Unit 4 Glossary Terms Flashcards
What is Equality of Opportunity?
All persons have the right to compete and succeed, based on ability.
What is Equality of Results?
All persons should get equal financial rewards.
What are Natural Rights?
Rights of all citizens to dignity and self-worth.
What is Equality of Condition?
All persons should get an even start in the race for success.
What was the Kerner Commission?
The Commission created by President Johnson that concluded that America was rapidly becoming two societies (black and white) separate and unequal.
What is Rational Classification?
A classification lacking any discrimination and based on objective evidence.
What is Suspect Classification?
Classification based on racial or national origin.
What is Quasi-Suspect Classification?
A classification that categorizes persons in questionable ways (illegitimacy or sex).
What was the significance of Brown v. Board of Education?
Supreme Court decision of 1954 that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson.
What was Plessy v. Ferguson?
Supreme court decision of 1896 that legalized the separate but equal doctrine.
What is the Voting Rights Act (1965)?
Legislation that outlawed state laws that had effectively kept blacks from the polls.
What is the Civil Rights Act (1964)?
Legislation that forbade racial discrimination in a variety of ways.
What are Jim Crow Laws?
General name for segregation laws.
What is De Jure Segregation?
Segregation by law – now virtually a thing of the past.
What is De Facto Segregation?
Segregation that exists in fact, in reality, by virtue of residential patterns and other factors, even though it is legally banned.
What is a Poll Tax?
A head tax that was used as a prerequisite for voting. The 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting in federal elections.
What is a Majority-Minority District?
A congressional district created to include a substantial number of minority votes; ruled constitutional so long as race is not the sole factor.
What is Affirmative Action?
Presidential executive orders and Congressional laws that required states to create programs to overcome past discrimination against women and minorities.
What was the Bakke (Bach-A) Case?
Supreme Court decision (1978) that challenged affirmative action programs based on quotas.
What is a Class Action Suit?
Judicial ruling that applied to a large group of plaintiffs (a class).
What is Women’s Suffrage?
The right of women to vote.
What is Social Policy?
The actions taken by the government to meet minimal human needs in nutrition, housing, education, health care, and public safety.
What is an Unfunded Mandate?
The practice where one level of government (federal) requires another level of government (state or local) to offer a program of service without providing full or partial funding to offset the cost of implementation.
What was the New Deal?
A series of relief programs established by the federal government during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to stimulate the economy and put people back to work.
What is the Social Security Act?
The original act (1935) and subsequent amendments established an insurance system supported by employee and employer taxes which provide pensions for retired workers, financial support for disabled workers and for children of deceased or disabled workers, and health insurance of retired and disabled persons.
What is an Entitlement Program?
Programs which provide a specified set of benefits as a matter of right to all who meet the criteria established by law.
What is a Transfer Program?
A practice which utilizes special purpose taxes currently paid by one segment of society to fund current benefits for another group. Today, Social Security taxes paid by young workers pay for benefits currently received by retirees.
What was the Great Society?
President Lyndon Johnson’s mid-1960s broad based social and economic policies aimed at ending poverty and racial prejudice and making educational opportunities available to all children.
What is Medicare?
The national health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.
What is Medicaid?
A medical benefits program for low-income persons funded largely by the federal government but administered and partially funded by the states.
What is Universal Health Care?
The provision of health care for the entire population.
