By Sally Raskoff

When the U.S. Supreme Court makes decisions, it is to
enforce and clarify the limits of the law. We, the people, rejoice when legal
decisions come our way or compliment our point of view. When those decisions
are not aligned with our way of thinking, we complain.

In 1965, the Civil
Rights Act and other laws that were passed which resulted in advancements
in opportunity and equal rights based on race, ethnicity, and gender. In
response to the Civil Rights and women’s movements, many states eased their
laws restricting abortion and in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court’s  Roe
v. Wade decision improved women’s access to reproductive health care by
legalizing abortion and asserting a woman’s constitutional right to control her
own body and make decisions about her fertility. In June 2013, the U.S.
Supreme Court made two decisions that improved access to marriage rights
for same-sex couples.

In each set of decisions, some people applauded the changes,
some protested.

In terms of the societal effects, the legacies of these
legal decisions are easily seen in the myriad of statistics you have seen
discussed here and elsewhere.

Statistics show positive changes in the achievements of
African Americans and Latinos – even though complete parity has not yet been
achieved. The pay gap between men and women and many other measures of women’s
achievements show some improvement, although complete parity has not yet been
achieved.

Reproductive rights (and improved reproductive technologies)
have supported some of those improvements – and health status – for women as
they have more effective control over their fertility in concert with
professional medical care, especially in times of distress or danger. Same-sex
marriage has already been legal in many states (and other countries) thus we
can expect that the major change as a result of those decisions is that more
couples will be married.

Each of these legal decisions relates to different types of
discrimination that occurred and that were sometimes fueled or accompanied by
prejudice.

Discrimination is a behavior, it is considered to be unequal
treatment of specific people based on their apparent membership or affiliation
in some specific social group. Prejudice is an attitude or idea about a specific
social group that all people in that group have some specific characteristic or
trait.

The Civil Rights legislation changed society by reducing the
potential for discrimination; yet did it reduce prejudice?

Some might say yes, since the very fact of passing such laws
teaches us (and future generations) what is appropriate and what is not.
Studies have found that overt racial prejudice
has lessened over time.

Others might say no, since people may continue to judge
others and assume that group traits exist – and treat people according to those
beliefs.

For example, inter-racial marriage was one of the advances
of the civil rights era – does that mean that people are fine with the fact
that people can marry people of other races? Loving v.
Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court case that invalidated the state laws
prohibiting interracial marriage, was decided in 1967. The last state to go
through the process to take their law off the books was Alabama in 1999 – and
40% of those who voted felt that they should keep the law even though it is
unconstitutional.

Has sexism been reduced as a result of these social
movements and legal decisions? While it is illegal to discriminate on the basis
of sex or gender, we still have plenty of evidence that women are not perceived
as equal to men. Witness the pay gap, achievement differences and barriers in
many different venues, violence and victimization rates, ongoing issues with health
care access, and many other areas of life.

Thus, the recent Supreme Court decisions on same-sex
marriage will allow for such marriages to resume in California – but they will
not necessarily result in eradicating homophobia. Much as we still have people
with racial and sexist prejudice, we will likely still have people with
heterosexist prejudice. We can legislate behavior but not attitudes.

From what you have been learning in your sociology class,
can we reduce prejudice? Can attitudes be changed to better align with our societal
ideals of equality and justice?