Unit 3: 3.10-3.13

Civil Rights

Policies designed to protect people against arbitrary or discriminatory treatment by government officials or individuals.

Equal Protection Clause

Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment that forbids any state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. By interpretation, the Fifth Amendment imposes the same limitation on the national government. This clause is the major constitutional restraint on the power of governments to discriminate against persons because of race, national origin, or sex.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

An interracial American organization created in 1909 to work for the abolition of segregation and discrimination in housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation; to oppose racism, and to ensure African Americans their constitutional rights.

Nineteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment adopted in 1920 that guarantees women the right to vote.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

Legislation that requires employers to pay men and women equal pay for equal work

National Organization for Women

Founded in 1966, called for equal employment opportunity and equal pay for women. also championed the legalization of abortion and passage of an equal rights amendment to the Constitution.

Strict Scrutiny

A heightened standard of review used by the Supreme Court to determine the constitutional validity of a challenged practice.

Equal Rights Amendment

a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing discrimination based on sex

Title IX

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

an organization founded in 1920 to defend Americans' rights and freedoms as given in the Constitution

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

A letter written by Martin Luther King Jr. after he had been arrested when he took part in a nonviolent march against segregation.

Lawrence v. Texas (2003)

state law may not ban sexual relations between same-sex partners

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy (1994)

Policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service.

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

(1996) Defines marriage as man-woman. No state is forced to recognize same-sex marriage

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

Struck down state bans on same sex marriage. The 14th Amendment requires States to license a marriage between two people of the same sex. States must recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State. (Roberts Court)

Bostock v. Clayton County (2020)

Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Fourteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment giving full rights of citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, except for American Indians.

Fifteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Literacy Test

A test administered as a precondition for voting, often used to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote.

Poll Tax

A requirement that citizens pay a tax in order to register to vote

Grandfather Clause

those who had enjoyed the right to vote prior to 1867, or their lineal descendants, would be exempt from educational, property, or tax requirements for voting.

White Primary

One of the means used to discourage African American voting that permitted political parties in the heavily Democratic South to exclude African Americans from primary elections, thus depriving them of a voice in the real contests. Declared unconstitutional in 1944

Jim Crow Laws

Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

Segregation in schools is a violation of the 14th amendment, because separate is inherently unequal. This was the beginning of the end for all forms of state-maintained racial separation.

Title II

Prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability

Civil Rights Act of 1964

the law that made racial discrimination against any group in hotels, motels, and restaurants illegal and forbade many forms of job discrimination

Civil Rights Cases (1883)

Name attached to five cases brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In 1883, the Supreme Court decided that discrimination in a variety of public accommodations, including theaters, hotels, and railroads, could not be prohibited by the act because such discrimination was private discrimination and not state discrimination.

Heart of Atlanta Motel v. US (1964)

Congress has the right the prohibit racial discrimination in places of public accommodation through the Commerce Clause because the interstate movement of people is "commerce." Even if the public accommodation is of a purely "local" character, Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce extends to local incidents thereof which might have a substantial and harmful effect on that commerce

Plessy v. Ferguson

a 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

White Flight

working and middle-class white people move away from racial-minority suburbs or inner-city neighborhoods to white suburbs and exurbs

Majority-Minority Districts

In the context of determining representative districts, the process by which a majority of the population is from the minority.

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (1978)

the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously upheld busing programs that aimed to speed up the racial integration of public schools in the United States.

Affirmative Action

A policy designed to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities

Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)

Struck down use of "bonus points" for race in undergrad admissions at University of Michigan.

Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)

Allowed the use of race as a general factor in law school admissions at University of Michigan-" in the context of its individualized inquiry into the possible diversity contributions of all applicants, the Law School's race-conscious admissions program does not unduly harm nonminority applicants."

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)

the U.S. Supreme Court declared affirmative action constitutional but invalidated the use of racial quotas .The Supreme Court, in a highly fractured ruling (six separate opinions were issued), agreed that the university's use of strict racial quotas was unconstitutional and ordered that the medical school admit Bakke, but it also contended that race could be used as one criterion in the admissions decisions of institutions of higher education.