The Effect of Courts Overstepping with Civil and Gay Rights

Its the beginning of a New Year. It has been a while since I have written on here, and I have really missed it. For the New Year I am making a re-dedication to this blog.

So, what has kept me away these past couple of months? In a word, school. My mind has been consumed by fascinating class subjects and extra curricular activities. Right now I am working on an undergraduate degree in government with a minor and Spanish. After obtaining that I will continue on to law school. This path is motivated by my interest in politics.

This past fall semester I took three law classes, that were all equally fascinating and informative. I learned about many aspects of the legal world. One topic in particular really changed my view on a very important court case, Brown vs Board of Education.

Brown vs Board of Education was passed in 1954, and it made "separate but equal" unconstitutional. In other words, separate facilities for black and white people was now against the law.

In theory this sounds like the most righteous Supreme Court ruling. In reality, I have been learning, it could have actually been detrimental to Civil Rights. A totally controversial idea, but one that has been well researched by the legal historian, constitutional law scholar, legal professor at Harvard Law School, Michael Klarman.

To begin, one can look around the United States and still see today a large social divide between white and black people. This observation alone demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the court ruling.

In the 1950's social change was gradually occurring. Black people were getting jobs as police men, as professional athletes, and in other positions. The KKK had all but disappeared, and these changes were being gradually implemented without violent backlash.

Then the court ruling came, overstepped the gradual process that was happening, and people violently clung to their bigoted ideas (that they HAD been letting go of). The KKK was reborn, peaceful protesters were viciously assaulted, it was an overall outburst of violence. Down to their core, white southerners fought to keep the social bias. This could explain why even today, over fifty years later, this bias still permeates our country.

Where if change had been allowed to happen gradually, it would have taken longer for the Civil Rights Acts to be passed (it was passed in 1964) and schools would not have been de-segregated for a long time after that, but the change could have been effective. We could live in a different society today, one of equality.

Micheal Klarman details the regression caused by the Brown vs Board of Educations ruling in his book From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: the Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality.

So, how is this relevant to legal issues today? People have drawn a parallel between Civil Rights and Gay Rights. Michael Klarman, among other people, have learned from Court overstepping with Brown vs Board of Education, and feel that they should wait until there is enough popular support to pass any legislation pertaining to gay rights.

They do not want history to repeat itself. Below is an article which addresses this issue in detail:

Are the Courts Ahead of the Public on Gay Rights?

I had thought that my mind had been made up about Brown vs Board being a great and necessary court case. I also thought that the Supreme Court needed to act in support of gay rights. Now my mind has been opened to a totally different way of looking at it. This topic has effected me the most out of anything I have learned this past semester.