Race, Sex And the Supreme Court |
Race, Sex And the Supreme Court
The New York Times
1964-11-22
OVER the last decade, the legal foundations of racial discrimination in this country have been washed away in the Supreme Court. One after another, state and local laws drawing lines between human beings on the basis of their color have been found in conflict with the 14th Amendment’s promise of “the equal protection of the laws.”
Only one area in the law of race relations has escaped this judicial scrutiny, and that is the most sensitive of all—sex. During the decade, the Supreme Court strained to avoid passing on the constitutionality of the network of laws forbidding the sexual relations between the races in the South and some other states.
Now the time for decision appears to be at hand. The Court has heard argument this term in a case challenging a Florida law against interracial cohabitation—a case which threatens to stir again the deepest Southern racial fears.
Even those who are ordinarily most skeptical of psychological generalisations are likely to agree with the view of many social scientists that sex is a fundamental factor in Southern racial attitudes.
“Would you like to have your daughter marry a Negro?”
Twenty years ago, Gunnar Myrdal observed that this question was the automatic response of the Southern man on the street “to any plea for social equality” among whites and Negroes. Anyone who has argued the issues of racial discrimination has heard the question in one form or another, again and again…
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Tags: Anthony Lewis, Gunnar Myrdal, New York Times, The New York Times