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Civil Rights
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What is Civil Rights?

Civil rights sits at the intersection of law, history, and political theory, making it a central topic in government, political science, American history, and social policy courses. The subject examines how individuals and groups secure legal protections against discrimination and state oppression, and how governments either uphold or deny those protections. Academic interest in civil rights runs deep because it forces students to confront fundamental questions about equality, citizenship, and the role of institutions in shaping the lived experience of marginalized communities, particularly African Americans in the United States.

The papers archived on this topic span a wide range of approaches. Historical analyses trace the struggle for racial equality across distinct eras, including the Gilded Age, the postwar period, and the pivotal decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Case-focused essays examine landmark legal battles such as Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Comparative work places figures like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Marcus Garvey in dialogue with one another. Some papers extend the civil rights framework to issues like abortion rights and religious freedom, reflecting how broadly the concept applies across American political life.

A strong essay on civil rights requires a focused, arguable thesis rather than a broad survey of events. Evidence drawn from legislation, court decisions, and primary sources from movements like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee tends to carry the most analytical weight. The most common pitfall is treating civil rights progress as linear or inevitable — strong essays acknowledge setbacks, contradictions, and ongoing struggles to produce a more accurate and persuasive argument.

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Paper Undergraduate

Employment Discrimination and Transgender Rights in the US

Employment Law - Transgender Discrimination

Paper Undergraduate

Malcolm X to Obama: Race and Politics in Black America

Comparative Book Review Stephanie Mckenzie The Black Experience November 22,2009

Paper Undergraduate

Special Education Law: From PL 94-142 to IDEA

Until 1975, disabled children were segregated in public schools and did not enjoy equal access to the resources, activities, and curriculum offered to children without disabilities.

Paper Undergraduate

The RICO Act: Conception, Application, and Limitations

Prosecuting organized crime has always carried with it unique and unwieldy challenges for law enforcement agents and groups. By their very nature, organized crime syndicates will tend to be complex, inherently…

Paper Doctorate

Race, Art, and Politics in Ishmael Reed's The C. Above High C

Ishmael Reed's play "The C Above C Above High C" chronicles the struggles of jazz musician Louis Armstrong during the Civil Rights movement to make a living as an artist and to support the cause of African-Americans for equality. When Armstrong criticized President Eisenhower's ambivalent stance to civil rights, he garnered many enemies, including his managers who wanted Armstrong to remain an apolitical figure in the field of music.

Research Paper Undergraduate

Use of Force Ethics and Policy Management in Policing

Management of USE-of-FORCE ISSUES in POLICE ETHICS

Paper Undergraduate

Gay Rights as a Civil Rights Issue: Law, Work, and Marriage

The conservatism of America's identity has often come to clash violently with the progressivism of its ideology, with the end result, optimistically speaking, bringing the two sides into closer congress with one another.

Paper Undergraduate

Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself: Book Review

In the 21st century the U.S. Constitution is often presented as a sacred document by both liberals and conservatives. This was seen in the recent controversy over the confirmation of the first female Latina justice,…

Paper Doctorate

Airport Security Coordination and Future U.S. Policy

Coordination of the Airport Security Mission

Paper Undergraduate

Slavery and the Slave Economy in Colonial America

Modern observers likely know in general terms that many Africans were enslaved through the 17th to 19th Centuries, but few probably know the extent of suffering that newly enslaved Africans endured from the outset, nor do many modern observers likely know the legal sources that were used to justify and legitimize the practice in the Old and New Worlds. In fact, some authorities argue that it was not until the end of the 17th Century that racial divisions had become sufficiently codified to protect the "peculiar institution" of slavery in the New World. Given the impact that slavery has had on American society, gaining a better understanding of the origins of the slave economy and its implications for civil rights in the United States represents a timely and valuable enterprise. To this end, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature to describe the background in which slavery emerged and a description of the slave economy. Throughout most of the 17th Century, the tobacco economies of Virginia and Maryland depended of the contract labor of white indentured servants, who were employed for a term of four to five years, then freed.

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