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fileEQUALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE CHALLENGE OF DEMOCRACY
With the separate-but-equal decision of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1876, the national government tried to sweep the conflict between equality and freedom under the rug. By announcing in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that “separate is inherently unequal,” the national government faced the tension between freedom and equality and the fact that more of one usually means less of the other. The meaning of equality also creates difficulties. Many who agree on the need for equality of opportunity will not support measures they think are geared to produce equality of outcome. The struggle for civil rights also illustrates the conflict between pluralism and majoritarianism. In accepting the demands of African American citizens, the national government acts in a way that is more pluralist than majoritarian. As Chapter 1 pointed out, majoritarian democracy does what the majority wants and thus may allow discrimination against minorities, even though the substantive outcome (inequality) seems undemocratic.
Thus, questions about what kind of public policies should be adopted to achieve equality are often highly controversial. If the nation wants to promote racial and gender equality among doctors or sheet metal workers, for example, it may design policies to help previously disadvantaged and underrepresented groups gain jobs in these areas. This practice, however, may lead to charges of reverse discrimination.
African Americans seeking civil rights not only had to contend with being members of a minority group, but they also were largely excluded from the electoral process. Under the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), they adopted the strategies of lobbying legislators and pressing claims before the judiciary, the branch of government least susceptible to majoritarian influences. Later, as the civil rights movement grew (and as majority opinion became …

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