Introduction
The question, "When did certain groups gain more civil rights than others in the United States? Is there a specific law that outlines this?" is rooted in a false premise. It assumes that civil rights were once equally distributed or that certain groups needed a specific law to elevate them above others. That's not how this nation was built. Supremacy wasn't granted by statute—it was embedded into the very bones of American law and society. From the start, certain groups were the default citizens, the full persons under the law, and the political subjects whose rights mattered. Everyone else was defined in contrast to them—excluded, dehumanized, and denied. This history of injustice should not be forgotten; instead, it should serve as a reminder of the work that still needs to be done.
The real question isn't when white men gained more rights. It's when the rest of us began to demand what they never had to earn.
I. White Male Privilege Was the Starting Point
White male privilege, a term used to describe the societal advantages that white men are presumed to have in the United States, was not earned, granted, or conferred later by law—it was the foundation upon which the entire American legal system was built. The United States was not founded on a vision of universal rights. It was founded on a deliberate racial and gender hierarchy, where white, landowning men were the only people the law was designed to serve. Everyone else—enslaved Africans, Indigenous nations, poor whites, women, and later immigrants—were explicitly excluded, silenced, or subjugated.
The Declaration of Independence, often quoted for its lofty ideal that "all men are created equal," defined "men" in the narrowest possible terms. It simultaneously justified the seizure of Native lands and made no reference to enslaved Africans. The Constitution of 1787 cemented white male power by counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation while denying them—and women of all races—any rights of citizenship, voting, or bodily autonomy.
This exclusion wasn't abstract. It was legal, material, and enforced:
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Only white men could vote, own land, serve on juries, hold office, or represent others in court. For instance, the right to vote was systematically denied to African Americans through poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation tactics. Married women were subject to coverture, meaning they had no independent legal identity apart from their husbands.
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Enslaved people were property, not persons, and the legal system was designed to protect slaveholders' rights—not human rights.
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Native sovereignty was erased by force and legal fiction through doctrines like "discovery" and policies like Indian removal.
Even poor white men, though excluded economically, were offered a racialized form of civic belonging that elevated them above people of color. The right to vote and bear arms—denied to Black men and Indigenous people—became badges of racial citizenship for poor whites. In essence, whiteness itself was currency, and maleness was the gatekeeper to full citizenship.
These early legal frameworks did not simply reflect prejudice—they created and preserved it. The law manufactured whiteness and maleness as the standard for humanity and citizenship. Everyone else had to fight, bleed, and claw their way into a legal order that was never meant to include them.
Moreover, these structures were not abandoned over time—they evolved. The exclusionary logic of the founding continued in the legal enforcement of slavery, segregation, exclusionary immigration laws, voter suppression, and mass incarceration. The beneficiaries remained largely the same: white men, especially those with economic or political power. This legacy of discrimination continues to shape our society today, perpetuating racial and gender inequality. The urgency of addressing these ongoing impacts cannot be overstated.
Understanding this history makes one thing clear: white men did not "gain" more rights over time. They started with all of them, and the country's structure was designed to keep it that way. Every legal expansion of civil rights has been a fight to chip away at a foundation that was never neutral. It was a structure built for domination. However, this understanding also points us towards a hopeful future, where we can work together to dismantle these structures and build a more just society.
So when we ask who has "more rights," the answer is not about policy or preference—it's about design.
II. No Law Gave White Men More—Laws Took from Everyone Else
No singular law granted white men additional rights because they never needed one. The entire legal system was structured to benefit them. The legal pattern in U.S. history is the systematic denial of rights to others, particularly in property and housing, the bedrock of generational wealth and stability in America.
Property laws were written to keep land in white hands:
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Homestead Acts distributed land to white settlers, excluding Black Americans and Indigenous people.
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Indian Removal policies turned Native land into white wealth.
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Black Codes and sharecropping after the Civil War re-enslaved Black labor under another name.
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Promised land to formerly enslaved people—forty acres and a mule—was taken back and returned to the white planter class.
In the 20th century, the denial of housing rights became more bureaucratic—but no less violent:
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Redlining, authorized by the federal government, locked Black families out of homeownership.
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Racially restrictive covenants ensured entire neighborhoods remained white.
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The GI Bill and FHA loans helped build the white middle class—while explicitly excluding Black and Brown families.
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Urban renewal and highway construction destroyed thriving Black communities in the name of progress.
Property isn't just about wealth—it's about place, safety, and stability. It's about having something to pass on. White families were given the tools to build that. Others were given eviction notices.
III. Immigration and Naturalization Laws Were Built for Whiteness
America didn't just exclude through property—it excluded through borders. Immigration and naturalization laws have long operated as racial filters designed to protect whiteness as both a legal and cultural identity.
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The Naturalization Act of 1790 made it explicit: only "free white persons" could become citizens of the United States.
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For over a century, courts interpreted whiteness narrowly, denying citizenship to people of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Indigenous descent.
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The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924 enforced racial quotas and outright bans to maintain a white majority.
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In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), the Court ruled that whiteness was not scientific—it was based on "common understanding"—meaning white, European, and Christian.
These laws didn't just control immigration—they controlled who could belong. Citizenship, land ownership, and legal protection—were all shaped by whiteness.
Modern Echo: White South Africans as Refugees
Trump's administration revived this racial preference under a different guise. In 2018, it called for refugee protections for white South African farmers, claiming they faced "persecution" under a Black-majority government. Meanwhile, Black and Brown asylum seekers from Haiti, Central America, and Africa were met with detention, family separation, and deportation.
The message was clear: whiteness still opened doors even when not American. White people still deserved protection. White people still counted more.
IV. Civil Rights Were Never a Gift—They Were Demanded
What white men received by default, the rest of us had to demand through generations of struggle. The 13th Amendment ended slavery in name but left behind convict leasing and mass incarceration. The 14th and 15th Amendments promised rights that were systemically denied. The 19th Amendment enfranchised white women first, while Black women had to keep fighting.
The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were not expressions of national progress—they were concessions to years of protest and sacrifice.
Even these gains were undermined by legal narrowing. Courts required intentional discrimination to prove most civil rights violations. Disparate harm alone wasn't enough.
Disparate Impact and Trump's Rollback
The disparate impact doctrine was created to address this gap—recognizing that facially neutral policies could still cause racial harm. However, in Alexander v. Sandoval (2001), the Supreme Court ruled that only federal agencies—not individuals—could enforce disparate impact under many civil rights statutes.
Then Trump came in and ordered those agencies not to use it.
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HUD weakened its disparate impact rule, making systemic housing discrimination nearly untouchable.
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The Department of Education withdrew Obama-era guidance on racial disparities in school discipline.
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DOJ disavowed the doctrine entirely.
When the courts say only agencies can act, and the President tells agencies not to act, civil rights become unenforceable. Disparate impact didn't just die—it was erased.
V. Not All White Men—But Always White Men First
It's important to acknowledge that not all white men have held equal power, wealth, or opportunity in American society. Class, ethnicity, religion, and geography have always influenced how white men experienced citizenship and access. Poor white men, white immigrants, and non-Protestant whites—Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles, and others—have all, at different times, faced exclusion, exploitation, and marginalization.
But despite these differences, the law and the culture of white supremacy consistently offered white men a racial safety net—a buffer of belonging, protection, and opportunity that was denied to everyone else. Over time, ethnic whites were assimilated into an expanding definition of "whiteness," particularly when they distanced themselves from Blackness, from Indigeneity, and from solidarity with other oppressed groups.
Poor white men were often economically disenfranchised, but they were politically weaponized—used to uphold racial hierarchies through exclusionary voting policies, racial terror, and labor divisions. Their reward wasn't equity—it was status.
Even today, white male suffering is framed sympathetically, while Black and Brown suffering is criminalized. White male grievance is political; Black resistance is dangerous. That is structural protection—and it still functions every day.
VI. Rights Aren't Pie—They're Power
Civil rights aren't slices of a finite pie. They are expressions of dignity, equity, and access to the full protection and benefit of the law. Yet in the American legal and cultural imagination, civil rights for others are often framed as a loss for white men—especially when those rights challenge longstanding systems of racial and gender advantage.
That framing is not incidental; it is strategic. It weaponizes scarcity to turn equity into a threat. Every major stride toward racial justice—from Reconstruction to affirmative action, from school desegregation to voting access, from DEI initiatives to police accountability—has been met with fierce backlash. The fear has never been about fairness. It has always been about control.
Whiteness and patriarchy function not just as identities but as systems of power that police the boundaries of who is seen, heard, and protected. When those systems are challenged, the response is rarely about law. It is about preserving the underlying structure that equates justice with disruption.
An intersectional analysis makes this clear: the closer one is to the margins of race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, and citizenship, the more precarious one's access to legal rights becomes. A Black woman may face compounded discrimination in ways that are invisible to systems built to detect only singular forms of bias. A queer immigrant with a disability experiences systemic barriers that no single axis of identity can explain or redress. These lived experiences reveal that power is unequal, layered, overlapping, and often collusive in its exclusions.
That's why courts routinely narrow civil rights, movements for equity are portrayed as divisive, equity programs are dismantled under claims of reverse discrimination, and history is censored in schools to avoid white discomfort. The backlash isn't proof that the system is broken—it's proof that the system is working exactly as designed.
Real justice demands more than inclusion into existing frameworks. It requires rethinking who those frameworks were built for. It requires questioning why basic protections are still treated as radical demands when applied to people of color, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and disabled people.
So no, rights aren't pie. But power is. And in this country, white men have been handed the largest slice for centuries—not because they earned it, but because the law served it to them. The fight for justice is not about taking anyone's piece. It is about remaking the table so no one has to beg for crumbs.
Conclusion
White men didn't gain more rights through law. They were the law's intended beneficiaries from the beginning. The system was built for them—legally, economically, and politically. For everyone else, justice has been conditional, delayed, and negotiated.
So don't ask when white men got more. Ask when the rest of us will get enough.
Enough recognition. Enough enforcement. Enough power to shape a system that no longer asks us to prove our humanity to be protected by it.
Civil rights in America have never been about fairness. They've been about struggle. And if we are to dismantle the system that was designed to exclude us, we must stop settling for partial reforms and start demanding a full reconstruction.
The question is not when we will be given enough.
The question is: When will we stop settling for less?
Advocacy: From Exposure to Action
Uncovering the legal architecture of exclusion is not enough. We must demand a complete overhaul—strategic, unapologetic, and driven by those who have been excluded for too long.
1. Restore and Expand Disparate Impact Enforcement
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Codify disparate impact into federal civil rights law.
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Reverse Trump-era agency rollbacks.
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Require civil rights offices to collect and act on racial disparity data.
2. Pass Structural Civil Rights Legislation
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Enact the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and laws to address environmental and algorithmic racism.
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Mandate racial equity assessments for all major policies.
3. Demand Reparative and Community-Controlled Justice
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Support federal and local reparations initiatives.
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Empower community-led oversight of schools, police, and land use.
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Fund participatory budgeting and land trusts in impacted communities.
4. Rebuild Legal Education and Advocacy
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Make structural racism a required part of all law school curricula.
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Fund movement lawyering programs, especially at HBCUs and legal aid centers.
5. Organize Across Movements
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Build multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational coalitions.
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Center the leadership of directly impacted communities.
6. Adopt and Enforce the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
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Fully implement CERD as binding U.S. law.
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Withdraw U.S. reservations that neutralize enforcement.
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Require annual racial equity compliance reports from the DOJ and the State Department.
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Empower international accountability mechanisms to monitor systemic racism in U.S. institutions.
The U.S. cannot lead on global justice while ignoring racial injustice at home. Enforcing CERD would bring U.S. law in line with international human rights standards and confront the systemic racism this nation was built on.
We must stop asking the law to see us—and start forcing it to serve us. The system was built to protect white male power. It will not reform itself.
We are not here to fix what was broken.
We are here to build what has never existed: a system rooted in justice, not just law.
Advocacy Letter to Congress: Demand Full Implementation of CERD
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP Code]
[Email Address]
[Phone Number]
[Date]
The Honorable [First and Last Name]
[U.S. House of Representatives or U.S. Senate]
[Office Address]
Washington, D.C. 20515
Re: Urgent Call for Full Implementation and Enforcement of CERD in the United States
Dear [Senator/Representative] [Last Name],
I write to you as a constituent and advocate for racial justice to express deep concern about the United States' continued failure to fulfill its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
While the United States ratified CERD in 1994, it did so with sweeping reservations that undermined the Convention's authority within domestic law. As a result, CERD remains largely symbolic—acknowledged in name but ignored in practice. This contradiction has enabled structural racism in housing, education, criminal justice, health care, and immigration to persist unchallenged.
I urge you to take the following steps to move CERD from principle to practice:
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Introduce or co-sponsor legislation that fully incorporates CERD into U.S. domestic law with binding obligations on federal, state, and local governments.
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Withdraw U.S. reservations and understandings that subordinate CERD's authority to inconsistent domestic civil rights interpretations.
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Establish an independent civil rights monitoring body to assess CERD compliance across all major policy domains.
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Mandate public annual reports from the U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice on efforts to meet CERD obligations.
Adopting and enforcing CERD is not a symbolic gesture—it is a tangible step toward repairing centuries of legal exclusion and racial harm. It aligns our civil rights agenda with global human rights standards and strengthens our moral credibility on the world stage.
Please take bold and immediate action. Let this be the Congress that moved CERD from aspiration to accountability.
Sincerely,
[Your Full Name]
[Your City, State]
[Your Organization or Affiliation, if any]
Social Media Advocacy Content
Twitter/X:
✊🏽 Civil rights are not slices of pie—they're a foundation of justice. White men didn't gain more—they started with everything. It's time to demand equity for the rest of us. #RacialJustice #CivilRights #CERD
Instagram (caption):
America's laws were built to serve white men. Everyone else has had to fight for every right, every protection, every inch of justice. It's time to expose the truth and rebuild a system that centers equity—not exclusion. Demand enforcement of CERD. Demand justice.
Hashtags for any platform:
#EndWhiteSupremacyInLaw #RacialJusticeNow #CivilRightsAreHumanRights #ImplementCERD #EquityNotExcuses #JusticeNotReform
Let me know if you'd like graphics or a landing page to accompany this post.
Vernellia R. Randall, Professor Emerita of Law, University of Dayton School of Law.
