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Civil Rights Legislation

Civil rights legislation is a broad term that may be applied to any laws or legal rulings designed to protect the basic human rights of individuals anywhere in the world. These rights include any of a range of principles that ensure freedoms, liberties, and general happiness to which all humans are considered entitled from birth, such as free speech, religious freedom, participation in electoral processes, due legal processes in the court system, and so forth. The term civil rights legislation is most commonly used to refer to laws passed during the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the United States, but the term could be applied more broadly to describe legal action to protect human rights further back in history as well as across the globe. For example, civil rights legislation in the United States arguably began with the Constitution of 1787, and civil rights are a concern for all nations interested in ensuring rights and freedoms for its citizens. Thus, for example, the United Kingdom instituted affirmative action policies to ensure equal opportunities for Catholics and the poor, and South Africa established anti-apartheid measures to end to segregation.

In the United States, civil rights legislation is accomplished through bills passed into law, court rulings, and executive orders. The most salient examples of U.S. civil rights legislation have concerned Blacks and women, but civil rights legislation has been extended to a wide range of groups and people in society. Which groups deserve legal protection against civil rights violations and what constitutes a “civil right” remain points of controversy. Nevertheless, the ultimate goal of civil rights legislation is to provide equal freedoms and liberties for those who are most threatened and who may not have the political voice for social change without such legislation. This entry presents a historical overview of civil rights legislation and related controversies, considers the impact of such laws, and describes monitoring and enforcement efforts.

Historical Background

Civil rights in the United States are enacted both by the passing of laws that promote civil rights and by the overturning of laws that threaten civil rights. These legal actions can take place in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government at both the federal and local level. Legislative bodies can pass laws that enact greater civil rights protection or remove laws that threaten civil rights.

For example, the United States Congress passed a series of civil rights acts in 1957, 1960, and 1964 that provided further protection against discrimination for a wide range of groups, establishing protected classes such as race, sex, and nation of origin. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed literacy tests and other barriers to voting, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed discrimination in the housing market. In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act added the physically disabled to the list of protected classes.

Laws that threaten civil rights also can be deemed unconstitutional through judiciary decisions such as those handed down by the United States Supreme Court. For example, many schools in the early 20th century were racially segregated under the notion that the education system was “separate but equal”; however, the Supreme Court ruled this system unequal and unconstitutional in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, setting the stage for the mandatory desegregation of American schools.

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