The abolition of slavery after the Civil War became the foundation for Ida B. Wells’s life work as a teacher, journalist, anti-lynching activist, community organizer, and woman suffragist.
In 1850, Southerners succeeded in getting a new federal law passed to return fugitive slaves who had escaped to the North. The U.S. government enforced this law, but some Northern states passed laws to resist it. Sometimes, free blacks and sympathetic whites joined to rescue captured fugitive slaves.
This lesson provides a background on the history of immigration policy in the United States, that is the philosophical origins, legal debates, and legal history from the Founding of the nation to the late 1900s. Students will come to understand how American lawmakers viewed immigrants and the reasoning behind the evolving nature of immigration policy.
Did the North Carolina residents’ claim that the 1990 redistricting plan discriminated on the basis of race raise a valid constitutional issue under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause? North Carolina drew legislative districts to create a majority black district.
Here is a collection of lessons and resources on key individual women’s contributions to U.S. and world history, as well as movements that have aimed at equality for women. Key figures in world history include: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth I, Cleopatra and Joan of Arc. Notable women in U.S. history include activist and journalist Ida B. Wells, environmentalist Rachel Carson and Harriet Tubman. Other lessons focus on how women won the right to vote, whether women have achieved equality, women serving in Congress, and women in the military.
In its first constitutional challenge to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear a case brought by a Chinese immigrant, not an American citizen. Yick Wo believed city ordinances had been unfairly applied to him, so he challenged their constitutionality under the equal protection clause, and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Does the principle of “one person, one vote” permit states to use total population rather than total voter population when apportioning legislative districts? This case summary explores this question and the principle of one person, one vote, in this case about drawing district lines.
Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license same-sex marriages? Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a same-sex marriage that was lawfully licensed out-of-state? Street Law provides case summaries for the major Supreme Court cases dealing with these questions.
Does UT-Austin’s consideration of race in undergraduate admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? This case summary considers questions of affirmative action in university admissions.
Students will learn about the meaning and history of the Fourteenth Amendment through this timeline and collection of primary sources.
