Chapter 6 Civil Rights (gov1)

Question 1

Civil rights

Answer 1

The freedom to participate in the full life of the community to vote, use public facilities, and exercise equal economic opportunity

Question 2

Strict scrutiny

Answer 2

The tendency to strike down as unconstitutional any legislation that singles out race or ethnicity, unless the government has a compelling interest in such legislation

Question 3

Quasi-suspect category

Answer 3

A legal category that requires governments to have an important state purpose for any legislation that singles out sex or gender. This is not as strong as the suspect category, which requires strict scrutiny

Question 4

Abolition

Answer 4

A nineteenth century movement demanding an immediate and unconditional end to slavery

Question 5

Missouri compromise

Answer 5

An agreement to open southern territories west of the Mississippi to slavery while closing northern territories to slavery

Question 6

Compromise of 1850

Answer 6

A complicated compromise over slavery that permitted territories to vote on whether they would be slave or free. It also included a fugitive slave law forcing Northerns to return black men and women into bondage and permitted California to enter the Union as a free state

Question 7

Popular sovereignty

Answer 7

Nineteenth century term referring to the practice of putting the question of slavery in a territory to a popular vote by the white male residents of the territory. More generally, it means the right of people to self government.

Question 8

Dred Scott v. Stanford

Answer 8

A landmark Supreme Court decision holding that black men could not be citizens under the Constitution of the United States. It created a national uproar.

Question 9

Emancipation Proclamation

Answer 9

An executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln that declared the slaves in all rebel states to be free

Question 10

Equal protection of the laws

Answer 10

The landmark phrase in the Fourteenth Amendment that requires equal treatment for all citizens

Question 11

Reconstruction

Answer 11

The failed effort, pursued by Northerners and Southerners, to rebuild the South and establish racial equality after the Civil War

Question 12

Literacy test

Answer 12

A requirement that voters be literate; in reality, a way to restrict black suffrage

Question 13

Jim Crow

Answer 13

The system of racial segregation in the U.S. South that lasted from 1890 to 1965

Question 14

Plessy v. Ferguson

Answer 14

An 1896 Supreme Court case that permitted racial segregation

Question 15

Great Migration

Answer 15

The vast movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North between 1920 to 1950

Question 16

De jure discrimination

Answer 16

Discrimination established by laws

Question 17

De facto discrimination

Answer 17

More subtle forms of discrimination that exists without a legal basis

Question 18

Brown v. Board of Education

Answer 18

The landmark Supreme Court case that struck down segregated schools as unconstitutional

Question 19

Freedom riders

Answer 19

Black and white activists who rode buses together to protest segregation on interstate bus lines

Question 20

Free rider problem

Answer 20

A barrier to group or collective action arising because people who do not participate still reap the benefits

Question 21

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Answer 21

Landmark legislation that forbade discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin

Question 22

Black power

Answer 22

A slogan that emphasized pride in black heritage and the construction of black institutions to nurture black interests. It often implied racial separation in reaction to white racism

Question 23

Affirmative action

Answer 23

Direct, positive steps to recruit members of previously underrepresented groups into schools, colleges, and jobs; sometimes involves setting aside positions for members of these groups (known as quotas)

Question 24

Disproportionate impact

Answer 24

The effect some policies have of discriminating, even if discrimination is not consciously intended

Question 25

School busing

Answer 25

An effort to integrate public schools by mixing students from different neighborhoods

Question 26

New Jim Crow

Answer 26

The idea that penal policy (especially the war on drugs) unjustly targets black men and creates disadvantages for the black community by stripping members of full citizenship rights

Question 27

Laws of coverture

Answer 27

An outmoded legal tradition holding that a women’s rights and duties all operate through her husband

Question 28

Seneca Falls Convention

Answer 28

A convention dedicated to women’s rights held in July 1848

Question 29

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

Answer 29

Federal law enforcement agency charged with the compliance with the Civil Rights Act

Question 30

National Organization for Women (NOW)

Answer 30

An organization formed to take action for women’s equality

Question 31

Class action

Answer 31

A lawsuit filed on behalf of an entire category of individuals, such as all people in public housing in a state or all the female managers of a large company

Question 32

Equal Rights Amendment

Answer 32

An amendment, originally drafted by Alice Paul in 1923, passed by Congress in 1972, and ratified by thirty-five states, that declared: “Equality of rights…shall not be denied or abridged…on account of sex.”

Question 33

Reframe the issue

Answer 33

To redefine the popular perception of an issue, to show it in a new light with a new set of costs or benefits

Question 34

Chicanismo

Answer 34

A defiant movement expressing pride in Latino origins and culture in the face of discrimination

Question 35

Racial profiling

Answer 35

A law enforcement practice of singling out people on the basis of physical features such as race or ethnicity

Question 36

Domestic dependent nation

Answer 36

Special status that grants local sovereignty to tribal nations but does not grant them full sovereignty equivalent to the enjoyed by independent nations