The Supreme Court took up the issue of affirmative action in June 2003, when the high court decided the twin cases of Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. Both cases involved the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The...
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Affirmative action has an extensive legislative history with origins dating back to early debates concerning the application of the Fourteenth Amendment. The first governmental reference to affirmative action in the US was Executive Order 10925, issued by US President John...
This feature has been updated, as of June 6, 2014. Please refer to State Bans on Affirmative Action for the most recent information. On June 4, 1965, US President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a commencement address at Howard University...
Today, there are 32 states in the US that require voters to present identification at the polls in order to vote, including 17 states that have passed laws requiring a photo ID. Voter ID laws have become increasingly controversial as...
The Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees that "he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous...
The right to vote has been a contentious issue in the US since the inception of the country. There was no specific right to vote or qualifications to vote drafted into the US Constitution. Each state was left to...
Government has regulated public access to contraceptives for centuries. During the nineteenth century, the distribution of contraceptives was regulated under the Comstock Act of 1873, which banned the sending of obscene and lewd material through the mail. In addition to...
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 did not contain a provision for reproductive rights, but the United Nations approved the Proclamation of Teheran in 1968 at the World Conference for Human Rights, which defined reproductive rights as human...
Since Roe, states have reacted in a variety of ways, with most states seeking to limit the availability of abortion. These restrictions have taken various forms, including placing limits based on the gestational age of the fetus, adding informed consent...
Restrictions on Public Funding of Abortion Although the Supreme Court guaranteed women's constitutional right to have medical access to abortion in Roe, Congress has increasingly restricted federal funding of abortion services, most notably through the Hyde Amendment. Passed as part...
