14th Amendment key Post

 The 14^th amendment is an important for people of color. The 14^th amendment granted rights for every person regardless of race. This allowed black students to thrive in their education. This began to close the racial achievement gap that was created during the segregation of schools.

 

The racial achievement gap is the disparities in educational groups or facilities based on race or ethnic groups. This gap began during the “separate but equal” era of America. Children of color were separated by schools and were not treated the same. Black students during this time were underfunded. They had little to no resources. This began a foundation to the growing split of white education versus black education. This issue is still in effect until this day. We are seeing predominately black and brown communities have low resources and horrible funding to the schools. This issue can be led back to slavery and how slaves were treated as property and even after slavery white Americans still held the financial power over the people of color during this time.

 

These disparities have caused a ripple effect on the different race’s education and lifestyle norms. Native American students were sent to schools to be taught how to be white and fit into the norms of white Americans. This slowly started to erase the culture that Natives had within their families.

 

The 14^th amendment is a document that was used in many landmark cases that provided equal rights and opportunities to people of color. Wong Kim Ark v United States being a one of those landmark cases. The Us signed the Chinese Exclusion Act that denied citizenship rights to Asian Americans. Even if this individual is naturally born in the states, they are not a citizen. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants. When he has 21 his family moved back to China, and he went to go visit. He later returned and was denied entry to America. This infuriated Wong because he is a natural born citizen, so he sued under the 14^th amendment. This struck down the Chinese Exclusion Act and granted citizenship to all Asian Americans.

 

Affirmative Action is a direct effect of the 14^th Amendment. Without Affirmative Action we will begin to see segregation on college campuses. Black and Brown students do not get to perform the same as their white counterparts in schools due to funding. Predominately, black, and brown areas have low income that channel into the schoolings of these kids. This has caused underperformance from these ethnic groups. Allowing Affirmative Action will grant these children equal opportunities for growth. If not, these kids will all be funneled into HBCUs. There are no issues with these kids going to the colleges or Universities, but these places often are products of underfunding or money issues. This will then begin the cycle all over again.

This issue is still getting fought until this day. Should we have schools reflect the areas the reside in? This can and will allow every student equal opportunities for their higher education. The other issue is will hard work begin to slow down because of Affirmative Action. These two points are valid points that has caused this issue to stay relevant still to this day. 

Sources I used:

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/5-reasons-support-affirmative-action-college-admissions/

https://www.yahoo.com/video/role-hbcus-post-affirmative-action-130000756.html

https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/14th-amendment-was-intended-achieve-racial-justice

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/13/us/education-the-bakke-case-10-years-later-mixed-results.html

https://www.pbs.org/becomingamerican/ce_witness17.html

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/169us649

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/docs/pdfs/essay-contest/first-jonaslorincz.pdf?sfvrsn=e3fba009_2

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/wong-kim-ark-case/

https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/14th-amendment-was-intended-achieve-racial-justice