The Supreme Court has set its agenda for the week and will hear arguments on two cases involving civil rights. The first case involves the strip search of a young girl by school administrators hot in pursuit of...ibuprofen. They had received a tip that she was distributing, but turned up nothing in their search of the honor student. While this seems like a blatant and outrageous violation of the girl's fourth amendment rights, the Court has upheld such searches and allows the court to revisit the issue of whether civil rights can be limited at the schoolhouse door in order to protect the health, safety, or morals of the children within.

Next on the docket is a look at affirmative action in practice in the city of New Haven, Connecticut. The court will hear arguments on behalf of several firefighters (mostly white, but one is Latino) who feel that the city violated their rights to equal opportunity for work by eliminating a test that put firefighters who passed the exam on track for promotion. One of the firefighters, who had severe dyslexia, got tutoring and studied for thirteen hours a day and passed it. But no African American candidates on the firefighting force passed it, which prompted the city of New Haven to eliminate the test on the ground that it showed a gross disparity of opportunity for black firefighters than for whites.

Joining The Takeaway to discuss these cases and more is Kenji Yoshino, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Law at NYU law school.

Today we’re kicking off our series, “The Color of Money,” in an effort to examine how the economic downturn is affecting minorities. We’re starting the conversation with a look at modern day debtors’ prison—a 19th century relic that is alive and well in parts of 21st century America. While imprisonment for debt was officially abolished in the 1800s, for Edwina Nowlin, it is a harsh reality. Her teenage son was kept in prison until she could come up with the funds to pay the court-ordered $104/month fee. When she couldn't pay, she was sent to jail for 30 days. It took a lawsuit by the ACLU of Michigan to get her out.

With unemployment rates higher among African Americans and Hispanics, and the median income about $20,000 lower than it is for whites, these groups run a greater risk of falling into debt and bearing the consequences. Joining us to talk about these penalties and the rise of debtors' prisons is Stephen Bright. He’s the president and senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights. He also teaches at Yale and Georgetown Law School .

Iowans spent the weekend reacting to the Varnum v. Brien court decision that made same-sex marriage legal in their state. On Friday, Iowa's Supreme Court unanimously ruled in a case brought by gay rights group Lambda Legal and threw out a law that said marriage could only be between a man and a woman. The Hawkeye State now joins Massachusetts and Connecticut as the only places in the nation where same-sex marriages are legal. While some Iowans plan their weddings, others plan to launch a campaign to amend the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Iowa Public Radio Statehouse Reporter Joyce Russell joins us with the details.

Read the full opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court.
Read a summary of the decision here.

Today, California’s Supreme Court takes up the issue of whether Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that effectively banned gay marriage in that state, is legal or not. The hotly-contested proposition passed last year and heads to the court today over questions of constitutionality. The courthouse should be a spectacle as protesters on both sides of the issue rally and even Ken Starr is expected to make an appearance. To tell us more about the gay marriage debate in California and across the country, Kenji Yoshino of New York University Law School joins us.

For a comedic take on the gay marriage battle in California, here's "Prop. 8 The Musical":