The Individual or Society - a Difficult Choice

Although the pitting of individuals against society is a common theme throughout literature as well as history itself, its perceived outcome has not always been constant. In the beginning of the past century, individuals throughout America shared the dream of assimilating individuals to the norm of society. However, through the examination of several Supreme Court Cases, it is clear that, recently, public opinion has taken a very different, and more liberal, approach to this classic topic. Individuals across the nation have been and currently are aiming to expand the moral boundaries of society in order to achieve further personal freedom in what is called the American Dream. By observing achievement of freedom in different groups of people, including African Americans and women, through the victory of Supreme Court Cases, it is clear that the American Dream has evolved, and will continue to be evolving, to cater to the liberation of all individuals from the grasp of society.

Before the liberalism of today, the American Dream of nearly a century ago was heavily focused on containing individual freedom, as seen by two specific court cases. In 1896, African Americans received a blow with the verdict of the Supreme Court Case, Plessy v. Ferguson. In this case, a black man named Homer Plessy, who performed an act of civil disobedience by boarding a “white only” railroad car, was sentenced to jail by judge John Ferguson. When the case went to the Supreme Court, six out of the seven other justices sided with Justice Brown who stated:

“...equal rights cannot be secured except by an enforced commingling of the two races… If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane” (United States).

Clearly, the verdict supported the American vision of a ‘separate but equal’ society that heavily restricted blacks and denied them of the luxuries of the whites. Similarly, this socially restrictive mindset also applied to women of the early nineteenth century. In the case of Adkins v. Children's Hospital, a female elevator operator at the Children’s Hospital in D.C. fought against a wage board member, Jesse Adkins, who refused to comply with the minimum wage law. Although the Supreme Court Case factually entailed the legality of minimum wage laws, its campaigning turned into a ruthless battle of women’s rights because it was evident that the minimum wage law was the only barrier that protected women from facing unfairly low wages. However, giving the final verdict, Justice Sutherland sided against the women’s rights activists by declaring that:

“The law takes account of the necessities of only one party to the contract. It ignores the necessities of the employer by compelling him to pay not less than a certain sum not only

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