Thirteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments / Segregation: The Rising Costs for America

     This first article is a review of 13 of the more important supreme court cases. The authors defined "important" as cases that produced widespread social changes for a particular demographic. The reason I say a particular demographic is because the US Constitution along with all its' amendments secure individual's right, rather than the entire nation. The original constitution was very exclusionary and benefitted a very narrow demographic. The way our country is set-up (federalism), individuals have the right to amend and change laws/policies over time to create change. These cases represent cases that set new precedents for social change, meaning the results allowed for others in similar circumstances to benefit from the results. For example, women's suffrage was added to allow women the right to vote. The author's argument is that these cases, while they produced widespread change, still only benefitted one demographic at a time rather than the entire population.
     James Carr discusses the rising costs America faces due to unfair practices in housing. The problem is that certain lower-class demographics are being targeted by the housing industry. They prevent them from upward mobility by putting out road block after road block to keep them concentrated in undesirable areas. By creating excessive costs and other such unfair practices, the real estate industry can essentially prevent certain people from living in certain neighborhoods. Due to this, these people will remain less affluent and will have their lives directed by this disparity. What most people don't realize, is that by keeping these people "down" like this, we're creating more costs for the United States as a whole. If we keep increasing this population (lower-class), we're increasing the number of people accessing social programs such as food stamps, welfare and unemployment. This is slowly going to trickle up in my mind as the people who are just slightly above lower-class will no longer be able to remain there; instead, they will succumb to the increased costs and become a part of the lower-class. This cycle could continue until the majority of people in the nation are being supported by a vast minority.
     These two articles were interesting because they offer a unique perspective of diversity issues: namely from the viewpoint of politics and economics. It's easy to understand diversity as a social issue, but it's a completely different topic to understand it as a political/economic issue. Suddenly, there are larger implications to many of the decisions made. When the outcomes of those court cases were made, social change occurred to a specific group. When these outcomes happened, economic changes were also made and will likely affect everyone connected to the economy (which is everyone in the nation). This makes me wonder if this could potentially sway people's minds when it comes to social issues. Would conservative wealthy people be more apt to support social programs if they knew it would decrease costs to them long-term? This mind-set might be the only way to appeal to people and businesses that are built around the "bottom line."