Legal Foundations of Civil Rights and Pluralism in America

Bibliographic Data

ID9752019
AuthorsCharles M Lamb (0000-0001-6134-6409, State University of New York at Buffalo, corresponding author)
Year1981
Volume454
Issue1
Pages13-25
Publication date1981-03-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7162 • E-ISSN: 1552-3349
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/000271628145400103
OpenAlexW2126383900
LanguageEN
Citations received2

Central to the dynamics of American pluralism are legal protections provided for minorities. To a large degree these rights revolve around the concept of equal protection of the laws. Whether reflected in the Fourteenth Amendment or statutes, the principal question is, Under what conditions is it just or reasonable to afford different treatment to persons because of their race? Here this question is addressed in the context of the transformation of the concept of equal protec tion since Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Certainly the legal meta morphosis from the "separate but equal" doctrine to the cur rent status of minority rights is truly profound. Particularly important in recent years is the issue of affirmative action. After a brief survey of the legal transition from Plessy into the 1970s and of the various levels of scrutiny that the United States Supreme Court has given to equal protection prob lems, the progression of the equal protection principle is traced herein with emphasis placed on the three most recent affirmative action decisions announced by the Court: Univer sity of California Regents v. Bakke (1978), United Steel- workers of America v. Weber (1979), and Fullilove v. Klutz nick (1980)

Affirmative action · Civil rights · Doctrine · Equal Protection Clause · Pluralism (philosophy · Political science · Scrutiny · Separate but equal · Statute · Supreme court · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Taxation and Legal Issues

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