chapter 5

Question 1

civil rights focus on

Answer 1

equality

Question 2

civil liberties focus on

Answer 2

freedom

Question 3

With civil rights, you’re fighting against

Answer 3

discrimination. You want equal
treatment.

Question 4

With civil liberties, you’re fighting against

Answer 4

tyranny or oppression. You want your freedom, and you want the government to stay out of your business so you can be free.

Question 5

equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Answer 5

So basically, when state governments pass laws or take official actions, they can’t be discriminating against people for unreasonable purposes.

Question 6

due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Answer 6

That phrase, “due process of law,” basically means that when the government deals with people, it has to deal with them fairly. And if you’re discriminating for an unreasonable purpose, that’s not fair, so it would violate the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause

Question 7

discrimination

Answer 7

simply means we’re treating different groups of people differently. That’s not always bad

Question 8

rational basis scrutiny

Answer 8

applies to almost every kind of discrimination. The only time
this rule will not apply is if the discrimination is based on sex, race, ethnicity, or religion

Question 9

legitimate

Answer 9

You’re in court claiming that the government should make it stop, and the court is going to apply rational basis scrutiny to see if you win or lose.
This rule has a two-part test. The first thing you’re going to look at is the government’s objective. Why are they discriminating against people? What is the goal they’re trying to accomplish? With rational basis scrutiny, the goal or the objective must be legitimate. So, you look at what the government’s trying to accomplish, and you ask yourself, is that a legitimate thing for the government to be concerned about, or a legitimate thing for the government to be involved in? And let’s say the answer is yes. Then you move on to the second part of the test. This part looks at the way the government is trying to accomplish the goal.

Question 10

reasonable

Answer 10

Then you move on to the second part of the test. This part looks at the way the government is trying to accomplish the goal. The question is, has the government chosen a reasonable or a rational
way to accomplish its objective?
Rational basis scrutiny puts the bar relatively low. Think about the high jump in a track meet. If the bar is relatively low, then more high jumpers are going to be able to clear the bar. So, when I say rational basis scrutiny puts the bar somewhat low, it means the government is going to be able to get away with more discrimination. More of its policies will be able to clear the bar because rational basis scrutiny doesn’t really put the government’s action under a strict microscope. We’re taking a look at it, and we’re making sure the government has a legitimate concern and that it’s acting reasonably to pursue that concern. But as long as those requirements are met, we’re going to allow the government to discriminate.
Let me just give you one example. Think about a state where you have to be at least 16 years old to get a driver’s license. That’s age discrimination. If you’re older than 16, we’re going to let you drive on the public highways. If you’re younger than 16, we’re not going to let you do that. The question isn’t are we discriminating? because we obviously are. The question is, is that a kind of discrimination that we’re willing to accept? Let’s say we’re in court and a judge has to make that decision, and the judge is going to apply rational basis scrutiny.
The first question you have to ask (remember the first part of the test): What is the government’s objective? What is its goal? Iassume what the government’s trying to do is make sure that the public roadways are safe by not giving a license to people until they’re mature enough to be able to handle the situations that you encounter when you’re driving on a highway. Well, is that a legitimate interest for the government? And I think the answer si clearly yes. So, you meet the objective requirement. You have a legitimate interest in what you’re doing.
The next thing we look at is the way the government is trying to achieve its goal. What they’re doing is just drawing a line between people who are under 16 and people who are 16 or older. I guess you could argue that that’s unfair to people who are younger than 16 if they’re mature enough to drive on the public roadways. But the question is, has the government taken a reasonable approach to accomplish its goal? Is it reasonable, or rational, to draw the line where they did? Ithink the answer is yes. You could argue that they should put the line somewhere else, and maybe that would be reasonable too. But there’s more than one reasonable or rational option, and I think here the
government chose one of them.
So, if someone went to court challenging this minimum driving age arguing that it’s discrimination, they would lose that case. The court would look at what the government was doing and say, the government has a legitimate interest in keeping the highways safe, and drawing the age line where they did is a reasonable way to pursue that interest. Doesn’t mean that’s the only possible way, but the way they chose is reasonable, or rational, so we’re not going to second guess them. That’s how rational basis scrutiny works.
Now, fi they wanted to get crazy and put the age at 35 years old or something like that, they’d probably fail this rational basis test. They still have a legitimate concern, but the way they’re pursuing their goal is unreasonable. It’s irrational. Of course, no state does that.

Question 11

important

Answer 11

(intermediate scrutiny) Here, we’re raising the bar. Instead of just having a legitimate goal or objective, the government has to have an important goal or objective. Think about the difference between those words. It’s harder for something to qualify as important than to qualify as legitimate. Important is a more restrictive word. So, if we’re applying intermediate scrutiny, the government is not going to be able to get away with as much discrimination as it would if we were applying rational basis scrutiny. Let’s say a judge is applying intermediate scrutiny and finds that the government’s objective is important. Then the first part of the test has been met

Question 12

substantially related

Answer 12

So we move on to the second part of the test; we look at how the government is trying to accomplish its goal. And under this test, the government’s actions have to be substantially related to that important objective. The government can’t just have a loose connection between what it’s doing and what it’s trying to accomplish. The connection has to be tightened up. There has to be a substantial relationship between the government’s actions and the goal the government is trying to achieve. It’s going to be harder for the government to get away with discrimination under intermediate scrutiny

Let’s use the right to vote, for example. There was a time ni this country when state governments did not allow women to vote. Just imagine that policy is still in place today, and someone filed a lawsuit
challenging it. So we go to federal court, and the judge is applying intermediate scrutiny. The judge
would say to the state government, “What is your objective? What are you trying to accomplish by
doing this?” And let’s say the state answered, “We want to make sure that the people who are voting
have enough awareness of political issues to cast an intelligent vote, so that election outcomes really mean something.” Is that an important thing for a government to be interested in? Yes, it is. So they
would satisfy the first part of the intermediate scrutiny test.
Then we would move on to the second part. Look at the way you’re trying to accomplish that goal. Is
your action substantially related to your objective? And the answer is no. There’s absolutely nothing about being a woman that means you cannot cast an intelligent vote. There’s just no connection between sex and someone’s ability to vote intelligently. So, you certainly cannot say that there’s a substantial relationship between the action the government is taking and the goal the government is trying to accomplish-which means this particular kind of discrimination is unconstitutional, and governments cannot do it. The policy fails intermediate scrutiny.
This discussion is really moot because the Nineteenth Amendment grants women the right to vote. But what I was showing is that even without the Nineteenth Amendment, the intermediate scrutiny standard would provide a basis for women’s voting rights

Question 13

compelling

Answer 13

What does the strict scrutiny rule say? The first part of the test, as with the other ones, involves
looking at the objective the government is trying to achieve. With strict scrutiny, the objective must
be compelling. Whatever the government is trying to accomplish, that must be a compelling interest./ ‹Not just something that’s important but of the utmost importance

Question 14

narrowly tailored

Answer 14

And by narrowly tailored, Lmean the government has t o be using t h e absolute minimum amount of discrimination
necessary to accomplish its.goal. If there’s more discrimination than necessary, then the government
has to go back to the drawing board and findia less discriminatory way to accomplish its compelling objective:

Question 15

strict scrutiny (summarized)

Answer 15

If the government is discriminating against someone based on their race,
ethnicity, or religion, that discrimination will be judged by strict scrutiny-whichmeans the
government’s action must be narrowly tailored ot achieve a compelling interest. And by narrowly tailored, I mean the government has to be using the absolute minimum amount of discrimination
necessary to accomplish its goal. If there’s more discrimination than necessary, then the government
has to go back to the drawing board and findia less discriminatory way to accomplish its compelling objective.

Question 16

intermediate scrutiny (summarized)

Answer 16

there’s a policy discriminating against people based on their sex, that will be judged under; intermediate scrutiny, There, the government’s action must be substantially related to an important interest. That bar is lower than strict scrutiny, but it’s higher than rational basis scrutiny. So, it’s still,
relatively difficult for the government to discriminate against people based on sex. But sometimes
they are alowed ot do it because, like Isaid earlier, there are legitimate differences between men and, women that, on occasion, would justify different treatment

Question 17

rational basis scrutiny (summarized)

Answer 17

For all other types of discrimination, the government’s policy will be judged under rational basis scrutiny. Al the government’s going to have to prove there is that its action is a reasonable, or rational,, way to accomplish a legitimate interest. This is the lowest bar of the three, and usually the government wins here

Question 18

Dred Scott v. Stanford

Answer 18

Now let’s shift gears and talk about an infamous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding civil rights. The case is Dred Scott v. Sandford, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 1857, right before the Civil War. This case is well known for a couple of things, but what Iwant you to know about it is the Supreme Court’s decision on citizenship rights.
Dred Scott was a slave, and his owner took him to a territory where slavery was outlawed. As a result of that, he argued that he was a free man. So, when they tried to take him back to the slave state he originated from, he made this argument. He ended up in the United States Supreme Court, and he lost the case. The Supreme Court said black people, regardless of whether they are slaves or free, are not citizens of the United States. And because of that, they do not have the right to sue in federal court. Keep that ni mind as we move on because it’s going to be relevant. Black people are not citizens, and because of that, they have no constitutional rights and cannot sue in federal courts.

Question 19

Reconstruction

Answer 19

Next let’s talk about the Reconstruction amendments. As you know, the South broke away from the Union, lost the Civil War, and they were forced to come back into the Union. When we say Reconstruction, like the Reconstruction Era, it’s that period of time where we’re trying to heal the United States of America and bring those southern states back into the Union—so they start electing
members of Congress again and stuff like that. They start behaving like states in the United States

Question 20

Reconstruction amendments

Answer 20

amendments that were added to the United States Constitution during this period. The purpose of these amendments was to address some of the problems that had led to the Civil War, to try and fix those problems. The Reconstruction amendments are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Sometimes they’re also called the Civil War amendments, but we’re going to call them the Reconstruction amendments. You need to know basically what each one of these did.

Question 21

13th Amendment

Answer 21

outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude, So, as a matter of national constitutional policy, there can be no more slavery in the United States

Question 22

14th Amendment

Answer 22

the rights of people who had been freed from slavery.

Question 23

citizenship clause

Answer 23

The first part of that amendment is what we call the citizenship clause It says all people who are born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens. They’re U.S. citizens, and they’re also citizens of the state in which they reside (14th amendment)

Question 24

due process of law

Answer 24

In other words, the proceedings must be fair. You have to be given fair notice of what they intend to do, why they intend to do it, and an opportunity to argue your side of the issue (14th amendment)

Question 25

equal protection clause

Answer 25

(14th amendment)

So, when states make and enforce policies,,
they have to do it equally. They can’t be discriminating unreasonably against people, for example, because they’re racial or ethnic minorities. Equal treatment under the law

Question 26

15th Amendment (suffrage)

Answer 26

The Fifteenth Amendment is about suffrage—the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment says the right to vote cannot be denied based on someone’s race, color, or the fact that they used to be a slave. So, when state governments are setting voter qualifications, they can do things like, you have to be a certain age, you have ot be a U.S. citizen, you have ot be a resident of the state. Those things are fine. What you can’t do si say, and you have ot be white; because aperson’s race or color cannot be used as a disqualifying factor when ti comes to voting.

Question 27

Ku Klux Klan

Answer 27

This is an organization that was created to terrorize black people, making them fearful to exercise their constitutional rights) We’re talking about a domestic terrorist organization. They used intimidation tactics like planting a cross on someone’s front lawn and lighting ti on fire as a warning, lynching people, stuff like that. And again, the idea was to make black people so scared that they did not exercise the rights that they were given under these amendments. A campaign of intimidation

Question 28

enfranchise

Answer 28

give someone the right to vote

Question 29

disenfranchise

Answer 29

take away someone’s right to vote

four methods.of disenfranchisement: the literacy test, the poll tax, the grandfather clause, and the white primary

Question 30

literacy test

Answer 30

they wrote a test that was designed to be failed. The test was?
hard enough that they were pretty sure people would fail it, and then they coutd use that failure as an excuse to not let someone register to vote

Question 31

Grandfather clause

Answer 31

Grandfather clause means a law that says if you could vote before the Civil War, or if your family could vote before the Civil War, then you don’t have to take this test or pay, this tax, Well, it sounds like it applies across the board, but everybody knows black people couldn’t vote before the Civil War, so they’re the ones that have to pay the tax or take the test. The grandfather clause only helps white people. It’s just a blatant attempt to help white people get out of these requirements that black people are forced to satisfy

Question 32

primary election (or just a primary)

Answer 32

In the, Republican primary, Republican voters choose whogets to run.as the Republican candidates for. senator, representative, governor, and so on. nI the Democratic primary, Democratic voters do the same thing for their party. These primary elections tell us who the opponents will be for each contest on the general election ballot

Question 33

general election

Answer 33

Ageneral election is a contest where people from different parties compete to see who wins public office. So, primary elections get us ready for a general election.

Question 34

white primary

Answer 34

The term white primary refers to the Democratic Party’s practice of excluding black voters from its
primary elections. The Democratic primary was for whites only. We’re talking about the South after
the Civil War. If blacks wanted to participate in nominating candidates, they had to vote in the
Republican primary. This virtually disenfranchised them because the Democratic Party dominated
Southern politics at the time. Voting in the Republican primary meant choosing candidates who had
no chance of winning any statewide election. With the white primary, the Democratic Party said to
black voters, “You have to go vote ni the contest that nominates losing candidates. You’re not allowed to vote our contest—the one that nominates winning candidates.”

Question 35

Plessy v. Ferguson

Answer 35

This case involved a law in the state of Louisiana that
required black people and white people to ride on different train cars

southern states started using these separate but equal policies

Question 36

Jim Crow Law

Answer 36

A law that requires black people to use different facilities than white people is a Jim Crow law—racial segregation.

Question 37

Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada

Answer 37

The state of Missouri decided that it wanted to have separate but equal universities

, they were going to have segregation (a university for white students and a university for black students). They had a law school on the white campus, but they did not have a law school on the black campus yet. Their policy was fi you’re a black student and you want to go to law school, we wil pay for you to go out of state and attend a law school that’s just as good as the one we have for white students. Mr. Gaines was a black man. He wanted to go to law school, and he challenged this policy. He argued that it violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court agreed with him. Now, think about that. Separate but equal is OK according to the Court, yet a black man still won when he was challenging a segregation policy. The reason he won is because it wasn’t equal. tI was separate, right? You’re making him go to a different school than the one the white kids go to. But his experience was not equal. He would have to leave the state to go to law school, but white kids don’t have to do that. They can stay home and go to law school, and the Supreme Court said it’s the separate but equal rule. It’s not just the separate rule. If you’re going to have separate facilities, they have to be equal, and it’s not equal when you make black students go out of state and let white students stay in state. So, in that situation, the state of Missouri has to finish
that law school very fast, or let this black student go to the white law school so that he can have an equal experience

Question 38

Brown v. Board of Education

Answer 38

With court victories like this (dude that didn’t wanna go to Canada AKA Gaines v. Canada), black people were able to chip away at Plessy v. Ferguson and, one piece’ at a time, dismantle the idea of separate but equal. They were eventually able to just get rid of it, and, that’s where we need to talk about Brown v. Board of Education. This is one of the best decisions
ever made by the United States Supreme Court. tI involved one of these racial segregation laws in, public schools in Kansas.

Question 39

de jure segregation

Answer 39

What we don’t h a v e
anymore today is de jure segregation. It’s spelled d-e j-u-r-e, and what it means is segregation that is required by law. In other words, this is Jim Crow. We don’t have that anymore.)

Question 40

de facto segregation

Answer 40

The other kind of segregation is de facto segregation-segregation in fact, just by virtue of where people live. You can go places in the United States today and walk in a classroom and see nothing but black people. Does that mean the government passed a law saying this school is for black people? No, it’s just that black people live in that area. And then you’d probably go somewhere else and see mostly white kids in the school. Again, does that mean the government, by law, segregated them. No. It’s just that the people who live in that other area are predominantly white. So, it’s like we’re segregating ourselves even though the law doesn’t require it anymore. It still exists in fact, and that’s why this is called de facto segregation

Question 41

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Answer 41

This was a law passed by Congress to protect people against discrimination. The parts of it that Iwant to talk about apply to businesses-private businesses like movie theaters, hotels, restaurants, places like that. The Civil Rights Act refers to them as places of public accommodation

Question 42

places of public accommodation

Answer 42

So, you’re doing business, and you’re open to the public. One thing it says is that fi you run a business like this, you;
cannot discriminate against customers! Another thing ti says is that you cannot discriminate in your employment decisions. This is how you treat people who apply for jobs and people who work for you, and ti lays out specific kinds of discrimination that are prohibited. Businesses in their employment practices cannot discriminate against people based on their race, color, national origin, sex, or
religion? So this act is protecting customers against discrimination, and it’s protecting workers and applicants.
Why was the Civil Rights Act necessary? The equal protection clause was already in the Fourteenth
Amendment, and it required that people be treated equally. So, why wasn’t that enough to make these businesses treat people fairly and stop their discrimination? The answer is, the Constitution
only applies to the government. It does not apply to private organizations and private individuals. By) private lmean non-governmental These businesses doing this discrimination were not part of the government, so they did not have to obey the Constitution because the Constitution did not apply to them ni the first place. So, fi you want some legal language that says they cannot discriminate, it has to be passed by law through the legislature. And that’s why Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964-to reach people and organizations that were not reached by the Constitution

Question 43

private

Answer 43

non-governmental

Question 44

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Answer 44

This law made it illegal for states to use discriminatory practices in their voter registration and ni their elections. For example, literacy tests. It outlawed those. The law also created a system where the national government could supervise voter registration and elections in southern states with a history of discrimination

Question 45

pre clearance requirement

Answer 45

That part of the Voting Rights Act, the preclearance requirement, is not effective anymore because the Supreme Court has struck it down. So today, southern states can make changes to their own voting laws without submitting them as a proposal to the federal government and getting permission first

Question 46

women’s suffrage

Answer 46

Now, let’s talk specifically about women’s rights. We’ll begin with women’s suffrage, and that takes
us to the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The Nineteenth Amendment is like the
Fifteenth Amendment, except it deals with sex, not race or color, It declares that the right to vote cannot be denied to anyone based on their sex. We’re telling the state governments, when you set your voter qualifications, an age limit is OK, a requirement that you be a U.S. citizen is OK, a requirement that you be a resident of your state is OK, but you can’t make one of the requirements be sex. You can’t say, and you have to be male. The Nineteenth Amendment prohibits that

Question 47

19th amendment

Answer 47

Now, let’s talk specifically about women’s rights. We’ll begin with women’s suffrage, and that takes
us to the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The Nineteenth Amendment is like the
Fifteenth Amendment, except it deals with sex, not race or color, It declares that the right to vote cannot be denied to anyone based on their sex. We’re telling the state governments, when you set your voter qualifications, an age limit is OK, a requirement that you be a U.S. citizen is OK, a requirement that you be a resident of your state is OK, but you can’t make one of the requirements be sex. You can’t say, and you have to be male. The Nineteenth Amendment prohibits that

Question 48

equal pay act of 1963

Answer 48

This law declares that fi twol people.perform.equal work-in the.same.establishment, then they_have_toreceive equal pay, unless?
there’s some reason for a pay differential that has nothing to do with their sex

So, remember those three things about the Equal Pay Act: They have to be working in the same workplace. They have to be doing equal work. And if there’s discrimination under this law, you cannot fix the discrimination by decreasing anyone’s salary. You can only increase someone’s salary

Question 49

same establishment

Answer 49

(equal pay act of 1963)

The law says the same establishment, bút) it means the same workplace. Not just for the same company, but actually ni the same workplace

Question 50

Title IX (9) of the United States Education Amendments of 1972

Answer 50

This law applies to educational institutions that receive federal
funding

Equal treatment between men and women. fI you’re running a program for men, you have to run one for women. If you have dormitories for men, you have to have dormitories for women, and they can’t be inferior dormitories. You have to spend the same amount of money on each

Question 51

Title VII (7)

Answer 51

Next, I want to talk about a case involving an intersection between sex discrimination and discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals. nI the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there’s apart called Title VI That’s the part that says you can’t discriminate against people based on their race, their color, their national origin, sex, or religion. Let’s focus on the part that says you cannot engage in employment discrimination based on someone’s sex.
Here’s a question: When Title VI of the Civil Rights Act says ot employers you cannot engage ni employment discrimination based on someone’s sex, does that include the fact that someone’s gay or lesbian? And does it include the fact that someone is transgender? In other words, what fi an employer fired someone because they were gay or fired someone because they were transgender? Would that violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act? Would that be sex discrimination?
That case went ot the United States Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said yes, ti would. So, we’re not just looking at the biological sex that was indicated on someone’s birth certificate. Transgender individuals are included here, and also gays and lesbians