Civil Rights Vocabulary

Question 1

What is Affirmative Action?

Answer 1

A policy in educational admissions or job hiring that gives special attention or compensatory treatment to traditionally disadvantaged groups in an effort to overcome present effects of past discrimination.

Question 2

What are Black Codes?

Answer 2

Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War.

Question 3

What is Civil Disobedience?

Answer 3

A form of political participation that reflects a conscious decision to break a law believed to be immoral/unjust by peacefully disregarding it and accepting/suffering the resulting punishment.

Question 4

What are Civil Rights?

Answer 4

The government protected rights of individuals against arbitrary or discriminatory treatment by government or individuals.

Question 5

What is the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Answer 5

Wide-ranging legislation passed by Congress to outlaw segregation in public facilities and discrimination in employment, education, and voting.

Question 6

What is De facto discrimination?

Answer 6

Racial discrimination that results from practice rather than the law.

Question 7

What is De Jure Discrimination?

Answer 7

Racial segregation that is a direct result of a law or official policy.

Question 8

What is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?

Answer 8

Established by the CRA1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination.

Question 9

What is the Equal Pay Act of 1963?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What is the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer 10

Guarantees all citizens receive ‘equal protection of the laws.’

Question 11

What is the Fifteenth Amendment?

Answer 11

One of the Civil War Amendments; specifically enfranchising newly freed male slaves.

Question 12

What is the Grandfather Clause?

Answer 12

Voter qualification provision in many southern states that allowed only those citizens whose grandfathers had voted before Reconstruction to vote.

Question 13

What are Jim Crow Laws?

Answer 13

Laws enacted by southern states that required segregation in public schools, theaters, hotels, and other public accommodations.

Question 14

What is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

Answer 14

Protects against discriminatory pay practices—wage discrimination.

Question 15

What is the Nineteenth Amendment?

Answer 15

Amendment to the Constitution that guaranteed women the right to vote.

Question 16

What is a Poll Tax?

Answer 16

A tax levied in many southern states that had to be paid before an eligible voter could cast a ballot.

Question 17

What is the Separate but Equal Doctrine?

Answer 17

Doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregated facilities may be established for different races and still be considered equal.

Question 18

What is Strict Scrutiny?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What is the Suffrage Movement?

Answer 19

The drive for voting rights for women that took place in the United States from 1890 to 1920.

Question 20

What is Suspect Classification?

Answer 20

Category or class, such as race, that triggers the highest standard of scrutiny from the Supreme Court.

Question 21

What is the Thirteenth Amendment?

Answer 21

One of the three Civil War Amendments; specifically bans slavery in the United States.

Question 22

What is Title VII of the CRA 1964 (Employment)?

Answer 22

Protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

Question 23

What is Title IX of the Education Amendments?

Answer 23

Law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving federal funding.

Question 24

What is the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Answer 24

Law that invalidated the use of any test or device to deny the vote and authorized federal examiners to register voters in states that had disenfranchised African Americans.