasons
  therefor

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Background on Plessy

• Slavery The Strange Career of Jim Crow
• Segregation in Transportation
• Reconstruction, Civil Rights Act of 1866
• Segregation Statutes Political Coalitions
• Economic Dislocation of the 1880s-90s
• Law Segregating Streetcars in Louisiana
• Reason for the law To promote the comfort of
  passengers

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Text of the 13th Amendment (1865)

• Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary
  servitude, except as punishment for a crime . . .
  shall exist in the United States, or any place
  subject to their jurisdiction.
• Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce
  this article by appropriate legislation.

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Text of the 14th Amendment

• Section 1. . . No state shall make or enforce any
  law which shall abridge the privileges or
  immunities of citizens of the United States nor
  shall any State deprive any person of life,
  liberty, or property, without due process of law
  nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
  the equal protection of laws.
• . . .
• Section 5. Congress shall the power to enforce,
  by appropriate legislation, the provisions of
  this Article.

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The Plessy Decision

• Issue Does the segregation of railcars deny
  Blacks 13th or 14th Amendment rights?
• Holding No. The criminal statute was
  constitutional
• Important Facts for this conclusion Plessy, a
  citizen, was 7/8 white he did not aver his
  race or color in the petition. Maximum fine was
  25 dollars or 20 days in the parish prison. The
  train conductor decided that Plessy was not white.

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Rationale of the Majority Decision

• 13th Amendment Any inferiority that segregation
  implies is self-imposed by the colored race.
• Privileges and Immunities of citizens At issue
  is not a political right its a social right
• Due Process No denial of due process in
  determining whiteness, because no injury to
  Plessy
• Equal Protection The statute is not about
  inferiority-the railcars are supposed equal even
  though they are separate.