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America’s antidiscrimination legislation also applies to certain immigrant groups, and has
thus had an impact on Hispanics and, to a lesser extent, Asians. Affirmative action plans for
university admissions have generally lumped Hispanics with African Americans as
beneficiaries of preferential treatment. The inclusion of Hispanics in such plans has
generated controversy above and beyond the basic divisions over giving preference based
on group identity. Some question whether Hispanics and other immigrant groups should
be included in programs originally designed to compensate for the historical injustices
endured by black Americans during and after slavery.
While 19 states, the District of Columbia, and numerous municipalities have enacted laws
barring discrimination based on sexual orientation, federal law in this area offers nothing
comparable to the antidiscrimination legislation covering race, religion, ethnicity, sex, age,
disability, and pregnancy. As this report was finalized in November 2007, the U.S. House
of Representatives passed, 235 to 184, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. If cleared
by the Senate and signed into law, it would grant broad protections against discrimination
in the workplace for gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals. Opinion surveys show that a
plurality of Americans oppose discrimination against homosexuals, but a majority still
reject same-sex marriage, a matter with which state legislatures and the courts continue to
grapple.
Religious Freedom After 9/11

The American tradition of tolerance and protection for religious minorities has held firm
despite a measure of popular resentment aimed at Muslims in the wake of the 2001
terrorist attacks. Muslims, like Catholics, Jews, and adherents of other faiths and
denominations, are free to practice their religion in what remains a predominantly
Protestant country. While new policies established under the PATRIOT Act allow federal
authorities to monitor religious institutions, there have been few complaints that the state
is interfering with the normal routines of churches, synagogues, and mosques. Indeed, the
religious life of today’s American is robust, with the one of the highest rates of regular
attendance at religious services in the developed world. Aside from the unhappiness in the
Sikh community in the summer of 2007, when airport security-screening procedures were
extended to head coverings including the turbans worn by Sikh men, the United States has
largely avoided major controversies of the sort that have erupted in some European
countries over the wearing of headscarves, veils, or other items that have a religious
significance. Likewise, the American tradition of church-state separation has been
maintained, despite some efforts to weaken it.
Press Freedom

The American media face a number of problems, some of which emerged after 9/11, but
they remain free to collect and report news and information. The press long ago
established itself as an indispensable guarantor of the broader array of democratic
freedoms in the United States. While some have complained that the mainstream media
were insufficiently skeptical of the government’s case for the invasion of Iraq, the press has
been notably independent and vigorous in its overall reporting on controversial aspects of
the war on terrorism. Major newspapers and television networks have devoted extensive
coverage to the administration’s surveillance program, the detention of terrorism suspects
in foreign jails, the prison camp at Guantanamo, and the Abu Ghraib scandal. There was
some debate over the practice of reporters being embedded with American military units

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