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Petitioner, Homer Plessy, asserts that the Separate Car Act violates the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Because we conclude that the Act instantiates and bolsters White supremacy,3 it cannot be sustained. As context is important to understanding the Act’s intended effects and this Court’s conclusion, we begin with history.
Argued October 17, 1967.Decided December 18, 1967.
Mr. Justice CAPERS delivered the opinion of the Court.1
We are not precisely told how Charles Katz, the petitioner, came to the FBI’s attention as someone involved in illegal gambling. But clearly by early 1965, the FBI considered the petitioner a person worth keeping an eye on. What we are told is that starting around February 4, 1965, FBI agents began tailing the petitioner, and continued tailing him for about two weeks. Their surveillance of the petitioner, presumably without his knowledge, revealed that the petitioner had a daily habit of making telephone calls from a particular row of telephone booths on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Further investigation, presumably through the telephone company, revealed that the petitioner’s calls were placed to a number in Massachusetts, which number the FBI traced to a known gambler. Armed with this information, but lacking a warrant, the FBI secretly placed a recording device on top of the bank of phones the petitioner had been using.
Justice Marshall* delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case, we decide whether it is consistent with the Fourth Amendment for a police officer who observed a traffic violation to use that violation as the justification to perform a racially-selective traffic stop, or as the pretext to investigate a crime for which the officer does not have probable cause. We answer that question in the negative.
Argued December 13, 1971.Reargued October 11, 1972.Decided January 22, 1973.
Justice MURRAY, concurring in the judgment.1
Since 1854, Texas, like many other American jurisdictions, has made it a crime to procure or attempt to procure an abortion, except with respect to “an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” Tex. Penal Code Arts. 1191–94, 1196 (1961). Petitioner Jane Roe is an unmarried woman living in Dallas County, Texas. She alleges that, unmarried and pregnant, she sought to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion “performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions.” She was unable to secure a “legal” abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by the continuation of her pregnancy. Lacking the resources to travel to another jurisdiction to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions, she was forced to continue her pregnancy.
I dissent today from the majority’s decision in these cases because the detestable segregation in the public schools that the majority finds unconstitutional is a manifestation of the evil of racism the depths and pervasiveness of which this Court fails even to acknowledge, much less address and attempt to correct.
Mr. Chief Justice STONE1 delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner, Fred Korematsu, was born in Alameda County, California, and is of Japanese ancestry. He is an American citizen by birth. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1889). That his parents were born in Japan and, with the commencement of war, became formally classified as enemy aliens is of no moment in this case.2 No question has been raised as to petitioner’s loyalty to the United States.
Petitioner was convicted in a federal district court for remaining in San Leandro, California, a “military area,” contrary to Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the Commanding General of the Western Command, U.S. Army, which directed that after May 9, 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry should be excluded from that area.
Chief Justice ADAMS delivered the opinion of the Court.1
The question in this case is simple: may a federal court impose a multidistrict, area-wide school desegregation remedy when doing so is necessary to cure a constitutional violation in a single school district? The answer is yes because Brown v. Board of Education requires it.
Justice Charles LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court.1
Plaintiffs Parents Involved in Community Schools (“Plaintiffs”) brought suit against Seattle School District No. 1 (“Defendant”); challenging an assignment plan that relied in part on racial “tiebreakers” to assign slots in oversubscribed high schools. In a separate action, McFarland v. Jefferson County Public Schools, parent and student plaintiffs challenged a school district’s race-conscious student assignment plan. In the Seattle case, the District Court granted the school district summary judgment, finding, inter alia, that its plan survived strict scrutiny on the federal constitutional claim because it was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. In the Jefferson County case, the District Court found that the school district had asserted a compelling interest in maintaining racially diverse schools, and that its plan was, in all relevant respects, narrowly tailored to serve that interest. The Sixth Circuit affirmed.
Throughout American history, immigration law and its enforcement has been marred by intolerance and invidious discrimination. Indeed, the U.S. immigration laws have been the source of some of the most regrettable chapters in this nation’s civil rights history. Over more than two centuries, many different immigrant groups have suffered disfavor, punishment, and nothing less than demonization under color of law.
Justice Angela ONWUACHI-WILLIG delivered the opinion of the Court.1
This case presents important questions concerning claims of workplace “sexual harassment” brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. These questions include (1) whether the factual record was sufficiently developed to render decisions on either a quid pro quo claim or a hostile environment claim; (2) whether sexual harassment leading only to psychological harm violates Title VII; (3) whether the “voluntariness” of the complainant’s participation in sexual activity is pertinent in a hostile environment case, (4) whether the complainant’s manner of dress or sexually provocative speech is relevant to determining whether sexual harassment occurred; (5) whether the trial court erred in excluding testimonial evidence from other women who claimed to have been harassed by the alleged wrongdoer and to have seen him harass the complainant; and (6) whether employers are automatically liable for sexual harassment by their supervisory personnel regardless of notice to the employer.
These cases are brought here by writs of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana. They arise out of the efforts of the butchers of New Orleans to resist the Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company in the exercise of certain powers conferred by the charter which created it, and which was granted by the legislature of that state.