Civil Rights for Women

What were key groups advocating for women’s rights?

What amendment was passed giving women suffrage?

How did women work for other equal standards? What movements exist today?

1840-1880

• Women work with abolitionist groups, despite not being able to participate– Could not speak in public– Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison

advocate– 1850 Uncle Tom’s Cabin seminal book of

abolitionism, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe• 1848: Seneca Falls Convention, NY

– Led by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony

– Meeting passed all resolutions unanimously except suffrage—the right to vote

– 1851: “Ain’t I A Woman” speech by Sojourner Truth recognizing black women’s rights

1890-1920• National and American Women Suffrage Association

(NAWSA) formed 1890– Led by Susan B. Anthony– expand rights, but mostly suffrage (temperance, wages,

education…)—Progressive roots– “radical” National Women’s Party forms

• National Consumers’ League (NCL)– Advocates for women’s pay/safety/hours (Oregon)– Muller v Oregon (1908): women as mothers had the right to

different legal treatment (fewer work hours)• Suffrage movement has racist undertone (15th

amendment)• Nineteenth Amendment (1920): guarantees all women

the right to vote– Once passed, women stayed within smaller, less radical groups

until 1960s

1940-1970• Women go back to work during WWII; forced to quit

once war is over and return home– “Domestic goddesses”

• During 1960s civil rights movement, even women were treated as second-class (SNCC); fight for equal rights begins– Equal Pay Act 1963 (still 77/100)– National Organization of Women formed 1966 – Feminine Mystique published ’63 advocates feminism– American Women report documents sexism in America;

Commission on Status of Women• Litigation begins for women’s place in public arenas:

“women’s liberation” movement– Hoyt v. Florida (1961): women are part of family life, and so do

not have same rights as men (reversed 1975)– Roe v. Wade (1973)– Push for Equal Rights Amendment

1971-Present

• Title IX (1972) bars gender discrimination in education• Equal Rights Amendment fails ratification 1982

– Revived effort for ERA, called Women’s Equality Amendment, 2007

• Problem with equal protection clause of 14th amendment (rational basis)– Suspect classification—category that triggers strict scrutiny– Strict scrutiny—standard of review to test constitutional validity

of what’s challenged• Korematsu v. US (1944)• Craig v. Brown (1976)—est. intermediate standard of review (sex

discrimination)

What’s the difference?• suspect classification is any classification of groups meeting a series of

criteria suggesting they are likely the subject of discrimination. – These classes receive closer scrutiny by courts when an Equal Protection claim

alleging unconstitutional discrimination is asserted against a law, regulation, or other government action.

• The Supreme Court has recognized race, national origin, religion and alienage as suspect classes; it therefore analyzes any government action that discriminates against these classes under strict scrutiny.

– almost always unconstitutional, unless it is a compelling, narrowly tailored and temporary piece of legislation dealing with national security, defense, or affirmative action. Korematsu v. United States and Grutter v. Bollinger, upholding affirmative action based upon racial diversity, are the only cases in which a racially discriminatory law has been upheld under the strict scrutiny test.

• When intermediate scrutiny is involved, the courts are more likely to uphold the discriminatory law, particularly if it is based on real, fact-based, biological differences between the sexes, as opposed to gender-based stereotypes.