Chapter 5 terms

Question 1

Discrimination

Answer 1

Use of any unreasonable and unjust criterion of exclusion

Question 2

Civil rights

Answer 2

Obligation imposed on government to take positive action to protect citizens from any illegal action of government agencies as well as of other private citizens

Question 3

Equal protection clause

Answer 3

Provision of the 14th amendment guaranteeing citizens “the equal protection of the laws.” This clause has been the basis for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and other groups

Question 4

Thirteenth Amendment

Answer 4

One of the three Civil War amendments; abolished slavery

Question 5

Fourteenth Amendment

Answer 5

One of the three Civil War amendments; guaranteed equal protection and due process

Question 6

Fifteenth Amendment

Answer 6

One of the three Civil War amendments; guaranteed voting rights for African American men

Question 7

“Jim Crow” laws

Answer 7

Laws enacted by southern states following Reconstruction that discriminated against African Americans

Question 8

“separate but equal” rule

Answer 8

Doctrine that public accommodations could be segregated by race but still be equal

Question 9

NAACP

Answer 9

Formed in 1909 to promote the political rights of blacks

Question 10

Women’s rights movement

Answer 10

Movement toward women’s suffrage; protest to gain women’s right to vote

Question 11

Nineteenth Amendment

Answer 11

Ratified in 1920; guarantees women the right to vote

Question 12

Brown v. Board of Education

Answer 12

The 1954 decision that stuck down the “separate but equal” doctrine as fundamentally unequal. This case eliminated state power to use race as a criterion of discrimination in law and provided national government with the power to intervene by exercising strict regulatory policies against discriminatory actions.

Question 13

Strict/rational scrutiny

Answer 13

Test used by S.C. in racial discrimination cases and other cases involving civil liberties and civil rights, which places the burden of proof on the government rather than on the challengers to show that the law in question is constitutional

Question 14

De jure

Answer 14

Literally, “by law”; legally enforces practices, such as school segregation in the South before the 1960s

Question 15

De facto

Answer 15

Literally, “by fact”; practices that occur even when there is no legal enforcement, such as school segregation in much of United States today

Question 16

Gerrymandering

Answer 16

Apportionment of voters in districts in such a way as to give unfair advantage to one racial or ethnic group or political party

Question 17

Redlining

Answer 17

Practice in which banks refuse to make loans to people living in certain geographic locations

Question 18

LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizen)

Answer 18

Worked to eliminate the segregation of Mexican American students

Question 19

U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)

Answer 19

Ruling that anyone born in the U.S. was entitled to full citizenship

Question 20

Bowers v. Hardwick

Answer 20

Ruled against a right to privacy that would protect consensual homosexual activity

Question 21

Lawrence v. Texas (2003)

Answer 21

Court abandoned stare decisis (Bowers v. Hardwick) and struck down Texas statute criminalizing certain intimate sexual conduct between consenting partners of the same sex (sodomy law)

Question 22

Affirmative action

Answer 22

Government policies or programs that seek to redress past injustices against specified groups by making special efforts to provide members of these groups with access to educational and employment opportunities

Question 23

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Answer 23

Attempted to protect blacks from discrimination by proprietors of hotels, theaters, and other public accommodations; Court declared it unconstitutional

Question 24

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Answer 24

Promotes equal opportunity; went far beyond voting to attack discrimination in public accommodations, segregation in schools and the discriminatory conduct of emplyoers in hiring, promoting, and laying off their employees.

Question 25

Seneca Falls Convention

Answer 25

Starting point of modern women’s movement; drew three hundred delegates to discuss and formulate plans to advance political and social rights of women