Word: civilization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That is a chilling thought for civil libertarians -- and a comforting one for conservatives. With abortion, race discrimination, religion and obscenity again crowding the docket, the court is now in a position to press on with much of Ronald Reagan's unfinished social agenda...
Race Discrimination. The court's conservative turn was underscored by last term's civil rights and affirmative-action rulings, which made it more difficult both to prove discrimination and to obtain preferential treatment. This week the Justices will explore how broad is the power of federal courts to remedy discrimination. Taking up a volatile dispute from Yonkers, N.Y., the court will determine if a judge may compel city council members to vote for a housing-desegregation plan. Later, in a case from Kansas City, it will decide whether a judge may order tax hikes to finance a school-desegregation plan...
Criminal Law. The Justices are again taking up a raft of cases involving confessions, searches and seizures, as well as half a dozen death-penalty appeals. Questions of privacy and personal integrity often dominate criminal cases. But because they involve drug crimes, say civil libertarians, many recent decisions have fallen victim to the war against that scourge. "The rules are going to be applied against all kinds of people who have nothing to do with drugs," warns New York University law professor Norman Dorsen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If the trend continues, many people who say, 'This...
...already affecting the kinds of disputes that are brought before it. Observes University of Michigan law professor Yale Kamisar: "The Warren Court took cases where Government won ((in lower courts)). This court seems to be taking cases where Government lost below. It is putting liberal judges back in line." Civil rights and civil liberties groups have taken note. Ronald Ellis of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund admits that, in order not "to tempt the fates," his organization has refrained from appealing cases to the high court and is considering filing more suits in state courts...
...Civil rights groups have also been planning a political assault. The upshot of last term's rulings, says University of Miami law professor Mary Coombs, was that everyone "exists as a separate, individual, raceless, genderless person who is allowed to succeed or fail in terms designed for middle-class white men." Several U.S. Senators are drafting legislation to try to overturn some of those discrimination rulings...