Throughout the history of our nation, federal law and court rulings have been crucial to protecting racial justice. The fact remains that people of color are still discriminated against in subtle and overt ways, and we have a lot of work to do. To make matters worse, several recent key cases in federal court are making it more and more difficult to go to court if you are discriminated against on the basis of race.

Brown v. Board of Education was one of the key legal victories for racial justice in education. In this landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that the system of racial segregation in the schools in the South was not, in fact, equal and that it violated the United States Constitution. This decision, now more than 50 years old, and the cases that followed it, forced major change, bringing and end to formal segregation in Southern schools. And yet, children of color are more likely to go to poorer schools with fewer resources, across the country. And our public schools are as segregated as they were before Brown.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted to end discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. The idea was that no federal funds should be used for any programs or activities that discriminated. It helped transform American society and prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment. The 1964 Act was followed by additional civil rights laws beginning to address deeply entrenched ways of doing things that were discriminatory in areas like housing and voting. These laws were a good beginning but were not able in a brief time to end all discrimination.

The persistence of deep racial disparities in many areas of everyday life-such as which schools have resources or where we usually build garbage dumps-points to the need for strategies and policies to address systemic inequities.

The federal courts have also played a role in interpreting and enforcing our laws. The Supreme Court, in a case called Alexander v. Sandoval, restricted the use of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ruling that victims of racial discrimination cannot bring their claims to court under the standards set out by federal agencies and used for decades. The Supreme Court has also issued decisions in a number of cases about affirmative action, finding it legal if properly administered. Our Supreme Court is closely divided on fundamental constitutional issues, with many of the most important cases in recent years being decided by one or two votes. A change in who is on the court could lead to very different outcomes in the future and the recent appointments of activist judges could very well shift the balance.

Justice Alito's record, for example, raises cause for concern. In 1997's Bray v. Marriott Hotels, when Justice Alito was a circuit judge, he disagreed with his colleagues in the majority of the court who ruled in favor of a Marriott Hotel employee who said she had been discriminated against on the basis of race. He argued that her case shouldn't even be heard and also for making it harder to prove discrimination and more difficult for victims of discrimination to proceed.

Indicted for felony murder, James Taylor, an African American, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Riley v. Taylor. When he first challenged his conviction in federal court, Alito was the deciding vote in striking down Taylor's claims that black jurors were rejected solely because of their race, an incompetent appointed lawyer, and a misled jury. Taylor's claims were finally upheld after he appealed several times, and it was found that his rights had in fact been violated. The majority of the court took offense at Alito's earlier attempts to argue that statistical evidence about black jurors being repeatedly excluded from juries by the prosecution in death-penalty cases was like trying to explain why a disproportionate number of recent presidents were left-handed. The majority said that "[t]o suggest any comparability to the striking of jurors based on their race is to minimize the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants...."

Historically and today, the federal courts have been an important place for people to challenge racial discrimination, and it is critical that the courthouse doors remain open to these claims. Recently, for example, African Americans and Latinos who want the right to vote have filed suits in federal courts across the country challenging laws in New York, Florida, and other states denying ex-felons the right to vote. They are challenging these laws as racially discriminatory, keeping African American and Latino voters from the polls in large numbers.

Voting Rights Act of 1965(Public Law 89-110, 79 Stat. 437)
Plessy v. Ferguson (163 U.S. 537)
Scott v. Sandford (60 U.S. 393)
Grutter v. Bollinger (02 U.S. 241)

For more information please visit our growing library of resources on racial justice.