TOPICS IN TEXAS & AMERICAN POLITICS: CIVIL RIGHTS
POL 1213 Professor Richard Gambitta, Ph.D.
Offices: Downtown, Buena Vista Bldg., 4.356, Institute for Law & Public Affairs & MS 4.02.40
Phones: 458-2990 or 458-5608; Fax 458-2993
Classrooms: BB 3.04.06 & FS 2.506 Class time: MW 12:30-1:45
e-mail: Office Hours: (1604) M-W 10:30-11:30 & (DT) 2:30-3:15
Websites: http://colfa.utsa.edu/users/rgambitta/
Institute for Law and Public Affairs: www.utsa.edu/ilpa
WebCT: https://webct.utsa.edu/webct/ticket/ticketLogin?action=print_login&request_uri=/webct/homearea/homearea%3F
In class and hereon out, we shall refer to this course Topics in Texas and American Politics: Civil Rights simply as Civil Rights. The course gives special attention to the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. Students must read and become knowledgeable about this syllabus and the constitutions. Students must be conversant about matters appearing in red. Each student is responsible for the readings, videos, recordings, and discussions that are assigned or experienced in this class. The professor will hold each student responsible for these assignments, presentations, and discussions. Students are given an opportunity to learn the field of civil rights from many perspectives across numerous historical periods and substantive areas. The professor expects you to perform at a level of excellence. I suspect that “vice versa” is true, or should be true, as well. Anything less will indicate an inadequate use of both of our time.
In Civil Rights students conduct analytical, normative, and empirical inquiries into the status of civil rights in Texas and the United States. This course is designed to assist the student in thinking analytically, normatively, and empirically about political issues relating to or affecting civil rights in this land. Civil rights include the governmental guarantees against discrimination in its many modes, and guarantees aimed at the elimination of obstructions to full participation in electoral and political processes, and guarantees of the full citizenship. These guarantees are secured on paper by constitutional (e.g. 14th or 15th Amendment) and statutory law (e.g. the Voting Rights Act or Civil Rights Act). Of course, paper guarantees must be transformed into reality, or else we have cosmetic politics and symbolic rights, not worth much more than the paper on which they are printed. The professor would like students to examine three realms of rights: (a) the technical realm which are the rights as written in the formal documents or texts of law; (b) the formal realm of rights, which are the rights as enforced and implemented by the courts and other formal legal institutions of the society; and (c) the informal realm, which are rights as they exist on the streets. The history of discrimination is complex and ranges in (a) degrees of intensity (e.g. from lynching and slavery to gerrymandering, redlining, voting polarization, and school financing), (b) forms (e.g. from blatant violence to subtle profiling), and (c) types (race, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, ethnicity, status, etc.) and arenas (e.g. housing, education, voting, etc.) Students should be sensitive to the careful balancing of the basic principles of equality and freedom in the cocktail of civil rights.
Students and professor will explore not only the civil rights guarantees of the bills of rights in the U.S. and Texas Constitutions, but also in the federal and state statutes. We shall engage historical facts, doctrinal interpretations, and political, social and legal theory. Students should increase their substantive knowledge about individual rights and government’s use, abuse, and non-use of its powers in its establishment, protection, or implementation of rights. Moreover, students should reflect about the rightness or wrongness of government policy and programs, existing or proposed, exploring both our personal and our public criteria for evaluating whether policy is good or bad. Students should investigate what causes these policies to exist or not exist, what impact the adopted or proposed policies have on people’s lives, and what people (including you) should attempt to do about it.
The course begins with an examination of basic texts concerning civil rights. Our first assignment reviews the classic Animal Farm. Then, we become familiar with the U.S. Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights (see first ten amendments) and amendments 13, 14, 15 (Civil War Amendments) and 19, 23, 24 and 26 (franchise expansion). We shall study the history of civil rights movements in the U.S. During the semester, we will discuss denials and alleged denials of various rights to diverse people, the need or alleged need for special protections by the government, the many modes of discrimination against women and minority groups, affirmative action or reverse discrimination, and the rights of gun owners, voters, aliens, gays, the poor, the old, the young, the physically challenged, immigrants, the majority, everyone one of us, etc. The professor (and I am sure students) will present civil rights materials and arguments from the radical, liberal, moderate, conservative, and reactionary perspectives, and from governmental restraint and activist positions. These presentations and argumentations from different perspectives aim to agitate your craniums and to help you think about alternative, opposing, or reinforcing arguments to your assessments, prejudices, and preferences.
Support services, including registration assistance and equipment, are available to students with documented disabilities. Contact the Office of Disability Services (DSS), MS 2.03.18 at 458-4157 to secure arrangements or accommodations.
Academic Dishonesty: The professor condemns and prohibits any form of plagiarism, cheating, or other unfair, unethical conduct and will prosecute occurrences according to UTSA rules (see UTSA Information Bulletin.) See: UTSA Information Bulletin p 128 ff.,
“Academic or scholastic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student, or the attempt to commit such acts. Academic dishonesty is a violation of the Student Code of Conduct and is addressed in Appendix B, Sec. 203 of this bulletin…” And, to be clear, : “‘Plagiarism’ includes, but is not limited to, the appropriation, buying, receiving as a gift, or obtaining by any means another’s work and the submission of it as one’s own academic work offered for credit.”
A longer e-syllabus will be available on WebCt. That e-syllabus will have your ongoing assignments and links to your reading of your readings. This is a WebCT course. Many readings will be placed on WebCt. DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE SYLLABUS ONTO A FLASHDRIVE, DISK, OR HARD-DRIVE FOR YOUR RETENTION. If you wish a paper copy, notify the instructor, but you really need the electronic version with the hotlinks. You will be able to access the material directly from the e-syllabus if connected to the Internet.
This class is multimedia, campus interactive, and discussion oriented. The professor will use many pedagogical modes
Attendance is mandatory. The instructor requires that students attend every class, prepared sufficiently to discuss reading assignments, engage in discussions, and answer questions asked by the professors or fellow students. The quality of your contributions through participation to our seminar's enrichment and enlightenment will determine ten percent of your grade. The professor wishes to meet with students concerning any questions that may arise on subjects related to this course. The professor hopes to give individual attention to students, despite the large enrollment on two campuses. The professor is available by appointment and e-mail, as well as office hours. Use the regular email account , rather than WebCt to contact the professor.
The professor reserves the right to alter this syllabus to accommodate the pace that best promotes students' maximum education.
Course Requirements: Quality of Class Discussion 05%
Exam One 30%
Exam / Paper 25%
Final exam 30%
Quizzes 10%
Attendance Priceless
Required Readings:
Animal Farm, George Orwell, available for purchase at bookstore OR electronic version at:
http://www.george-orwell.org/Animal_Farm/0.html
We Are All the Same, Jim Wooten*
U.S. Constitution http://www.usconstitution.net http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
U.S. Constitution http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/constitution/toc.html
Texas Constitution http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/txconst/toc.html
PLUS, MASTER ALL OF THE READINGS ON THE ELECTRONIC SYLLABUS AND WEBCT, AS THE SEMESTER PROGRESSES. THIS WILL BE THE BULK OF THE READINGS. These range from documents, to court opinions, to civil rights literature of a historical, political,
First Assignments: Wednesday, September 3 = Animal Farm
Monday, September 8 & 10 U.S. Constitution (emphasis as noted)
Monday, September 15 Texas Bill of Rights, Article VII, and assigned §§
RECOMMENDED READINGS for greater those seeking a greater understanding of the civil rights movement in the U.S. concerning race:
Branch, Taylor, (a) Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963
(b) Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965
Fairclough, Adam, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000
Lebowitz, Holly and Gary Orfield, Religion, Race, and Justice in a Changing America
Loury, Glenn C., The Anatomy of Racial Inequality
Maltz, Earl, M., Civil Rights, The Constitution and Congress, 1863-1869
Riley, Russell, L., The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequality: Nation Keeping from 1831-1965
Semonche, John E., Keeping the Faith, A Cultural History of the US Supreme Court
Shull, Steven A., American Civil Rights Policy from Truman to Clinton
Swinney, Everette, Suppressing the Ku Klux Klan: The Enforcement of the Reconstruction
Amendments, 1970-1877
ASSIGNMENTS For the Civil Rights classes of September 15 through September 22.
1. You are to read the following two articles Online, plus the material below. 2. You may want to start with the Overview of Jim Crow Laws below, then do the two articles, then review the substance of the actual laws that follow on these pages, below the Overview material. 3. Read the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, cited below the two articles Online, after you finish the other material:
http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/creating2.htm *
http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/resisting.htm *
*Click the links on W.E.B. DuBois (William Edward Burghardt DuBois, and Booker T. Washington In the articles to become familiar with these two Influential Individuals.
3. Black Codes and Texas—Read both pieces below:
http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/blackcodes/a/blackcodes1865.htm
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/BB/jsb1.html
4. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=163&page=537 (full text of opinion) and
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/307/ (summary)
OVERVIEW OF JIM CROW LAWS
The following are drawn from and all are quoted from the citation and Website below. Much Material is deleted from the syllabus and appears on WebCT. Read the Jim Crow laws from the various states.
http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/jimcrowlaw1/a/creationjimcrow.htm “Jim Crow laws were laws that imposed racial segregation. They existed mainly in the South and originated from the Black Codes that were enforced from 1865 to 1866 and from prewar segregation on railroad cars in northern cities. The laws sprouted up in the late nineteenth century after Reconstruction and lasted”
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Specific section from CRA of 1875:
“Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal and enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.” (emphasis added)
______
For Week of September 22 though October 13
Read and /or listen to numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.
These are your assignments through October 13. The yellow material is background on earlier assignments, referred to in lectures.
Extra: http://www.brownvboard.org/chronology/
Timeline for selective Civil Rights History
Backup: http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=69
Booker T. Washington, Speech Before the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition, September 18, 1895
To listen to the recording of the speech, go to: http://archive.lib.msu.edu/VVL/dbnumbers/DB191.mp3
7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/oct/25/guardianobituaries.usa
Rosa Parks Obituary and History Guardian Sheila Rowbotham
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 25 2005 19:38 BST
8. http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/bus_boycott.html
Montgomery Bus Boycott & New Phase of Civil Rights Movement
9. http://www.mlkonline.net/jail.html
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
10. http://www.mlkonline.net/dream.html
Text of Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream Speech, WebCT or above: Video shown in class
11. http://www.malcolm-x.org/speeches/spc_021465.htm text (audio available)
Malcolm X, After the Bombing
12. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/AA/wmafr.html
Texas History: “AFRICAN AMERICANS AND POLITICS”
by Chandler Davidson, The Handbook of Texas Online
13. Court Action in the Civil Rights Era
· READ FROM EDITED DOCUMENT ON WEBCT ENTITLED:
· “Sweatt, Brown I & II” (12 pages) and then the OYEZ
· hotlinks to assist in understanding the actual judicial
· opinions. Three opinions on WebCt.
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950)
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/375/
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/51/
Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294 (1955)
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/52/
14. Gambitta on Sweatt, WebCT, forthcoming article in:
Enclyclopedia of the U.S. Supreme Court
15. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/374/
16. Freedom Riders
http://www.freedomridersfoundation.org/brief.history.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/05_riders.html#video
17. Assignments - audio and video: Listen to all of these clips
http://www.mlkonline.net/video-i-have-a-dream-speech.html 17:26
*MLK, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, viewed and discussed in class, text assigned
*http://www.mlkonline.net/video-knock-at-midnight-speech.html?v=_agUA-htonQ
“MLK A Knock at Midnight” – MLK Speech on Montgomery 7:25
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U&eurl=http://www.mlkonline.net/video-mlk-opposed-to-vietnam-war.html
*Opposition to the War in Vietnam, et al. 22:49
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKIUMbi9Jk&feature=related 3:31
*MLK on non violence and Malcolm X
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3rSXw5Rbo&feature=related 2:24
*Malcolm X on MLK
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-aKjXR_uFI&feature=related
*James Baldwin on MLK and Malcolm X 6:28
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0FiCxZKuv8 (Short version with video) 1:17