Professor Christopher Schmidt: So the Supreme Court has a very big civil rights case on the agenda for the next Parliament. It should therefore hear the arguments in this case by the end of 2022. And it has to do with affirmative action in higher education. Many of the centre`s historic victories have set important precedents – from the case of Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, which opened U.S. courts to victims of serious human rights violations around the world, to the challenge to Rasul v. Bush, who established the right of Guantánamo detainees to detention. In this religious discrimination case, the plaintiffs alleged that their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments were violated when the school board prohibited them from using school facilities for a “prayer meeting” where civil and social issues would be discussed. The school board allows community groups and non-students to use school facilities for a variety of civic and recreational purposes, such as lunches, owner meetings, seminars and sports activities. The policy allows groups to use school facilities to engage in discussions from a “religious point of view,” but not in “worship or instruction.” Based on this distinction, the Board denied the applicants access to the facility on the basis that the proposed prayer meeting was a worship service and not a religious meeting. 25.
In April 2003, the Division filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the applicants` request for summary judgment, arguing that (1) the meeting proposed by the applicants fits well within the forum established under the school board`s policy on the use of facilities, and (2) there is no legal or practical distinction between religious views on a subject and “religious services or teachings”. On June 3, 2003, the Division filed an amicus curiae brief against the respondent`s application for summary judgment. In a way, going back. Some people said it was very similar to what the court did in the late 19th century, and unlike what the court did in the 1960s, where they upheld these important laws to protect civil liberties when Congress passed these laws. Thank you for speaking with us today. I know we have not been able to discuss every civil rights case that we should be aware of. But you have provided us with a list of those cases, and that list will be available on this video website. Thanks again. Sandra Chan: Well, if we take that as a working definition, what are some of the cases that show how our courts have dealt with a particular civil rights issue? Sandra Chan: Yes, thank you. So we talked about cases of racial discrimination.
Is there another cluster of cases you would like to discuss with us and why? The case concerned a transgender man from Iran who had been granted asylum in Hungary but could not legally change his sex and name in that country. The Supreme Court ruled that British soldiers killed while serving in Iraq were still under British jurisdiction and were therefore entitled to human rights protection to the appropriate extent and did not affect the requirements of active service. Under the title of each case summary, there are links at the bottom that lead to lists of similar cases, sorted by relevant domains for each case by protected class. Links in each case summary are linked to important documents, including complaints, submissions, settlement agreements, consent orders, injunctions and news releases. The CJEU ruling clarified that the EU asylum system cannot operate on the basis of a “conclusive presumption” that all EU member states “respect the fundamental rights of the European Union”. The full session of the Australian Federal Court (the Court) has rejected an application by LibertyWorks Inc. that questioned the validity of the Minister of Health`s power to prevent Australians from leaving the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing heavily on the context and purpose of the Biosafety Act 2015 (Cth), the Court found that while travel restrictions were “severe” and infringed on the rights of individuals, they were nevertheless permitted by law. But I think if we want to try to get a common definition, which is what people generally mean today when they talk about a civil rights case, I think it`s something like that. A civil rights case would be one that challenges a form of discrimination against a particular group of people, particularly groups that have historically been oppressed or politically disadvantaged. So when you think of abortion rights as an equality right, think of the right as something based on a long series of primacy dating back to Reed v. Reed and United States v.
Virginia, so we have another line that we can also connect, right. So we don`t have to think of it like one or the other, but maybe it can be both. It can be a right based on privacy and autonomy, as well as equality. And here we see the value of the civil liberties framework for an issue as a way to rethink and perhaps strengthen a claim. So there are people who also think about abortion in this context. Professor Christopher Schmidt: There are a few things we can think about when looking at these cases and putting them together. The first is that we want to recognize that the Supreme Court has often decided very important civil rights cases that have advanced civil rights through its decisions, but it has not always done so, has it. And that`s an important thing when you put The Civil Rights next to the Heart of Atlanta Motel by putting Plessy next to Brown. The Supreme Court is doing it right; the Supreme Court is also wrong. And sometimes the Supreme Court has corrected itself; And sometimes, some people think that they may have been wrong and still need to correct themselves. But as we look at abortion rights, and we could see a dramatic upheaval in that right, a lot of people are thinking about how we might be able to reconceptualize the law, other ways of thinking about why abortion rights should be protected. And some people suggest that a civil rights framework would actually be a more effective way to protect and promote that right, and see it not only as a right based on individual privacy and autonomy, but also a right that protects equality, that of women in society, protects against discrimination against women in society.
Professor Christopher Schmidt: Yes. So the next two twinnings I have will go beyond racial discrimination and look at other forms of discrimination. My next pairing will be on gender discrimination. So these two cases — the first is Reed v. Reed, trenched in 1971, and the second is United States v. Virginia, trenched in 1996. As I said, these cases are about extending civil rights to the protection of women. On 13 January 2003, the L.I.F.E. The Westfield High School Club and some of its students filed a lawsuit and injunction alleging that Westfield Public Schools and officials were discriminating against their religious beliefs by refusing to distribute leaflets with a religious message, even though the defendants had allowed the distribution of secular pamphlets by the same students the previous year. The plaintiffs alleged that this violated their First Amendment free speech rights, the First Amendment Establishment Clause, and their rights to equal protection under Fourteenth Amendment laws.
The district worked with the U.S. to resolve the complaint and better protect the student. The May 2013 resolution agreement, in effect until the end of the 2014-2015 school year, requires the district to: work with a counsellor to develop and implement anti-bullying training at the student`s middle and high school; Implement a safety plan quickly to ensure that the student is safe at school and, in the event of harassment, that the district responds quickly and effectively. and meet with the student, their family, and administrators at their middle and high school where they will sign up to identify key school staff who can help the student in case bullying occurs in the future. The parties also agreed to continue to work together to address remaining U.S. concerns regarding District anti-harassment policies, procedures, and practices and to ensure that District students and staff receive appropriate training and policies on their federal civil rights and responsibilities with respect to harassment based on religion and national origin. Their particular conclusion, which has been law for more than 40 years, has always been questioned. But it is now particularly under attack with this new series of cases.
And we have cases that challenge the affirmative action guidelines of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. So, in a way, we are just revisiting an old issue, and we are revisiting an old issue because the composition of the Court is changing. And the question is whether the new court could actually revisit this long series of precedents in which the court has stated that affirmative action can be used in a limited way. Finally, I want to make sure that I leave out some broad categories of case law that could be classified as citizens` rights. For example, I will not talk about voting rights or criminal justice, two issues that are civil rights issues, two issues that simply deserve more time. They deserve their own discussion. So, for now, we`re going to set them aside and focus on civil rights issues other than those categories.
