Is MLK's Civil Rights Act Constitutional?

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I know this is controversial to even talk about that era or MLK in any way critical. But how is all of the legislation passed in that period any bit Constitutional?

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"I think that half a decade of legislation is all unconstitutional. Discuss.". FFS

The vast majority of the mid-60s civil rights legislation has been challenged ad nauseam on Constitutional bases. It is still standing after decades of near-continuous SCOTUS review.

Get a syllabus from your local community college. They probably have a one-semester course on the subject.

if you want to discuss one particular provision, that might be worthwhile.

IIRC a main selling point in the legislation is that it has an expiration date, meaning 'we're just correcting some problems, when the corrections are done we end the programs', and now we have an issue with things not being shut down. This is why we have Harvard being openly racist against Asians and thinking they can get away with it.

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But how is all of the legislation passed in that period any bit Constitutional?

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There were several civil rights bills during reconstruction, and again in the 1955-1965 timeframe. CRA of 1964 gets all the airplay.

"Speaking specifically about anything that demands a private business behave in a specific way, or requires quotas based on skin color to be Constitutional?"
... serious question here: do you believe a private business should have the right to refuse service to someone based solely on their race or skin color?

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... thanks for your honest answer. How do you feel about an emergency room physician refusing to save the life of, say, a 7 yr old black kid, due to his race? Many doctors are their own private business. Not trolling, mind you, but this is a common scenario when people argue this particular point.

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You're right.

And how about a black doctor refusing to save the life of a white kid?

A privately owned utility refusing to cut the power on to your house?

A black realtor refusing to show you a house?

How about your privately owned company where you work hiring a black supervisor who decides to fire you because you're white?

Etc., etc.

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How do you feel about an emergency room physician refusing to save the life of, say, a 7 yr old black kid, due to his race? Many doctors are their own private business

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Wouldn't this run contrary to their sworn Hippocratic Oath and therefore not a tenable scenario, legally speaking?

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do you believe a private business should have the right to refuse service to someone based solely on their race or skin color?

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Under our constitutional system, the federal government has only those powers assigned to it by the constitution, and the constitution does not give the federal government power to dictate to individuals with whom they must do business.

Whether a state government has that power is a different question entirely.

In either case, the market certainly has the power to punish any business which chooses to display such overt racism.

That hypothetical ER physician would probably be violating the Hippocratic oath by refusing to treat that child, and he should lose his license as a result. But the federal government should not compel him. That is simply not the role of the federal government in our system.

The federal government simply does not have the power constitutionally to do everything that “seems like a good idea.“. The notion that the federal government has that much power is what got us into the current mess to begin with.

There was precedent to support the public accommodations portion of the law with respect to hotels, railroads, rental cars, airplanes, etc under the “Right to Travel” as established by Crandel v. Nevada.

The idea was that if you cannot stay in a hotel, buy a plane ticket, etc, you cannot travel. One could argue that similar prohibitions on discrimination by restaurants could also be supported under the same line of thought (if you can’t buy food, you can’t travel).

However, the same logic starts to fall apart once extended to theaters and bars, as you don’t need those to travel. On the flip side, one could argue that access to those spaces are necessary for the freedom of association. What good is a freedom of association if you can be denied a place to gather? However, it also flies in the face of the freedom to choose with whom one associates, so it’s a double-edged sword.

As usual with most sweeping changes in human rights legislation, there are constitutional arguments both for and against which can be made in good faith.

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do you believe a private business should have the right to refuse service to someone based solely on their race or skin color?

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... or gender and bathroom choice? How about the right to refuse business to ex-shoplifters?