Chapter 5 terms Flashcards
Discrimination
Use of any unreasonable and unjust criterion of exclusion
Civil rights
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
Equal protection clause
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
Thirteenth Amendment
One of the three Civil War amendments; abolished slavery
Fourteenth Amendment
One of the three Civil War amendments; guaranteed equal protection and due process
Fifteenth Amendment
One of the three Civil War amendments; guaranteed voting rights for African American men
“Jim Crow” laws
Laws enacted by southern states following Reconstruction that discriminated against African Americans
“separate but equal” rule
Doctrine that public accommodations could be segregated by race but still be equal
NAACP
Formed in 1909 to promote the political rights of blacks
Women’s rights movement
Movement toward women’s suffrage; protest to gain women’s right to vote
Nineteenth Amendment
Ratified in 1920; guarantees women the right to vote
Brown v. Board of Education
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.
Strict/rational scrutiny
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
De jure
Literally, “by law”; legally enforces practices, such as school segregation in the South before the 1960s
De facto
Literally, “by fact”; practices that occur even when there is no legal enforcement, such as school segregation in much of United States today
Gerrymandering
Apportionment of voters in districts in such a way as to give unfair advantage to one racial or ethnic group or political party
Redlining
Practice in which banks refuse to make loans to people living in certain geographic locations
LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizen)
Worked to eliminate the segregation of Mexican American students
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)
Ruling that anyone born in the U.S. was entitled to full citizenship
Bowers v. Hardwick
Ruled against a right to privacy that would protect consensual homosexual activity
Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
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)
Affirmative action
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
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Attempted to protect blacks from discrimination by proprietors of hotels, theaters, and other public accommodations; Court declared it unconstitutional
Civil Rights Act of 1964
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.
Seneca Falls Convention
Starting point of modern women’s movement; drew three hundred delegates to discuss and formulate plans to advance political and social rights of women
