12 Ways The Trump administration Dismantled Civil Rights Law And The Foundations Of Inclusive Democracy In Its First Year
Lyndon Johnson at the base of the Statue of Liberty on Oct. 3, 1965, before signing the Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in the immigration process and repealed quotas heavily favoring immigration from northern and western Europe. Yoichi Okamoto, LBJ Library BY SPENCER OVERTON PROFESSOR OF LAW, GEORGE WASHINGTON U NIVERSITY One year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, a pattern emerges. Across dozens of executive orders, agency memos, funding decisions and enforcement changes, the administration has weakened federal civil rights law and the foundations of the country’s racially inclusive democracy. From the start, the U.S. was not built to include everyone equally. The Constitution protected and promoted slavery . Most states limited voting to white men . Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to “free white persons .” These choices were not accidents. They shaped who could belong and who could exercise political power, and they entrenc...
