Balancing Principles of Equality and Freedom in the United States

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Introduction

The episode “Create Equal” addresses equality in the United States Constitution. The episode’s host toured the entire country to research how the Constitution has affected different groups of people across the U.S. The debate carried out by the founding fathers on incorporating slavery in the constitution is addressed in detail in the episode, as what was done to satisfy the South and the North. American Constitution received significant change from the Civil War and the reconstruction era, which added the 14th amendment to the Constitution. The program also looks at the battles of women and other oppressed groups to attain legal equality, including the historic Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education (“Created equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal,” 2018). Through interviews with legal professors and historians, Sagal delivers a thought-provoking and enlightening analysis of how the Constitution has developed to become more inclusive, despite the fact that impediments to equality continue today.

Historical Evolution of the Constitution in Terms of Equal Rights

There has been a considerable historical change in the U.S. Constitution regarding equal rights. The topic of slavery and its position in the Constitution had to be debated by the Founding Fathers in the early years of the United States (Ginsberg et al., 2018. The Three-Fifths Compromise, which allowed slaveholding states to count three-fifths of their enslaved population towards representation in Congress, was the document’s last compromise on the subject of slavery. Northern and Southern states were ultimately satisfied by this arrangement, which firmly included slavery in the constitution. On the other hand, the Constitution underwent considerable revisions due to the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed (“Created equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal,” 2018). Both the 13th Amendment, which did away with slavery and the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all people born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved individuals, did away with the disparity in legal treatment that existed between the races. These amendments brought about a significant shift in how the Constitution relates to equality and prepared the stage for subsequent fights for equal rights.

American Constitution went through some amendments due to the American Civil War and the reconstruction period. The 13th Amendment brought slavery to an end; the 14th Amendment brought equal protection and granted citizenship to everyone born in the United States of America. Among the people who benefited from the 14th Amendment were formally enslaved individuals before the changes. Additionally, these amendments eliminated the disparity in the legal treatment between different races within the country (“Created equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal,” 2018). These amendments brought about a significant shift in how the Constitution relates to equality and prepared the stage for subsequent fights for equal rights.

Women never experienced equality in the United States of America; therefore, one of the biggest struggles presented in the episode is fighting for women’s rights. Ever since before the changes happened, women were set aside from taking active roles in the formulation and implementation of legal and political systems within the states. They were also denied the right to participate in public events and hold government offices. All these restrictions were ended by the 19th amendment of the constitution that was ratified in 1920 (“Created equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal,” 2018). The amendment allowed women to participate in the voting exercises, considered the greatest victory in the fight for gender equality.

African Americans suffered largely for civil rights in the 20th century. The Brown v. Board of Education case presented in the Supreme Court struck down the violation of equality rights in the public education domain. The court stated that the segregation did not follow the rule of equality and therefore was considered unconstitutional and was found to have violated the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection to all races. The decisions created a clear path for future victories and further endeavors in fighting for human rights in the United States. Additionally, the Future Protection of Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited people from engaging in racial, color, sexual, and religious discrimination (“Created Equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal,” 2018). Along the same line, the voting Rights of 1965, which allowed women to freely participate in voting, literary tests, and poll taxes, will also be protected.

Even with these successes, the fight for equal rights has continued. The LGBTQ+ community and immigrants have continued striving for equal rights throughout the twenty-first century. Significant victories for the LGBTQ+ community came from the Supreme Court’s rulings in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which made same-sex marriage lawful worldwide, and United States v. Windsor in 2013, invalidating a crucial part of the Defense of Marriage Act. Nonetheless, efforts to reverse these advances continue, and prejudice and violence against the group remain. Similarly, immigration and immigrant rights are still hotly debated in the U.S. (Ginsberg et al., 2018. Protests were triggered by the Trump administration’s actions, which included the Muslim Ban and separating families at the border (“Created Equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal,” 2018). Although the Biden administration has attempted to change some of these practices, the matter continues to cause severe division in the nation.

Trade-Offs Involved Between Majority Rule, Minority Rights, Individual Freedom, and Social Equality

The U.S. Constitution relies on majority rule, social equality, minority rights, and individual freedom principles. Yet, striking a balance between these ideals involves making trade-offs, and various readings of the Constitution have sparked continuing arguments and conflicts about how this can be made possible. Although the majority rule is important in the state’s constitution, it also negatively impacts economic development. The majority always makes decisions to favor their needs at the expense of the minority (Ginsberg et al., 2018. As a result, the founding fathers identified the gap and later introduced a system of checks and balances, like the separation of powers and the Bill of Rights, to restrict the authority of the majority (“Created equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal,” 2018). Even though reasonable changes were made and implemented, the tension between the minorities and the majority has always been witnessed and felt. The effect of this is felt in affirmative action and voting rights, where the majority always make their decisions and fail to address the injustices experienced in the past. Additionally, they fail to create a fair playing ground for historically disadvantaged individuals in decision-making.

Conclusion

Another fundamental value of the constitution is individual freedom, which can sometimes conflict with social equality. For instance, the right to free speech can be exploited to spread nasty or discriminatory ideas and threaten social equality. By defending individual rights but simultaneously allowing for regulation to further the common good, the Constitution aims to balance these conflicting goals (Ginsberg et al., 2018. Meanwhile, social equality has developed over time due to the fight for civil rights and other social movements. Equal protection under the law is guaranteed by the Constitution, which also outlaws discrimination based on race, gender, religion, and other characteristics.

References

Created equal | Constitution USA with Peter Sagal. (2018). THIRTEEN – New York Public Media. Web.

Ginsberg, B., Lowi, T. J., Campbell, A. L., Weir, M., & Tolbert, C. J. (2018). We, the people. W. W. Norton.

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Balancing Principles of Equality and Freedom in the United States

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