The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the Civil Rights Movement

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 09.02.05

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Rationale
  2. Tapas Course 1 - We the People...which people?
  3. Tapas Course 2: Bob Bartlett
  4. Tapas Course 3 - President of the Whole World and all of its beautiful people.
  5. Tapas Course 4 - Polling, Statistics, Data, do all these numbers really mean anything?
  6. Tapas Course 5 - Votum
  7. Tapas Course 6 - Please More Members of Congress who look like me!
  8. Tapas Course 7 - Fight for the right to Party!
  9. Tapas Course 8 - Does the Supreme come with everything?
  10. Tapas Course 9 - Everyone's right to equal education
  11. Lesson Plan Outlines
  12. Bibliography

Analysis of the Obama Election: Will It Bring Rights and Representation for Minorities?

Adam J. Kubey

Published September 2009

Tools for this Unit:

Tapas Course 8 - Does the Supreme come with everything?

President Barack Obama just had his first Supreme Court nominee confirmed. Justice Sonia Sotomayor represents many victories as she takes her seat on the bench. She is a woman, only the third to hold the position of justice in the court's 220 year history. Aside from being a women, she is the first person of Latin decent to be put on the court. Many feel this appointment would not have happened under any other president. A minority president sees the impact a non-majority point of view can have on shaping this country, and felt that it should be heard in the highest court in the land.

Sotomayor's ascension to the Supreme Court was not an easy one. Her childhood was spent as a Puerto Rican girl living in a housing project in New York's Bronx neighborhood. Both she and her family desired better for her driving her to finish high school with honors, later graduating from Princeton University and Yale Law School. She would practice what she learned in law school in all levels of the New York court systems. To be nominated and confirmed as one of nine justices serving our country, is an accomplishment for anyone, but somehow all the more impactful to a self made Latina.

However Sotomayor's confirmation hearings were full of questions in particular her stance on a New Haven court case and its implication on race and the law. The case, deemed the New Haven Firefighter Case, showed Sotomayor's opinion to uphold the lower courts decision giving the city of New Haven the right to throw out a written test for consideration for promotion, thought controversial by many judicial committee senators. The media and many people against Sotomayor's confirmation pointed out that her position was based on her belief that the race and gender of a justice molds their interpretation of the Constitution and the law. Sotomayor did not deny that each justice's legal and personal experiences shape how they interpret the constitution and the cases tried in front of them. Her critics cited the New Haven Firefighter case as a prime example of when this theory of experienced bias determined her decisions.

Race, gender, and sexuality are all issues that the court is asked to decide on. Justices Scalia and Thomas have stated that they believe in strict interpretation of the Constitution (60 Mins). However other justices believe it is a living document that should reflect society's changes. The role the court deciding how laws and society react to issues of race, gender, and sexuality is left to nine individuals. Whether Justice Sotomayor's personal background will lead to reform that is more progressive then current society remains to be seen. Through the discussions in the seminar "Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the Civil Rights Movement" the Supreme Court's decisions have led to moments of social change. Brown v. Board of Education provides one such example. The Brown case, in 1954, led to the rise of the modern civil rights movement. Many saw the case as the government saying society was ready for "separate but equal" to be abolished. Whether the court system should be an agent of societal change or a mirror of society's wishes is debatable, but the question of judicial activism or restraint of a justice based on her minority point of view will be seen under Justice Sotomayor.

The judicial branch is not the only branch of government bringing up questions of race, gender, and sexuality in today's society. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton is currently challenging traditional gender roles with her continued success in a predominantly male role. Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. a lauded and venerable professor at Harvard University became of victim of racial profiling in his own home. How social issues and minority rights are handled has become front-page news, and in turn conversation.

Strategies:

From the seminar "Rise, Fall and Rise again of the Civil Rights Movement," I will assign the readings from the New Haven Firefighter Case. Reading, analyzing and discussing the facts of the case and the opinions of the Supreme Court written by Justices Alito and Ginsburg, students will form an open understanding of the case, and the evidence presented. We will do a mock trial, with two groups presenting the evidence of the case as if they were hoping to sway the court, to be played by nine students. The two presenting groups, one representing the plaintiff and one the defendant, will present opening arguments. These arguments will be written to point out the evidence that could sway the justices to their side. After opening statements, students will debate the case in an open forum with cross-examination questioning. The justices will then be allowed to ask questions, which will be answered by both sides. The final step will be rebuttals and final statements. The justices will cast a silent vote to decide their personal victor. Justices must defend their decision after the decision of the court is revealed. Each student will have to write a summary of the relevance of this court case on race in America. They must incorporate content from the discussions the class had about Sotomayor's biography, Race and Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Brown v. Board of Education. Students will form an opinion of the role race plays in the constitution and the judicial system.

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