A/HRC/49/46/Add.1 6. The objectives of the visit were to identify good practices, in a spirit of cooperation and constructive dialogue, and to address existing gaps in the promotion and protection of the human rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities in the United States, in conformity with the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. More specifically, the purpose of the visit was to identify ways to improve the effective implementation of international obligations in relation to the rights of minorities in the country in areas of particular significance, such as equality and non-discrimination, the right to effective political participation, education and linguistic rights, access to justice and administration of criminal justice and measures to address hate speech and hate crimes. II. Minorities in the United States of America 7. The United States is a nation of paradoxes when it comes to human rights and minorities. 8. The country that has welcomed the world’s tired, poor and huddled masses is also the land where support for slavery led to one of the world’s most brutal civil wars, where racial segregation persisted into the twentieth century and where the experiences of indigenous peoples have for centuries been one of dispossession and even brutality. 9. Religious minorities, especially non-Christian communities, such as Jews, have been subjected to long-standing discrimination and exclusion in employment, membership in social clubs and quotas on enrolment at colleges, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century: a majority of social country clubs in the United States in the 1960s did not admit Jews, and a few still did not as late as 2011.2 Some ethnic minorities, such as the Roma, have been and continue to be largely invisible in official statistics because they are not identified as a distinct category for the purposes of the national census and are thus ignored in policy and other areas, despite probably constituting a population of many hundreds of thousands. Teaching in the languages of minorities was largely banned from 1916 onwards. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, non-white minorities such as Asians were not treated as equals, often facing racist barriers in different parts of the country, while African Americans were held in servitude as slaves for centuries, denied the right to vote and equal citizenship well into the twentieth century, and still face barriers to equal treatment without discrimination. While slavery itself was abolished in 1865, its legacy remains, often buttressed by repressive, exclusionary and discriminatory legislation, policies and practices that prevented, and many argue continue to prevent, African Americans from accumulating wealth and property. 10. While the strict word limit for the present report makes it impossible to delve into these complex issues, it aims to identify key minority issues and explain the relevance of the international human rights obligations of the United States. III. International and national human rights context 11. The relationship of the United States with international human rights law has been contradictory. In 1919, a commission was appointed, under the chairmanship of President Woodrow Wilson, with the task of defining the terms of what was to become the Covenant of the League of Nations. Negotiations on the Covenant led to the first attempt on the part of the international community to incorporate a binding human rights obligation to uphold racial equality in international law. Despite a majority vote approving the provision, President Wilson refused to accept the adoption of the provision by a simple majority. There was a volte-face, however, some 30 years later when Eleanor Roosevelt, as Chair of the United 2 Sacramento; the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas; Fermín L. Arraiza Navas; and the International Human Rights Clinic at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. Gus Garcia-Roberts, “Indian Creek country club’s membership exposed”, Miami New Times, 10 August 2011, see https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/indian-creek-country-clubs-membershipexposed-6532350. 3