A/HRC/15/18 Americans have had economic, social and educational disadvantages, as well as challenges to the enjoyment of basic human rights. 7. Today, African Americans have advanced greatly in education, but continue to have, on average, fewer years of studies than others in the United States. There remain today African American colleges and universities which were set up when segregated colleges did not admit people of African descent. By 1947, about one third of African Americans over 65 were considered to lack the literacy to read and write their own names. The 2004 American Community Survey reported that about 80 per cent of people of African descent aged 25 and older were high school graduates and about 17 per cent had a bachelor’s degree or higher education. The inequality that African Americans have faced is also evident in the area of work, where African Americans are still underrepresented in employment nationwide. Although African Americans have benefited from the advances made over the past centuries, particularly among the educated, lingering effects of historical marginalization continue to exist. B. Framework for the protection of the human rights of people of African descent 1. The international legal framework for the protection of the human rights of people of African descent 8. The United States has signed and ratified two international instruments related to the fight against racial discrimination: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The combined initial to third reports (CERD/C/351/Add.1) of the State to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination were submitted in 2000 and the combined fourth to fifth periodic reports (CERD/C/USA/6) were submitted to that body in 2007. The initial report of the United States to the Human Rights Committee (CCPR/C/81/Add.4) was submitted in 1994 and the combined second and third periodic reports (CCPR/C/USA/3) were submitted to that body in 2005. 2. The national legal framework 9. The United States has demonstrated its commitment to combating racism and discrimination in its wide-ranging and comprehensive legislative framework, which protects and advances the right to non-discrimination on the bases of, inter alia, race and ethnicity. The most important elements of the framework are the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The prohibition upon racial discrimination appears in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, all adopted after the end of the Civil War, and in the Fifth Amendment which, since 1954, has been interpreted as prohibiting the federal Government from racially discriminating.1 The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment ensures that states provide equal protection of the laws to all persons within their jurisdiction and the Fifteenth Amendment provides that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, colour or previous condition of servitude. However, the abolition of slavery is not absolute and unlimited. The Thirteenth amendment allows slavery “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted... within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”. 1 See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954). 5