The context of civil rights 157for one—she was a woman. Her request was denied, and she sued all the way to the
Supreme Court. In 1873, the Court ruled that the prohibition against women lawyers
did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause because
there was no constitutional right to be an attorney. If the Court had stopped there, the
decision would have been unremarkable for its time. But Justice Joseph Bradley went on
to provide a classic example of protectionism:The civil law as well as nature itself has always recognized a wide difference in the
respective spheres and destinies to man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman’s
protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs
to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The
constitution of the family organization which is founded in the divine ordinance,
as well as the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly
belongs to the domains and functions of womanhood.^17While protectionist sentiment on the Court had waned by the mid-twentieth
century, as recently as 1961 the Court upheld a Florida law that automatically
exempted women but not men from compulsory jury duty. The case involved a
woman who killed her husband with a baseball bat after he admitted that he was
having an affair and wanted to end the marriage. The woman argued that her
conviction by an all-male jury violated her Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of
“equal protection of the laws” and that a jury panel containing some women would
have been more sympathetic to her “temporary insanity” defense. The Court
rejected this argument, ruling that the Florida law excluding women from jury
duty was reasonable because “despite the enlightened emancipation of women
from the restrictions and protections of bygone years, and their entry into many
parts of community life formerly considered to be reserved to men, woman still is
regarded as the center of home and family life.”^18 Apparently, it was unthinkable to
the all-male Court that a man might have to stay home from work and take care of
the kids while his wife served on a jury. Later in this chapter, we will describe how
the Supreme Court has moved away from this discriminatory position and rejected
protectionist thinking.The LGBTQ Community
The most recent group to engage in the struggle for civil rights is the LGBTQ
community. For most of American history, gays and lesbians lived secret lives and
were subject to abuse and discrimination if they openly acknowledged their sexual
orientation. The critical moment that spurred the gay rights movement occurred
on June 28, 1969, during a routine police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York
Cit y.^19 (Police often raided gay bars to harass patrons and selectively enforce liquor
laws.) This time, rather than submitting to the arrests, the customers fought back,
throwing stones and beer bottles, breaking windows, and starting small fires. A crowd
of several hundred people gathered, and the fighting raged for three nights. The
Stonewall rebellion galvanized the gay community by demonstrating the power of
collective action.
Since Stonewall, the gay rights movement has made steady progress through a
combination of political mobilization and protest, legislative action, and legal action.
Public support for gay rights has increased dramatically in recent years. Between two-
thirds and three-fourths of Americans (depending on the poll) agree with the national
policy established in 2011 that gays may openly serve in the military, whereasFull_06_APT_64431_ch05_148-197.indd 157 16/11/18 1:27 PM