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Unit 3
13–18% of examThis unit is about the freedoms the Constitution protects from government interference, and the struggle to make sure government treats everyone equally. You'll study the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court cases that decide how far each right reaches, and how social movements, Congress and the courts have expanded civil rights over time.
Longer videos that cover the whole unit. Good for a first pass or a final review.
The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution, added in 1791 to spell out freedoms the national government can't take away. These civil liberties protect you from unfair government interference, and courts keep reinterpreting what they mean as new situations come up.
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The establishment clause stops government from setting up or sponsoring a religion, and the free exercise clause protects your right to practice your faith. In Engel v. Vitale (1962) the Court ruled that a state-written prayer led in public schools was unconstitutional even though it was voluntary, and in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) it ruled that Amish families could not be forced to keep their children in school past eighth grade.
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The First Amendment protects speech, including symbolic speech like wearing an armband, but not without limits. Schenck v. United States (1919) allowed punishing speech that creates a "clear and present danger" (a test later cases narrowed), while Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) protected students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War; government may also set time, place and manner rules and limit obscenity and defamation.
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Freedom of the press means government generally can't stop a story before it is published, which is called prior restraint. In New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), the Court let newspapers publish the Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the Vietnam War: the government has to clear a very high bar to block publication, and it hadn't, even with national security at stake.
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The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court held that it protects an individual's right to have a gun for self-defense, not just a right tied to militia service, and McDonald v. Chicago (2010) ruled that this right limits state and local governments too; courts still decide case by case which gun regulations are allowed.
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The Court often has to weigh your rights against government's job of keeping people safe. Big debates include whether the death penalty or certain sentences count as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, how far gun regulations can go under the Second Amendment, and whether collecting phone records and other digital data violates the Fourth Amendment.
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The Bill of Rights originally limited only the national government. Through selective incorporation, the Supreme Court has used the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause to apply most of those protections to state governments as well, one right and one case at a time.
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Procedural due process means government must use fair, consistent methods before taking away your life, liberty or property; the Fifth Amendment applies this to the national government and the Fourteenth to the states. Specific protections include Miranda warnings before police questioning (with a public safety exception), the exclusionary rule against illegally gathered evidence, a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, and a lawyer: Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) required states to provide one to felony defendants who can't afford it.
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Substantive due process is the idea that the due process clauses protect certain basic rights from government interference, including unenumerated rights the Constitution never lists; some also point to the Ninth Amendment as support. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court struck down a Connecticut ban on birth control for married couples and recognized a right to privacy. Roe v. Wade (1973) extended that right to abortion, but Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) overturned Roe, holding that the Constitution doesn't protect a right to abortion and leaving abortion laws to elected lawmakers. Which actions the right to privacy covers is still debated.
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The Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause requires states to treat people equally under the law, and social movements have used it to push for change. Examples include the 1960s civil rights movement, whose case for nonviolent protest against unjust laws Martin Luther King Jr. made in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (1963); the women's rights movement and groups like the National Organization for Women; advocacy for LGBTQ rights; and the pro-life and pro-choice movements.
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Government has answered social movements with both court rulings and new laws. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruled that segregating public schools by race violates equal protection, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in public places and employment, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 targeted racial discrimination in voting, and Title IX (1972) banned sex discrimination in schools that receive federal money.
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Government has sometimes allowed minority groups' rights to be restricted and at other times stepped in to protect them. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1863) declared enslaved people in the Confederate states free, and the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery everywhere in the U.S.; yet "separate but equal" laws, upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), allowed racial segregation for decades until Brown v. Board of Education (1954) rejected that idea for public schools. More recently, the Court has limited election districts drawn mainly by race, as in Shaw v. Reno (1993).
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Affirmative action means policies meant to widen opportunities in schools and jobs for groups that have faced discrimination, and the Supreme Court has long debated whether the equal protection clause allows them. Supporters argue these policies make up for past discrimination and build diversity; opponents argue that treating applicants differently by race is itself discrimination. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Court struck down racial quotas but allowed race as one factor in admissions, and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) upheld that approach; then Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) ruled that race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unlawful, which effectively ended the use of race as a factor in most college admissions.
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