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    Media Law Research Paper

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    Christa Wilson
    The document discusses two influential Supreme Court cases: Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education. [1] Roe v. Wade was a 1973 decision that established a woman's right to an abortion under the right to privacy and allowed states to regulate or prohibit abortions in the third trimester. [2] Brown v. Board of Education was a 1954 decision that ruled racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and helped establish the principle of equal treatment under the law. [3] Both cases had major impacts on civil rights and shaped laws and debates around abortion and racial equality that continue today.

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    Media Law Research Paper

    Uploaded by

    Christa Wilson
    66 views3 pages
    The document discusses two influential Supreme Court cases: Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education. [1] Roe v. Wade was a 1973 decision that established a woman's right to an abortion under the right to privacy and allowed states to regulate or prohibit abortions in the third trimester. [2] Brown v. Board of Education was a 1954 decision that ruled racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and helped establish the principle of equal treatment under the law. [3] Both cases had major impacts on civil rights and shaped laws and debates around abortion and racial equality that continue today.

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    Media Law Reserach Paper

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    The document discusses two influential Supreme Court cases: Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education. [1] Roe v. Wade was a 1973 decision that established a woman's right to an abortion under the right to privacy and allowed states to regulate or prohibit abortions in the third trimester. [2] Brown v. Board of Education was a 1954 decision that ruled racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and helped establish the principle of equal treatment under the law. [3] Both cases had major impacts on civil rights and shaped laws and debates around abortion and racial equality that continue today.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    66 views3 pages

    Media Law Research Paper

    Uploaded by

    Christa Wilson
    The document discusses two influential Supreme Court cases: Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education. [1] Roe v. Wade was a 1973 decision that established a woman's right to an abortion under the right to privacy and allowed states to regulate or prohibit abortions in the third trimester. [2] Brown v. Board of Education was a 1954 decision that ruled racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and helped establish the principle of equal treatment under the law. [3] Both cases had major impacts on civil rights and shaped laws and debates around abortion and racial equality that continue today.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Christa Wilson

    Communication Law and Ethics


    December 5th, 2019

    Final Research Paper

    No topic related to feminist movement has created such passion and controversy as much as the

    right to an abortion. In the 1960’s, there was no federal law regulating abortions and many states

    had banned the practice except when the mother’s life was in danger.

    Women’s groups were arguing that illegality caused some women to seek black market

    abortions by unlicensed physicians or to perform the abortion on themselves. Because of this,

    several states began to legalize abortions. Since there was no definitive ruling from the federal

    government, women’s groups sought the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court. The problem

    started in Texas, which outlawed any type of abortion unless a doctor determined that the

    mother’s life was in danger. Jane Roe challenged the Law, and the case made its way to the

    highest court. States were eventually allowed to adopt restrictive laws in accordance with

    respecting the mother’s health during the second trimester. Any State law that came in conflict

    with this ruling was overturned. Women’s groups were pleased, but an opposition from the

    Roman Catholic Church came about. They had criticized abortion as a form of infanticide for a

    long period of time.

    Since 1973, the battle has continued. Pro-life groups began to get their senators and reps

    to propose a “Right-to-life” Amendment to the Constitution. The fate of Roe V. Wade continues

    to lie with the Supreme Court. Although every ruling since 1973 upheld the decision, the
    composition of the court changes with every retirement. Republicans have tended to appoint pro-

    life judges, and Democrats chose pro-choice nominees. At the dawn of the 21st century, the battle

    is still as fierce as it has ever been. This case was one of the most influential cases during the

    1970’s. It gave women the choice of abortion and really helped shape the way abortion laws are

    governed even today. This historical case left an impression in the court system in the U.S., and

    now we see administrators have complications with the laws’ content in todays society. People in

    today see abortion as being either bad or good. People don’t think there is an in between when it

    comes to personal stance on women’s choice for life and abortion. With the help of legal

    abortion, millions of American women have been able to have the types of families they had

    wished for and desired.

    Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka was an impactful and one of a kind 1954

    supreme court case where justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public

    schools was unconstitutional. Brown V Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the

    civil rights movement, and it helped establish that “separate-but-equal” education and other

    services were not actual equal.

    In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy vs Ferguson that racially segregated public

    facilities were legal, as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal. The ruling created

    laws that kept African Americans from sharing the same buses, schoolsm and other public

    facilities as whites-known as “Jim Crow” laws- and established the “separate-but-equal” doctrine

    that would stand for the next six decades .By the early 1950’s, the NAACP was working to

    challenge segregation laws in public schools, and filed lawsuits in behalf of plaintiffs in states

    like SC, Virginia, and Delaware. A plaintiff by the name of Oliver Brown filed a suit against the

    Board of Education in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka’s
    all-white elementary schools. In this lawsuit, Brown claimed that schools for black children were

    not equal to the white schools and that segregation violated the “equal protection clause” of the

    14th Amendment, which says no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal

    protection of the laws”.

    At first, the justices were divided on how to rule on school segregation, because Chief

    Justice Fred M. Vinson thought that the Plessy V Ferguson verdict should stand. In September

    1953 before the case was heard, Vinson died, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced him

    with Earl Warren. The new chief justice succeeded in getting a unanimous verdict against school

    segregation the next year. Though the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown V Board of Education

    didn’t achieve school desegregation alone, the ruling fueled the civil rights movement in the U.S.

    In 1955, a year after the case, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus. Her

    arrest would lead to other boycotts, sit-ins, and demonstrations, in a massive movement that

    would lead to the ending of Jim Crow Laws in the South. Passage of the Civil Rights Act of

    1964, supported by the enforcement by the Justice department, started the process of

    desegregating. Today, more than 60 years after the Brown V Board of Education case, the debate

    still continues over how to end racial inequalities in the nation’s school system.

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