Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 6 P20 pps

Consequences of Passive Smoking. Legislators across the nation responded to his report by creating laws to restrict smoking and to reduce the risk of passive smoking to nonsmokers. By 1987 smoking was banned in all federal buildings and regulated in restaurants, hospi- tals, and other public places in over 40 states. In 1988 Koop commissioned studies on smoke in airplanes. Congress reacted to the results of these studies by banning smoking on all flights lasting less than six hours. Koop publicized the addictive nature of tobacco in his 1988 surgeon general’s report. This report forced tobacco officials to agree to more specific surgeon general’s labels on cigarettes. However, Koop lost the fight for labels that would have identified nicotine as an addictive substance. Although Koop was known for his anti- abortion stance, he did little on this issue during his time as surgeon general. He viewed abortion as a moral issue, not a political one, and he strongly disagreed with those who wanted to ban contraceptives and abortion. In response to Koop’s position on contraception and sex education, many conservatives who at first had supported him turned against him. Koop faced a dilemma when President Reagan asked him to study the psychological effects of abortion on women. In Koop’s opinion, it was a poor strategy to quibble about the effects of abortion on the mother when the effects on the fetus were conclusive. In addition, because both sides of the abortion controversy produced biased studies, the ava ilable research was useless. In the end, Koop could not gather evidence to assert conclusively or to refute damaging psychological effects of abortion on the mother. He never completed the report. In 1982 the Baby Doe case alarme d the nation. Baby Doe was born with Down syndrome, which results in mental retardation and other physical problems, as well esophageal atresia, an obstruction in the food passageway. Down syndrome is not correctable but is compatible with life; the esophageal atresia is incompatible with life but is correctable. On the advice of their obstetrici an, the parents chose to forgo treatment, and the baby died. Koop believed that the child was denied treatment because he was retarded, not because the surgery was risky. Koop himself had performed this kind of surgery successfully many times. Judging this to be a case of CHILD ABUSE and infanticide, Koop commented publicly that it is imperative to choose life, even when the quality of that life is not perfect. In 1983 the nation grappled with similar difficult circumstances surrounding the Baby Jane Doe case. Baby Jane Doe was born with spina bifida (a defect in the lower back), an abnormally small head, and hydroencephaly (a condition that causes fluid to collect in the brain). At issue was the baby’s right to medical treatment to increase her quality of life, despite her physical handicaps. Koop believed that without medical treatment, Baby Jane Doe ’s spine would beco me infected, that the infection would spread to her brain, and that she would become severely retarded. He, therefore, advo- cated medical treatment for that condition. Koop’s efforts to educate Congress and the public about the medical injustices affecting handicapped children led to the Baby Doe Amendment (42 U.S.C.A. §§ 5101, 5102, 5103). On October 9, 1984, the amendment extended the laws defining child abuse to include the withholding of fluids, food, and medically indicated treatment from disabled children. While in office, Koop became embroiled in the politics of educating the public about the growing health threat of AIDS. The Reagan administration prohibited Koop from speaking on the topic for nearly five years. This constraint distressed Koop, who believed that it was the surgeon general’s duty to inform the public about all health issues. Despite the Reagan administration’s silence on the issue, on October 22, 1986, Koop released The Surgeon General’s Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. In it, he clearly stated the facts abou t the trans mission of the disease and identified preventive measures and high-risk behaviors. Koop was adamant that all U.S. citizens obtain the information that they needed in order to stop the spread of AIDS. In May 1988 he sent the mailer Understanding AIDS: A Message from the Surgeon General to every household in the United States. When AIDS first attracted attention, it was labeled a homosexual disease because it was transmitted predominantly through sexual con- tact among gay males. Koop lost the support of staunch conservatives because he refused to use his position to publicly condemn homosexual YOU WOULD HAVE TO LABEL ME A CONSERVATIVE , BUT I’M A FLEXIBLE CONSERVATIVE .WE HAD NEVER , AS A MEDICAL PROFESSION , DEALT WITH PEOPLE WHEN THEY WERE SICK ON THE BASIS OF HOW THEY GOT SICK . —C. EVERETT KOOP GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 178 KOOP, CHARLES EVERETT behavior. Koo p’s focus was to educate and to save lives. Although he advocated abstinence as the best method for preventing the transmission of AIDS, he also urged the use of condoms by those who continued to engage in risky sexual behavior. Koop spoke against proposals such as mandatory testing and the detention of HIV- positive homosexuals. He challenged those who opposed the use of tax dollars to fund AIDS research. His reasoned approach to the AIDS epidemic helped to calm the hysteria of the public. Shortly after GEORGE H. W. BUSH became president, Koop expressed interest in the position of secretary of Health and Human Services. Bush chose Dr. Louis W. Sullivan for that job. Koop resigned from his position as surgeon general at the end of his second term. He wanted new challenges and looked forward to educating the public without the interference of Washington politics. Ironically, Koop’s popu- larity had undergone a complete reversal during his term in office: Koop had entered his post on the shoulders of conservative Christians, and he was leaving it as a hero of the liberal press and public. Even in retirement, Koop continued to fulfill his role as public-health educator. He established the Koop Foundation and the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth. The Koop Foundation is a private, nonprofit organi- zation dedicated to fitness, education, and research initiatives to promote the health of U.S. citizens. The Koop Institute actively works for reform in medical education and the delivery of medical care. To that end, the institute provides a health-information network t o help d octors ad- dress challenging medical cases. By writing, speak- ing, and consulting on health issues, the diligent Koop continued to champion the caus e of better and more accessible health c are. Koop received numerous awards for his many lifetime achievements. In 1995 President BILL CLINTON awarded Koop the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. In January 2005 Koop was honored with the Surgeon General’s Medallion, which is the highest award that the surgeon general can give to a civilian. Koop was given the award for his lifelong dedication to issues of public health and his commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Americans. FURTHER READINGS Arias, Donya Currie. 2008. “C. Everett Koop: The Nation’s Health Conscience.” American Journal of Public Health. 98 (March 1). Koop, C. Everett. 2002. Critical Issues in Global Health Care. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ———. 1991. Koop: The Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor. New York: Random House. The Koop Institute. Available online at http://dms. dartmouth.edu/koop/cek/ (accessed December 19, 2009). CROSS REFERENCES Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; Health Care Law; Surgeon General; Tobacco. KOREAN WAR The Korean War was a conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula from June 1950 to July 1953. Initially the war was between South Korea (Republic of Korea) and North Korea (Demo- cratic People’s Republic of Korea), but it soon developed into an international war involving the United States and 19 other nations. The United States sent troops to South Korea as part of a UNITED NATIONS “police action,” which sought to repel the Communist aggression of North Korea. Before the war ended in a stalemate, the People’s Republic of China had intervened militarily on the side of North Korea, and the Soviet Union had supplied military equipment to the North. At the end of WORLD WAR II, in 1945, the Soviet Union occupied the Korean Peninsula north of the 38th degree of latitude, while the U.S. occupied the territory south of it. In 1947, after the United States and the Soviet Union failed to negotiate a reunification of the two separate Korean states, the United States asked the U.N. to solve the problem. The Soviet Union, however, refused a U.N. proposal for a general election in the two Koreas to resolve the issue and encouraged the establi shment of a Communist regime under the leadership of Kim Il-sung. South Korea then established a democratic government under the leadership of Syngman Rhee. By 1949 most Soviet and U.S. troops had been withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula. On June 25, 1950, North Korea, with the tacit approval of the Soviet Union, launched an attack across the 38th parallel. The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution calling for the assistance of all U.N. members to stop the invasion. Normally, the Soviet Union would have vetoed this resolution, but it was GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION KOREAN WAR 179 boycotting the Security Council in protest of the U.N.’s decision not to admit the People’s Republic of China. Sixteen nations joined the U.N. forces, including the United States. President HARRY S. TRUMAN immediately responded by ordering U.S. forces to assist South Korea. Truman did so without a declaration of war, which until that time had been a prerequisite for U.S. military involvement overseas. Though some Americans criticized Truman for this dec ision, generally the country supported his action as part of his strategy of “containment,” which sought to prevent the spread of COMMUNISM beyond its current borders. Korea became the test case for containment. The North Korean forces crushed the South Korean army, with the South Koreans holding just the southeastern part of the peninsula. U.N. forces, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, stabilized the front. On September 15, 1950, MacArthur made a bold amphibious landing at Inchon, about 100 miles below the 38th parallel, cutting off the North Korean forces. The North Korean army was quickly defeated, and more than 125,000 soldiers were captured. MacArthur then sent U.N. forces into North Korea, proclaiming, on November 24, that the troops would be home by Christmas. As U.N. forces neared the Yalu River, which is the border between North Korea and Manchuria, the northeast part of China, the Chinese army attacked them with 180,000 troops. The entrance of China changed the balance of forces. U.S. troops took heavy casualties during the winter of 1950–51 as the Chinese army pushed the U.N. forces back across the 38th parallel and proceeded south. U.N. forces finally halted the offensive south of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. A U.N. counteroffensive in February 1951 forced the Chinese to withdraw from South Korea. By the end of April, U.N. forces occupied positions slightly north of the 38th parallel. It was during this period that President Truman became concerned about the actions of MacArthur. The general publicly expressed his desire to attack Manchuria, blockade the Chinese coast, and reinforce U.N. forces with troops from Nationalist China, with the goal of achieving victory. Truman, however, favored a limited war, fearing that MacArthur’s course would bring the Soviet Union into the war against the United States. When MacArthur continued to make his views known, Truman, as commander in chief, relieved the general of his command on April 11, 1951. The “firing” of MacArthur touched off a firestorm of criticism by Congress and the public against Truman and his apparent unwillingness to win the war. Nevertheless, Truman maintained the limited war strategy, which resulted in a deadlock along the 38th parallel. In June 1951 the Soviet Union proposed that cease-fire discussions begin, and in July the representatives of the U.N. and Communist commands began truce negotiations at Kaesong, North Korea. These negotiations were later moved to P’anmunjom. The Korean War affected U.S. domestic policy. In April 1952 President Truman sparked a constitutional crisis when he seized the U.S. steel industry. With a labor strike by the steelworkers’ union imm inent, Truman was concerned that the loss of steel production would hurt the Korean War effort. He ordered Secretary of Commer ce Charles Sawyer to seize the steel mills and maint ain full production. The steel industry challenged the order, bring- ing it before the Supreme Court. In Youngs- town Sheet and Tube CO. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S. Ct. 863, 96 L. Ed. 1153 (1952), the Court refused to allow the government to seize and operate the steel mills. The majority rejected Truman’s claim of inherent executive A convoy of U.S. Army trucks cross the 38th parallel during the Korean War. The parallel marks the dividing line between North and South Korea. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION 180 KOREAN WAR power in the CONSTITUTION to protect the public interest in times of crisis. Truman’s popularity declined because of the war, which contributed to his decision not to run for reelection in 1952. In the presidential race, Republican DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER easily defeated Democrat ADLAI STEVENSON. Eisen- hower, a former U.S. Army general and World War II hero, pledged to end the war. The truce negotiations, which broke off in October 1952, were resumed in April 1953. After Eisenhower hinted that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons if a settlement was not reached, an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. More than 33,000 U.S. soldiers died in the conflict, and 415,000 South Korean soldiers were killed. It is estimated that 2,000,000 North Koreans and Chinese died. The United States has maintained a military presence in South Korea since the end of the war, because North Korea and South Korea have remained hostile neighbors. FURTHER READINGS Harrison, Selig S. 2002. Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reunification and U.S. Disengagement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Isserman, Maurice. 2003. Korean War: Updated Edition. New York: Facts on File. Levie, Howard S. 2002. “How it All Started—And How it Ended: A Legal Study of the Korean War.” Akron Law Review 35 (winter). Available online at http://www. korean-war.com/Archives/2002/06/msg00263.html; website home page: http://www.korean-war.com (accessed August 5, 2009). Turner, Robert F. 1996. “Truman, Korea, and the Constitution: Debunking the ‘Imperial President’ Myth.” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 19 (winter). Young, James V., and William Stueck. 2003. Eye on Korea: An Insider Account of Korea-American Relations. College Station: Texas A&M Univ. Press. CROSS REFERENCES Cold War; Labor Law; Labor Union; Presidential Powers; Stalin, Joseph; Vietnam War. KOREMATSU V. UNITED STATES Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 65 S. Ct. 193, 89 L. Ed. 194 (1944), was a controver- sial 6–3 decision of the Supreme Court that affirmed the conviction of a Japanese American citizen who violated an exclusion order that barred all persons of Japanese ancestry from designated military areas during WORLD WAR II. Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu, an American citizen of Japanese descent, was convicted in federal court for remaining in a designated military area in California contrary to a Civilian Exclusion Order issued by an army general that required persons of Japanese ancestry to report to assembly centers as a prelude to mass removal from the West Coast. He unsuccessfully appealed his conviction to the CIRCUIT COURT of appeals and was granted certiorari by the Supreme Court. The order that Korematsu was convicted of violating was based upon an EXECUTIVE ORDER, which author ized the military commander to establish military zones and impose restrictions on activities or order exclusion from those areas in order to protect against ESPIONAGE and sabotage. Federal law made violation of these orders a crime. The entire West Coast and southern Arizona were designated as military zones. The restriction and exclusion orders applied to all enemy aliens and additionally to American citizens of Japanese ancestry. Pur- suant to the executive order, another order imposed an 8 P.M.to6A.M. curfew on all persons of Japanese ancestry in designated West Coast military areas. This order and a Fred Korematsu receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton on January 15, 1998. AP IMAGES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION KOREMATSU V. UNITED STATES 181 conviction based on it was challenged in Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S. Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774 (1943), but the Supreme Court upheld the order as “‘protection against espionage and against sabotage’” and sustained the conviction. The Court relied upon that case as support for its refusal to rule that Congress and the president exceeded their war powers in excluding persons of Japanese des cent from the West Coast in Korematsu. Although it acknowl- edged that being prohibited from the area where one’s home is located is a more severe hardship than a ten-hour curfew, the Court accepted the claims of the government that such drastic measures were necessary to adequately protect the country. At the start of the majority opinion, the Court stated that any legal restriction that infringes upon the CIVIL RIGHTS of a particular race is “immediately suspect.” However, it continued, not all restriction s are unconstitu- tional. Such limitations are valid when dictated by public necessity, but they must withstand rigid judicial scrutiny in order to be upheld. The restrictions imposed upon Japanese Americans were deemed by the Court to be necessary for public security during time of war. Korematsu argued that the rationale of the Court in Hirabayashi was erroneous and that when the order in question was promulgated there was no longer any danger of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast. The Court rejected these arguments. Both the curfew and exclusion orders were necessary, because disloyal Amer- icans of Japanese origin could not be easily segregated until subsequent investigations took place. Although the hardship of exclusion fell upon many loyal people, the Court viewed it as one of the harsh results of modern warfare. The Court affirmed Korematsu’s conviction, which has been cited by constitutional scholars as the foundation of the strict scrutiny test that is applied to suspect classifications made by the government. In 1983, upon a challenge by Korematsu who was represented by the AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION and the Japanese American Citizens League, U.S. district court judge Marilyn Hall Patel vacated the 40-year-old conviction. Based upon newly discovered evidence—previously withheld government documents—the judge found that the new evidence demonstrated “that the Government knowingly withheld information from the Courts when they were considering the critical question of military necessity in this case.” The judge added that “justices of [the Supreme] Court and legal scholars have commented that the [Korematsu] decision is an anachronism in upholding overt racial discrimination as ‘com- pellingly justified,’ and that the Korematsu case lies overruled in the court of history.” CROSS REFERENCE Japanese American Evacu ation Cases. KU KLUX KLAN The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a white supremacist organization that was founded in 1866. Throughout its notorious history, factions of the secret fraternal organization have used acts of terrorism—including MURDER, LYNCHING, ar- son, RAPE, and bombing—to oppose the grant- ing of CIVIL RIGHTS to African Americans. Deriving its membership from native-born, white Protestant U.S. citizens, the KKK has also been anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic and has opposed the IMMIGRATION of all those it does not view as “racially pure.” Other names for the group have been White Brotherhood, Heroes of America, Constitutional Union Guards, and Invisible Empire. Origins and Initial Growth Ex-Confederate soldiers established the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866. They developed the first two words of the group’s name from the Greek word kuklos, meaning “group or band,” and took the third as a variant of the word clan. Starting as a largely recrea- tional group, the Klan soon turned to intimi- dating newly freed African Americans. Riding at night, the Klan terrorized and sometimes murdered those it opposed. Members adopted a hooded white costume—a guise intended to represent the ghosts of the Confederate dead— to avoid identification and to frighten victims during nighttime raids. The Klan fed off the post-Civil War resentments of white southerners—resentment that centered on the RECONSTRUCTION programs imposed on the South by a Republican Congress. Under Reconstruction, the North sought to restructure southern society on the basis of racial equality. Under this new regime, leading southern whites were disfranchised, whereas inexperienced African Americans, GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 182 KU KLUX KLAN carpetbaggers (northe rners who had migrated to the South following the war), and scalawags (southerners who cooperated with the North) occupied major political offices. Shortly after the KKK’s formation, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former slave trader and Confederate general, assumed control of the organization and turned it into a militaristic, hierarchical entity. In 1868 Forrest formally disbanded the gr oup after he became appalled by its growing violence. However, the KKK continued to grow, and its atrocities worsened. Drawing the core of its membership from ex- Confederate soldiers, the KKK may have numbered several hundred thousand at its height during Reconstruction. In 1871 the federal government took a series of steps to counter the KKK and its violence. Congress organized a joint select committee made up of seven senators and 14 representatives to look into the Klan and its activities. It then passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, frequently referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which made night-riding a crime and empowered the president to order the use of federal troops to put down conspirators by force. The law also provided criminal and civil penalties for people convicted of private conspiracies—such as those perpetrated by the KKK—intended to deny others their civil rights. Also in 1871, President ULYSSES S. GRANT relocated troops from the Indian wars on the western plains to South Carolina, in order to quell Klan violence. In October and November of that year, the federal CIRCUIT COURT for the District of South Carolina held a series of trials of KKK members suspected of having engaged in criminal conspira cies, but the trials resulted in few convictions. The Klan declined in influence as the 1870s wore on. Arrests, combined with the return of southern whites to political dominance in the South, diminished its activity and influence. Resurgence The KKK experienced a resurgence after WORLD WAR I , reaching a peak of 3 or 4 million members in the 1920s. David W. Griffith’s 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation, based on Thomas Dixon’s 1905 novel The Clansman, served as the spark for this revival. The movie depicted the Klan as a heroic force defending the “Aryan birthright” of white southerners against African Americans and Radical Republicans seeking to build a Black Empire in the South. In particular, the movie showed a gallant Klan defending the honor of white women threatened by lecherous African American men. William J. Simmons renewed the KKK at a Stone Mountain, Georgia, ceremony in 1915. Later, Christian fundamentalist ministers aided recruitment as the Klan portrayed itself as the protector of traditional values during the Jazz Age. As its membership grew into the millions in the 1920s, the Klan exerted considerable politi- cal influence, helping to elect sympathetic candidates to state and national offices. The group was strong not only in southern states such as Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, but also in Oklahoma, California, Oregon, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Strongly opposed to non–Anglo- Saxon immigration, the Klan helped secure the passage of strict quotas on immigration. In addition to being racist, the group also espoused hatred of Jews, Catholics, socialists, and unions. By the end of the 1920 s, a backlash against the KKK had developed. Reports of its violence turned public sentiment against the group, and its membership declined to about 40,000. At the same time, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oklahoma passed anti-mask laws intended to frustrate Klan activity. Most of these laws made it a misdemeanor to wear a mask that concealed the Ku Klux Klan members parade in Washington, D.C., during the 1920s, a decade in which Klan membership grew into the millions and the group exerted significant political influence. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION KU KLUX KLAN 183 identity of the wearer, excluding masks worn for holiday costumes or other legitimate uses. South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia later passed similar laws. Anti-Civil Rights Involvement The KKK experienced another, less success ful resurgence during the 1960s as African Amer- icans won civil rights gains in the South. Opposed to the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and its attempt to end racial segregation and discrimi- nation, the Klan capitalized on the fears of whites, to grow to a membership of about 20,000. It portrayed the ci vil rights movement as a Communist, Jewish conspiracy, and it engaged in terrorist acts designed to frustrate and in timidate the movement’s members. KKK adherents were responsible for acts such as the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young African American girls were killed and many others were injured, and the 1964 murder of civil rights workers Michael Schwer- ner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, in Mississippi. The Klan was also responsible for many other beatings, murders, and bombings, including attacks on the Freedom Riders, who sought to integrate interstate buses. In many instances, the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI), then under the control of J. Edgar Hoover, had intelligence that would have led to the prevention of Klan violen ce or conviction of its perpetrators. However, the FBI did little to oppose the Klan during the height of the civil rights movement. By the 1990s the Klan had shrunk to under 10,000 members and had splintered into several organizations, including the Imperial Klans of America, the Knights of the White Kamelia, and the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. These factions also sought alliances with a proliferating number of other white suprema- cist groups, including the Order and Aryan Nations. Like these groups, the KKK put new emphasis on whites as an “oppressed majority,” victimized by AFFIRMATIVE ACTION and other civil rights measures. The Klan’s campaign of hatred has spurred opposition from many fronts, including Klan- watch, an organization started by lawyer and civil rights activist Morris Dees in 1980. The group is affiliated with Dees’s SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER , in Montgomer y, Alabama. In 1987 Dees won a $7 million civil suit against the Alabama-based United Klans of America for the 1981 murder of a 19-year-old man. The suit drove that Klan organization into BANKRUPTCY. In 1998 Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center won a civil suit against the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who were accused of burning down the Macedonia Baptist Church in Bloomville, South Carolina. The center won an unprecedented $37.8 million in damages. The KKK suffered other setbacks. For example, in 1990 the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of that state’sAnti- Mask Act (Ga. Code Ann. § 16-11-38) by a vote of 6-1 (State v. Miller, 260 Ga. 669, 398 S.E.2d 547). The case involved a Klan member who had been arrested for wearing full Klan regalia, including mask, in public and had claimed a FIRST AMENDMENT right to wear such clothing . The court ruled that the law, first passed in 1951, protected a state interest in safeguarding the right of people to exercise their civil right s and to be free from violence and intimidation. It held that the law did not interfere with the defendant’s FREEDOM OF SPEECH. By 2008 KKK membership had been reduced to approximately 6,000 individuals. Despite this reduction in membership, however, the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY released warnings in 2009, indicating that right-wing extremist groups, such as the KKK, pose an increasing threat to the United States. The warnings reflected that the number of right- wing terrorists is on the rise again, as the result of recruitment campaigns based upon fears related to a down economy. The recruitment is also alleged to be based on racism related to the election of BARACK OBAMA, the nation’s first African American President. FURTHER READINGS Allen, Wayne R. 1991. “Klan, Cloth, and Constitution: Anti- Mask Laws and the First Amendment.” Georgia Law Review 25 (spring). Chalmers, David Mark. 2003. Backfire: How the Ku Klux Klan Helped the Civil Rights Movement. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. Grossman, Mark. 1993. “Ku Klux Klan.” Civil Rights Movement. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. Johnson, Sandra E. 2002. Standing on Holy Ground: A Triumph over Hate Crime in the Deep South. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Karen, Anthony S. 2009. The Invisible Empire. Brooklyn, New York: powerHouse Books. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 184 KU KLUX KLAN Phillips, John W. 2000. Sign of the Cross: The Prosecutor’s True Story of a Landmark Trial against the Klan. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press. Richard, Mark Paul. 2009. “This Is Not a Catholic Nation: The Ku Klux Klan Confronts Franco-Americans in Maine.” The New England Quarterly 82 (June) CROSS REFERENCE Jim Crow Laws. KU KLUX KLAN ACT The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (ch. 22, 17 Stat. 13 [codified as amended at 18 U.S.C.A. § 241, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1983, 1985(3), and 1988]), also called the CIVIL RIGHTS Act of 1871 or the Force Act of 1871, was one of several important CIVIL RIGHTS ACTS passed by Congress during RECON- STRUCTION , the period following the Civil War when the victorious northern states attempted to create a new political order in the South. The act was intended to protect African Americans from violence perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist group. In March 1871 President ULYSSES S. GRANT requested from Congress legislation that would address the problem of KKK violence, which had grown steadily since the group’s formation in 1866. Congress responded on April 20, 1871, with the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act, originally introduced as a bill “to enforce the provisions of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT and for other purposes.” Section 1 of the act covered enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment and was later codified, in part, at 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983. Section 2 of the act, codified at 42 U.S.C. A. § 1985(3), provided civil and criminal penalties intended to deal with conspiratorial violence of the kind practiced by the Klan. Both sections of the act were intended to give federal protection to Fourteenth Amendment rights that were regularly being violated by private individuals as opposed to the state. Hugo L. Black and the KKK H B ugo L . Black is remembered as a distingui shed U.S. Supreme Court justice, a progressive U.S. Senator, and an able trial attorney. Black also was amemberoftheKuKluxKlan(KKK)inthe1920s. Public disclosure of this fact came shortly after his appointment to the Supreme Court was confirmed by the Senate in 1937. The resulting public uproar would probably have doomed his Court appointment if the disclosure had come just a few weeks earlier. In 1923 Black was a trial attorney in Birming- ham, Alabama, which at the time was controlled by members of the Klan. After rebuffing membership several times, he joined the KKK on September 23, 1923. Bl ack later claimed to have left the group after several years, but no clear evidence documented his departure. In 1937 there were allegations he had signed an undated letter resigning from the Klan, which was to have been used to establ ish a false resignation date if public scandal occurred. In 1937 Bl ack made a radio address to the nation, in which he admitted his Klan membership but claimed he had resig ned and had not ha d any connection with the group for many years. He also stated he h arbored no prej udice against anyone because of their race, religion, or ethnicity. During his Court career, Black was reluctant to discuss his KKK memb ership and offered various reasons for why he had joined. To some people he admitted it was a mistake, whereas to others he said the KKK was just another fraternal organiza- tion, like the Masons or E lks. It is clear, however, that as an ambitious politician, Bl ack had sought Klan support for his political campaigns. In the 1920s KKK support had been critical to a Democratic politician in Alabama. Despite his later denial of holding any prejudices, Black was an active member of the KKK for several years. He participated in Klan events throughout Alabama, wearing the organization’s characteristic white robes and hood, and initiated new Klan members into the Invisible Empire, reading the Klan oath, which pledged the members to “most zealously and valiantly shield and preserve by any and all justifiable means white supremacy.” CROSS REFERE NCE Black, Hugo Lafayette GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION KU KLUX KLAN ACT 185 In addition, the Ku Klux Klan Act gave the president power to suspend the writ of HABEAS CORPUS in order to fight the KKK. President Grant used this power only once, in October 1871, in ten South Carolina counties experienc- ing high levels of Klan TERRORISM. The act also banned KKK and other conspiracy members from serving on juries. The Republicans who framed the Ku Klux Klan Act intended it to provide a federal remedy for private conspiracies of the sort practiced by the KKK against African Americans and others. As had become all too apparent by 1871, local and state courts were ineffective in prosecuting Klan violence. Local and state law enforcement officials, including judges, were often sympa- thetic to the KKK or were subject to intimida- tion by the group, as were trial witnesses. The Ku Klux Klan Act would allow victims of Klan violence to take their case to a federal court, where, it was supposed, they would receive a fairer trial. The act, like other civil rights laws from the Reconstruction era, sparked considerable legal debate. Its detractors claimed that the law improperly expanded federal jurisdiction to areas of CRIMINAL LAW better left to the states. The Supreme Court took this view in 1883 when it struck down the criminal provisions of the act’s second section on the ground that protecting individuals from private conspiracies was a state and not federal function (United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629, 1 S. Ct. 601, 27 L. Ed. 290). This and other rulings stripped the Ku Klux Klan Act of much of its power. Like many other civil rights laws from its era, it went largely unenforced in succeeding decades. The remaining civil provisions of the act were later codified under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1985(3), where they have been referred to as the conspiracy statute. These provisions hold, in part, that when two or more persons “conspire or go in disguise on the highway or the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving any person or class of persons of the EQUAL PROTECTION of the law,” they may be sued by the injured parties. The civil provisions, or § 1985(3), remained generally unused until the 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 91 S. Ct. 1790, 29 L. Ed. 2d 338. In Griffin, the Court reaffirmed the original intention of § 1985(3) and ruled that the statute ma y allow a civil remedy for certain private conspiracies. The Griffin case concerned a 1966 incident in Mississippi in which a group of white men stopped a car out of suspicion that one of its three African American occupants was a civil rights worker. The whites proceeded to beat and threaten the African Americans. The Court upheld one victim’s claim that, under § 1985(3), the whites had engaged in a conspiracy to den y him the equal protection of the laws of the United States and Mississippi. In making its decision, the Court was careful to restrict § 1985 claims to those involving actions motivated by “some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus.” This standard meant that the conspirators in question had to be motivated against a class of persons, not a particular political or social issue. By creating this standard, the Court sought to prevent § 1985(3) from becoming a “general federal tort law” that w ould cover every type of private conspiracy. Since Griffin, the Court has expressed misgivings about expanding the types of classes protected by the statute. Using the Griffin standard, the Court later ruled in United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners v. Scott, 463 U.S. 825, 103 S. Ct. 3352, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1049 (1983), that economic or commercial groups could not be considered a class protected by the law. In that case, the Court rejected a claim by nonunion workers who had been attacked by union workers at job sites. During the 1980s and 1990s, lower federal courts upheld the use of § 1985(3) against antiabortion protesters who blockaded family planning clinics with large demonstrations and disruptions. In one RULING, a federal district court held that an antiabortion group had conspired to violate the right to interstate travel of women seeking to visit family planning clinics (NOW v. Operation Rescue, 726 F. Supp. 1483 [E.D. Va. 1989]). However, in a 1993 case, Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, 506 U.S. 263, 113 S. Ct. 753, 122 L. Ed. 2d 34, the Supreme Court ruled that § 1985(3) could not be used against antiabortion protesters. The Court held that women seeking ABORTION cannot be considered a class under the terms of the law. FURTHER READINGS Brown, Bruce. 1991. “Injunctive Relief and Section 1985(3): Anti-Abortion Blockaders Meet the ‘Ku Klux Klan Act’.” Buffalo Law Review 39 (fall). GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 186 KU KLUX KLAN ACT Gormley, Ken. 1985. “Private Conspiracies and the Constitution: A Modern Vision of 42 U.S.C. Section 1985(3).” Texas Law Review 64 (November). Hall, Kermit L. 1984. “Political Power and Constitutional Legitimacy: The South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871–1872.” Emory Law Journal 33 (fall). Available online at http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Hall1.html; website home page: http://www.saf.org (accessed Au- gust 5, 2009). McMurtry, Joy Hollingsworth, and Patti S. Pennock. 1995. “Ending the Violence: Applying the Ku Klux Klan Act, RICO, and FACE to the Abortion Controversy.” Land and Water Law Review 30. CROSS REFERENCES Civil Rights Acts; Civil Rights Cases; Civil Rights Movement; Jim Crow Laws. v KUNSTLER, WILLIAM MOSES WILLIAM MOSES KUNSTLER rose to prominence during the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT in the 1960s. He represented Freedom Riders, MARTIN L UTH ER KING Jr., and the CHICAGO EIGHT. Politics and the law are inseparable in his philosophy. He was the author of 12 books, a sometime Hollywood actor, and a cofounder of the CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (CCR) in Tennessee. Even as a child, Kunstler liked trouble. He was born July 7, 1919, in New York City, the eldest of three children of Frances Mandelbaum and Monroe B. Kunstler, a physician. Ignoring schoolwork to run with a street gang called the Red Devils, he worried his conservative Jewish family. He read voraciously on his own, and by high school became a straight A student. At Yale, he majored in French and wrote his senior thesis on the satirist Molière. Then he joined the Army and served in WORLD WAR II as a cryptographer, taking part in General Douglas MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines, earn- ing the Iron Cross, and rising to the rank of major. Afterward, he entered Columbia Law School, mainly to compete with his younger brother, Michael Kunstler. Kunstler and his brother opened a law practice in 19 49. The mundane work bored Kunstler, who wanted more challenge than handling annulments and divorces. He kept busy writing a book on corporate tax law, contributing to the New York Times Book Review, teaching at New York Law School, and hosting radio shows whose eclectic guest lists covered personalities ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt to Malcolm X. William M. Kunstler. AP IMAGES ▼▼ ▼▼ William Moses Kunstler 1919–1995 19001900 19501950 19751975 20002000 19251925 ❖ 1919 Born, New York City 1914–18 World War I 1939–45 World War II 1950–53 Korean War ◆ 1949 Graduated from Columbia Law School; opened private practice with brother Michael 1961–73 Vietnam War ◆ 1961 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? published; represented Freedom Riders on behalf of ACLU in Jackson, Miss. ◆ ◆ 1968 Defended Chicago Eight 1971 Defended prisoners charged in Attica (N.Y.) Prison rebellion ◆ 1974 Defended Russell Means and Dennis Banks in Leadership Trial ◆ 1985 Trials and Tribulations published; took on Darrell Cabey's civil suit against Bernhard Goetz ◆ 1986 Defended Larry Davis against charges of attempted murder of six police officers in Bronx, N.Y. ◆ ◆ ❖ 1996 Cabey won $43 million judgment against Goetz 1995 Died, New York City 1994 My Life as a Radical Lawyer published ◆ 1990 Won acquittal of El Sayyid Nosair in Meir Kahane murder case GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION KUNSTLER, WILLIAM MOSES 187 . FLEXIBLE CONSERVATIVE .WE HAD NEVER , AS A MEDICAL PROFESSION , DEALT WITH PEOPLE WHEN THEY WERE SICK ON THE BASIS OF HOW THEY GOT SICK . —C. EVERETT KOOP GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 178 KOOP, CHARLES. resolution, but it was GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION KOREAN WAR 179 boycotting the Security Council in protest of the U.N.’s decision not to admit the People’s Republic of China. Sixteen. society on the basis of racial equality. Under this new regime, leading southern whites were disfranchised, whereas inexperienced African Americans, GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 182