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第29课:平等保护

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Hi I’m Craig and this is Crash Course Government and Politics,

大家好,我是克雷格,这里是政府与政治速成班,
and today we’re going to finally get into why many people, including me, think that the Fourteenth Amendment is the most important part of the Constitution.
今天我们将最终探讨为什么包括我在内的许多人认为第十四条修正案是宪法最重要的部分。
At the same time, we will attempt – successfully, I hope – to unravel the difference between civil liberties and civil rights,
与此同时,我们将试图——我希望是成功的——解开公民自由和公民权利之间的区别,
and also try to figure out how the Supreme Court actually looks at civil rights and civil liberties cases.
并试图弄清楚最高法院如何看待民权和公民自由案件。
So that’s a lot.
有很多。
Let’s get this out of the way because we're not gonna have time later.
让我们把这个问题解决掉,因为我们以后没有时间了。
Let's get started.
让我们开始吧。
So we’ve been talking a lot in the past few episodes about civil liberties, the protections that citizens have against the government interfering in their lives.
所以在过去的几集里,我们已经讨论了很多关于公民自由,公民对政府干扰他们生活的保护。
Civil rights are different in that they are primarily about the ways that citizens, often through laws, can treat other groups of citizens differently, which usually means unfairly.
公民权利的不同之处在于,它们主要是关于公民如何通过法律以不同的方式对待其他公民群体,这通常意味着不公平。
Civil Rights protections grow out of the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which reads:
民权保护源自第十四条修正案的“平等保护”条款,内容如下:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
“任何国家不得制定或执行任何法律,使其管辖范围内的任何人得不到法律的平等保护。”
This may seem straightforward,
这看起来很简单,
and in some of the landmark cases that we’ll get to like Brown v.Board of Education, it is,
在一些具有里程碑意义的案例中,比如我们将要讲到的布朗诉教育委员会案,确实如此。
but when you think about it, unequal treatment of specific groups is usually done by private citizens or institutions – like your employer or your landlord,
但仔细想想,对特定群体的不平等待遇通常是由普通公民或机构造成的,比如你的雇主或房东,
and most people, believe it or not, are NOT employed by the government, either federal or state and they don’t live in government housing.
信不信由你,大多数人都没有受雇于政府,无论是联邦政府还是州政府,他们也不住在政府的房子里。
And initially the Supreme Court interpreted the clause to apply only to the state government, not to private discrimination.
最初,最高法院将这一条款解释为只适用于州政府,而不适用于私人歧视。
In the Civil Rights Cases, the Court ruled that the law,
在民权案件中,法院裁定,
“could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based on color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality,”
“不可能旨在废除基于肤色的差别,也不可能执行与政治平等不同的社会平等,”
and they confirmed that as long as the state provided equal accommodations for people of different races, segregation was fine.
他们还证实,只要州政府为不同种族的人提供平等的待遇,种族隔离就没有问题。
This is the infamous “separate but equal” doctrine that was formulated in the case Plessey v.Ferguson.
这就是臭名昭著的“隔离但平等”原则,它是在普莱西诉弗格森案中形成的。
The distinction between social and political equality is an important one, and it provides a principle for looking at discrimination that the courts still use.
社会平等和政治平等之间的区别是一个重要的区别,它为看待法院仍然使用的歧视提供了一个原则。
Unfortunately, it’s pretty complicated and it means we have to look at something that’s kind of confusing, levels of scrutiny and protected classes.
不幸的是,它非常复杂,这意味着我们必须研究一些令人困惑的东西,审查级别和受保护的类。
And we’ll start with protected classes because they are easier to understand.
我们将从受保护类开始,因为它们更容易理解。
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
让我们进入思想泡泡。
So when state law or executive action mentions a protected class, the Supreme Court will almost automatically become suspicious.
因此,当州法律或行政行动提到受保护阶层时,最高法院几乎会自动产生怀疑。
So what are protected classes?
那么何为受保护阶层呢?
Broadly speaking they are what we might think of as “minorities” and this is an important way to conceptualize them.
广义上说,他们是我们可能认为的“少数人”,这是定义他们的一个重要方法。
The Court defined protected classes in one of the most important footnotes in their jurisprudence.
法院在其判例中最重要的脚注之一中界定了受保护阶层。
Here’s the relevant passage:
内容如下:
“Nor need we enquire whether similar considerations enter into the review of statutes directed at particular religious … or national, …, or racial minorities,…
我们也不需要询问是否在审查针对特定宗教、民族、或种族少数群体的法律时也考虑到类似的问题。
whether prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition,
无论对离散和孤立的少数群体的偏见是否可能是一种特殊情况,
which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities,
特殊情况会严重削弱那些通常用来保护少数群体的政治进程的运作,
and which may call for a correspondingly more searching judicial inquiry.”
这可能需要相应地进行更深入的司法调查。”
So here it lays out the categories where the Court is going to pay special attention:
这里列出了法院将特别关注的类别:
when a statute deals with “discrete and insular minorities,” such as religious, or national or racial minorities.
当一项法令涉及“离散的、孤立的少数群体”,如宗教、民族或种族上的少数群体时。
It’s automatically suspect and the courts are going to look at it closely.
自然而然会受到怀疑,法院会仔细调查。
Why?
为什么?
Well this is in the footnote too.
这也在脚注里有说明。
It’s because minorities, by definition, are at a huge disadvantage in the democratic political process –
因为从定义上讲,少数民族在民主政治进程中处于极大的劣势——
their numbers are too small to pass laws that might favor them, and it is easy for groups in the majority to pass laws that will disadvantage groups that are not in the majority.
他们的人数太少,无法通过可能有利于他们的法律,而且多数群体很容易通过不利于非多数群体的法律。
And this gets at the heart of the distinction between civil liberties,
这就是公民自由的核心区别,
which deal with government actions, and civil rights, which deal with majority groups making life hard for minority groups.
处理政府行为,处理公民权利,处理使少数群体生活困难的多数群体。
You may not like this distinction, but it does have the virtue of being based on a principle.
你可能不喜欢这种区别,但它确实有基于原则的优点。
Basically the courts will step in to protect groups that are unable to protect themselves in the legislative process because it will be too hard for them to pass laws in their favor.
基本上,法院会介入保护那些在立法过程中无法保护自己的群体,因为他们很难通过有利于自己的法律。
The way politics works in the U.S. will complicate this, as we’ll see, but as a principle it does make some sense.
我们将看到,美国的政治运作方式将使这一问题复杂化,但作为一项原则,它确实有一定的道理。
Thanks, Thought Bubble.
谢谢,思想泡泡。

29.jpg

That footnote above talks about situations that call for a “more searching judicial inquiry.”

上面的脚注谈到了需要“更深入的司法调查”的情况。
This is known as the level of scrutiny that the courts will apply,
这被称为法院将采用的审查级别,
and it’s not strictly limited to equal protection cases,
它并不严格限于平等保护的案例,
but this is where I’m going to try to make sense of it.
但这就是我要解释的地方。
So the highest level of scrutiny is called strict scrutiny.
因此,最高层次的审查被称为严格审查。
I'd call it super scrutiny or mega-monster scrutiny, but they didn't ask me today.
我把它叫做超级审查或者巨型怪物审查,但是今天他们没有问我。
And this means that the government will have a heavy burden to prove that the law or action in question is allowable.
这意味着政府证明相关法律或行为得到许可的担子很重。
When government action concerns a protected class, strict scrutiny kicks in.
当政府的行动涉及到一个受保护的阶层时,就会进行严格的审查。
There’s a five-step process that the courts go through in examining what the government has done.
法院在审查政府的行为时要经过五个步骤。
First they look to see if there’s a protected liberty at stake.
首先,他们要看看是否有受到保护的自由受到威胁。
Sometimes this is easy, as with religious freedom, but other times it’s hard, as with certain property rights or privacy issues.
有时这很容易,比如宗教自由,但有时很难,比如某些财产权或隐私问题。
Second they look at whether the liberty is fundamental, which again can be complicated or not, depending on what the government is doing.
其次,他们看的是自由是否是基本的,这也可能是复杂的,取决于政府在做什么。
Freedom from incarceration is a fundamental liberty, actually,
免于监禁的自由实际上是一种基本的自由,
it’s basically what we mean by liberty, so a law that specifically incarcerated one group based on nationality would get strict scrutiny.
这基本上就是我们所说的自由,所以一项专门根据国籍监禁一个群体的法律将受到严格的审查。
Unfortunately this did happen, during World War II when Japanese Americans were interned,
不幸的是,这确实发生了,发生在在第二次世界大战期间,日裔美国人被拘留,
but it’s a bad example of strict scrutiny since in that case the court, ruling in the case of Korematsu v.US let the government’s action stand.
但这是严格审查的反面例子,因为在这个案件中,审查过松诉美国政府案的法院让政府的行动停滞了。
Third, they look at whether the law or executive action places an undue burden on the person or group in question.
第三,他们会看法律或行政行动是否给相关个人或群体带来了不适当的负担。
Let's say a state requires literacy tests for voting which can be burdensome or not, depending on the test and how it is administered.
假设一个州要求进行读写能力测试来进行投票,这可能是一种负担,也可能不是,这取决于测试的内容和管理方式。
Fourth, assuming that the first three qualifications are met, the courts look to see if the law in question furthers a compelling government interest.
第四,假设前三项条件都得到满足,法院将考虑相关法律是否会进一步激发政府的强烈兴趣。
In the literacy test example, the government interest might be seen as creating an educated pool of voters, although I’m not sure this would qualify as compelling.
在读写能力测试的例子中,政府兴趣可能被视为创造了一个受过教育的选民群体,尽管我不确定这是否具有说服力。
Fifth, if the court finds that the law meets all the other criteria, it looks to see if the government action in question follows the least restrictive means of achieving the government’s interest.
第五,如果法院发现该法律符合所有其他标准,那么法院将查看所讨论的政府操作是否遵循实现政府兴趣的限制最少的方法。
In other words, is there a less burdensome way that the government could accomplish what it says the law accomplishes?
换句话说,有没有一种更轻松的方式可以让政府实现它所说的法律所实现的目标?
If the answer is yes, then the law is struck down.
如果答案是肯定的,那么早就有相关法律了。
So you can see, this five-part test is pretty, well, strict, and it’s hard for the government to pass it.
所以你可以看到,这个五部分的测试相当严格,政府很难通过。
In practice, this means that if the Court applies strict scrutiny, it means that the governmental action or law in question is probably going to be deemed unconstitutional.
在实践中,这意味着如果法院实施严格的审查,也就是说政府的行为或相关法律可能会被视为违宪。
So that’s strict scrutiny -- not mega-monster scrutiny -- but what about those cases where the government isn’t dealing with a protected class, which is much of the time?
所以这是严格的审查,而不是变态的审查——但如果是政府处理的不是受保护群体的案子呢,而这种情况是占大多数的。
Usually the Court applies what is called the “rational basis” standard for review.
通常法院采用所谓的“理性基础”标准进行审查。
This is the lowest level of court scrutiny,
这是最低级别的法庭审查,
and what it means is that if the government can show that it has a rational basis for its actions, the courts will say they are ok.
这意味着如果政府能够证明它的行为有一个合理的基础,法院会说他们没问题。
As you might expect, this gives the government a lot of leeway with its laws.
正如您所期望的,这给政府很大的灵活性。
In between strict scrutiny and rational basis review is something called midzi scrutiny -- NOPE -- intermediate scrutiny.
在严格审查和理性基础审查之间的是叫做midzi的审查,中间审查。
It’s a harder standard to meet than rational basis,
这是一个比理性基础更难达到的标准,
but it doesn’t mean that the government usually loses, like with strict scrutiny.
但这并不意味着政府通常会像严格审查那样失败。
Why doesn't the government consult me about naming things?
为什么政府不向我咨询命名的问题呢?
Ok, so now we have a sense of what civil rights are, and why the courts look at civil rights cases in the way that they do.
好了,现在我们知道了什么是公民权利,以及为什么法院会这样看待公民权利案件。
It seems like a good time for an example to help make sense of all this.
现在似乎是一个很好的例子来帮助理解这一切。
And there’s no better example than the famous decision in Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka Kansas.
没有比布朗诉堪萨斯州托皮卡教育委员会案著名的裁决更好的例子了。
Although it was not the first case to take on the issue of discrimination in education, Brown v.Board is the most important, because it dealt with public schools.
尽管这并不是第一个针对教育歧视问题的案例,布朗诉委员会一案却引发了争议。董事会是最重要的,因为它处理的是公立学校。
The issue was that Topeka had separate schools for black students and white students.
问题是托皮卡为黑人学生和白人学生设立了不同的学校。
Linda Brown was black and her parents wanted her to attend the white school because it was closer to where they lived and because it was better.
琳达·布朗是黑人,她的父母想让她上白人学校,因为那里离他们住的地方更近,而且更好。
The schools were supposed to be equal in quality under the “separate but equal” doctrine, but they weren’t.
在“分开但平等”的原则下,这些学校应该在质量上是平等的,但事实并非如此。
So after all I’ve told you about how the court decides cases where protected classes are involved –
所以,在我告诉你们法院如何裁决涉及受保护阶层的案件之后
in this case black people who certainly qualify as a discrete and insular minority –
在这个案子中,黑人肯定是一个离散和孤立的少数民族
the interesting thing about Brown v.Board of Education is that the Court pretty much ignored all of it.
关于布朗诉委员会认为法院几乎忽略了这一切。
Their reasoning wasn’t legal or historical, it was sociological,
他们的推理不是法律或历史的,而是社会学的,
based on the idea that separate facilities are inherently unequal because they make the minority group feel inferior to the majority group.
基于这样一种观点,即单独的规定本质上是不平等的,因为它们让少数群体觉得自己不如多数群体。
Although the case didn’t immediately bring about the end of segregated schools –
尽管这个案件并没有立即导致种族隔离学校的终结——
many states engaged in what they called “massive resistance” to prevent school integration,
许多州进行了他们所谓的“大规模抵抗”,以阻止学校融合。
Brown v.Board of Education is still a landmark Civil Rights case.
布朗诉委员会案仍然是一个具有里程碑意义的民权案件。
It showed that the federal government could intervene in something as local as public education when racial discrimination was involved,
这个案件表明,当涉及到种族歧视时,联邦政府可以干预一些地方事务,比如公共教育,
and, more important, it showed that states couldn’t use race as a criterion for setting up public schools.
更重要的是,它表明各州不能把种族作为建立公立学校的标准。
It was the legal basis of what we know as the American civil rights movement,
这是我们所知的美国民权运动的法律基础,
and provided the foundation for the federal civil rights legislation of the 1960s.
并为20世纪60年代的联邦民权立法奠定了基础。
So I got a little into the history there, sorry about that.
抱歉这里我讲了一点历史。
I know this is Crash Course Government and not Crash Course History.
我知道这是政府速成班,而不是历史速成班。
But with civil rights it's kind of hard not to.
但讲到民权的时候,很难不提到历史。
That’s because, unlike with civil liberties which are pretty much defined by the bill of rights, the question of civil rights comes out of the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause,
这是因为,与民权法案定义的公民自由不同,民权问题源于第十四条修正案平等保护条款,
which itself came about because of the Civil War and from the very beginning was a contested concept, and one whose meaning has changed over time.
条款本身是由于内战而产生的,从一开始就是一个有争议的概念,它的意义随着时间而改变。
Because civil rights and equal protection almost by definition involve political activity and protection of minority rights, what constitutes civil rights changes over time.
由于公民权利和平等保护几乎从定义上就涉及政治活动和保护少数群体的权利,因此,构成公民权利的要素随时间而变化。
That’s why, in 2015 people talk about same sex marriage as a defining civil rights issue when 30 years earlier it was hardly mentioned.
这就是为什么在2015年,人们把同性婚姻作为一个界定民权的问题来讨论,而在30年前,同性婚姻几乎没有被提及。
What’s really important is that we understand that civil rights, and their denial, have as much, if not more, to do with us and how we treat each other, as they have to do with how the government acts.
真正重要的是,我们要明白,公民权利以及权利之外,与我们以及我们如何对待彼此都有关系,甚至,就像公民权利与政府执行有关一样。
Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next time.
谢谢收看,我们下次再见。
Crash Course Government and Politics is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.
政府与政治速成班是与PBS数字工作室联合制作的。
Support for Crash Course US Government comes from Voqal.
对美国政府速成班的支持来自Voqal。
Voqal supports non-profits that use technology and media to advance social equity.
Voqal支持使用技术和媒体促进社会公平的非营利组织。
Learn more about their mission and initiatives at voqal.org.
更多关于他们的使命和倡议,请访问voqal.org。
Crash Course was made with the help of these mega-monster scrutineers.
速成班是在这些大怪物监察员的帮助下完成的。
Thanks for watching.
感谢收看。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
strict [strikt]

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adj. 严格的,精确的,完全的

 
specific [spi'sifik]

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adj. 特殊的,明确的,具有特效的
n. 特

联想记忆
consult [kən'sʌlt]

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v. 商讨,向 ... 请教,查阅

 
constitution [.kɔnsti'tju:ʃən]

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n. 组织,宪法,体格

联想记忆
confusing [kən'fju:ziŋ]

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adj. 使人困惑的,令人费解的 动词confuse的现

 
suspicious [səs'piʃəs]

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adj. 可疑的,多疑的

联想记忆
curtail [kə:'teil]

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vt. 缩减,削减,截短

联想记忆
defined [di'faind]

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adj. 有定义的,确定的;清晰的,轮廓分明的 v. 使

 
reasoning ['ri:zniŋ]

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n. 推论,推理,论证

联想记忆
dealing ['di:liŋ]

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n. 经营方法,行为态度
(复数)dealin

 

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