There have been a lot of landmark cases that we know about from over the years, but I think we either forget or just don't know how many cases they weigh in on in the course of a year. Some of them are isolated cases. Some pertain to a particular city or state. But almost all of them can be used as a precedent for future cases. Some lost relevance when another case came along that overrode a previous ruling.
A refresher on how the Supreme Court functions. The Supreme Court is one of the three branches of government. Laws are created in a few different ways in this country. Cities and states can pass their own laws. For laws on the federal level, they are created and passed by Congress, another of the three branches of government. The Supreme Court's function is to interpret laws. Justices are nominated by the President, the third branch of government, and confirmed by the Senate. Justices hear cases not just on a federal level, but on a local and state level as well. Their main aim is to determine whether or not a law is within the confines of the Constitution. Generally-speaking, they don't rule based on the ethics/morals of an issue, which is why there are plenty of examples of them upholding laws that most of us would find reprehensible.
Theoretically, Supreme Court justices are impartial. They interpret the law as it pertains to the Constitution and use only their knowledge and intellect. The problem though, is that Supreme Court justices are humans who interpret the law based on their own life experiences and opinions. They have feelings and those play a part in their decision-making. This is why we see conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning judges and why a balanced group would be considered ideal. When the Court leans one way over the other, the rulings tend to follow whatever the majority is.
My research of the rulings regarding people of color and civil rights showed two distinct patterns. For black, Latinx, Asian, and Arab Americans, the Supreme Court rulings have largely been a case of "two steps forward, one step back." But they have ultimately, pressed forward, towards greater equality for all Americans. It has been a "slow but steady" pace, but it has moved forward, thus far.
Yick Wo v. Hopkins
In this case from 1886, we have a case where institutional racism on a local level(San Francisco), was challenged and successfully dismantled by the Supreme Court. San Francisco had passed a law about the need for people running laundry businesses in wooden buildings to have a license to be in business legally. Then in order to exclude Chinese Americans from running the businesses, the city refused to issue licenses to them, thus allowing the city to shut them down for running illegal businesses. The Supreme Court ruled that it was a violation of the 14th Amendment for such a practice by the city, and San Francisco was forced to stop. This is a great example of something seemingly race-neutral, the need for licenses, being enforced in a racist manner, and adversely affecting one group of people over another.
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
In 1923, an Indian man sued the United States in order to become a naturalized citizen. Based on an act from 1906, only white people and people of African decent could qualify to become naturalized citizens of the United States. Thind argued that as a person of Aryan decent, he was in fact, white. The Supreme Court ruled that although he was Aryan, he wasn't Caucasian, and that was what truly determined whiteness in this nation. Therefore, Thind was not white and did not qualify for naturalization.
Smith v. Allwright
This 1944 case deals with voter disenfranchisement in the state of Texas for voters of color. The Democratic party had long ruled the state of Texas and had determined themselves to be a private organization who could make their own rules of who was allowed or not allowed to participate in the primaries. Because of other forms of disenfranchisement, the Democratic primary was the only one available to voters of color. The Supreme Court ruled that this was in fact discrimination based on race and the Democratic party was forced to open the primaries to all voters.
The above are examples of the give and take of fairness and movement forward for most people of color in the United States. For Native Americans, however, with a very few small exceptions, the Supreme Court has been used to further oppress and marginalize them. One could even say that it's been weaponized to inflict maximum harm to them. My personal theory is that in order to continue justifying our presence here and what we did in order to take over this land, laws and their interpretation have always erred on the side of the United States. To give too many rights to Native Americans would have been seen as de-legitimizing our presence here.
Elk v. Wilkins
This case from 1884 declared that Native Americans could not be considered citizens of the United States because they lived on reservations and were therefore loyal only to their tribes. The citizenship of Native Americans would be permanently decided by other means, but it is still technically on the books as the only ruling the Supreme Court has ever made regarding citizenship of Native Americans.
Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States
A 1955 case determined that a subtribe of the Tlingit people of Alaska had no right to financial compensation from the materials taken from their land by white people, because they weren't a tribe of their own.
Menominee Tribe v. United States
In a rare victory in 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a tribe even though they were no longer legally recognized by the federal government.
Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones
This case from 1973 was a bit of a draw. The Court concluded that the federal government had the right to tax forms of business on tribal land, but that they could not tax the actual land itself.
Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe
In what I could consider an extremely dangerous precedent set in 1978 in this case, the Supreme Court ruled that tribes were not allowed to prosecute non-tribal members on reservations, regardless of whatever crimes they may have committed on the reservation. This has effectively given non-Native people carte blanche to go onto reservations and commit whatever crimes they desire, without facing prosecution. When we hear stories of Native women being murdered or disappearing from their land, we can most likely thank this ruling for why it happened and why, if a person is ever caught, very little is bound to be done about it.
Though the Supreme Court hasn't made as many civil-rights-related rulings in the last couple of decades compared to the 1950's and 60's, there are still some being made. There will most likely always be race-based cases to be heard, sadly. Just last year, the Supreme Court upheld Trump's ban on several predominantly Muslim nations. While Muslims are not a race of people, the fact that all of the nations on the list are largely non-white nations, I am including it as an example. The Supreme Court voted along their liberal/conservative leanings to uphold the majority of Trump's ban.
With the retirement of one liberal justice and the confirmation of a conservative justice in his place, the court now leans conservative. This doesn't bode well for people of color hoping to find justice in the highest court in the land. Of course, only time will tell how all of this plays out. From what I read of the cases, so much of it depended not on the actual rightness or wrongness of the case, but in how well the case was presented. People fighting for civil rights will have to make sure to present air-tight cases that leave little to refute.
This brief look at the Supreme Court and some of their rulings over the centuries has made a couple points stand out to me. First: While the president is an important figure in this nation, who we elect to the Senate is just as important, if not even more important, in the long run. Congress is often a balancing act for the POTUS so that the Supreme Court doesn't even have to get involved for most of it. Electing people who will confirm the best candidates to the highest court in the land is vital to our nation. Second: The people making the laws will always make them so they work out in their own favor. This means that it's also extremely important for people of color to be a part of every decision-making process in this nation. From city councils all the way up to the Supreme Court.
I know people talk about destroying this system, and I understand to an extent. But I don't think it's the system that's broken. I think it's the people in the system that need to be switched out for better people. People who use the system the way it was set up, instead of finding ways to cheat it. If the system was actually used the way it was supposed to be used, it would be as revolutionary as burning it to the ground. We have to keep fighting to make that happen.
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