Question

1954: In Hernandez v Texas, the Supreme Court rules that trying a defendant before a jury that deliberately excludes members of the defendant's ethnic group violates the equal protection clause.

1960: In Boynton v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that arresting an African American passenger for using a 'whites-only" bus station violates the Interstate Commerce Act, which forbids discrimination in interstate transportation.
2015: In Obergefeld v. Hodges the Supreme Court rules that state laws forbidding same-sex marriage violate the equal protection clause.
What do the events in this timeline suggest about how the Supreme Court has protected the civil rights of minority groups?
A. It has protected the civil rights of racial minorities but not others.
B. It has based its protections on the First Amendment.
C. It has protected civil rights using the Fourteenth Amendment and other laws.
D. It has limited civil rights using only the Fourteenth Amendment.​

Answer 1

The Supreme Court's decision in Hernandez v. Texas ensured that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause extended civil rights protections to all ethnic groups, which includes preventing jury exclusion based on racial or ethnic identity.

Step-by-step explanation:

In the landmark case Hernandez v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court addressed an important aspect of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court unanimously ruled that excluding jurors on the basis of ethnicity, specifically Mexican ancestry in this case, denies a defendant the equal protection of laws guaranteed under the Amendment. This decision highlighted that protections are not confined to a 'two-class theory' of just whites and African Americans, but extend to all racial and ethnic groups within a community.

Pete Hernandez's conviction by an all-Anglo jury, with evidence of systematic exclusion of Mexican-Americans from jury service, was reversed by the ruling. The case is a significant legal precedent for the protection of civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision also supports the notion that civil rights are guaranteed equally to all groups, not just major racial categories, which is a cornerstone in the struggle for civil rights among all minorities.