AP Gov.: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (test 1)

Citizens United v. FEC

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a U.S. constitutional law case dealing with the regulation of campaign spending by organizations. The United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation.

civil disobedience

Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power.

Lemon Test

Established by Lemon vs. Kurtzman (1971), to pass the test, a law must a) have a primarily secular purpose; b) its principal effect must neither aid nor inhibit religion,, and c) it must not create excessive entanglement between government and religion. In Lemon vs. Kurtzman, the Court struck down a Pennsylvania law reimbursing parochial schools for textbooks and teacher salaries

Griswold v. Connecticut

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965),[1] is a landmark case in the United States in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as a right to "protect[ion] from governmental intrusion."

US v. Winsdor

United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. ___ (2013) (Docket No. 12-307), is a landmark civil rights case[1][2][3] in which the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage" and "spouse" to apply only to heterosexual unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment; Justice Kennedy wrote: "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity."[4]

Affirmative Action

a policy designed to correct the effects of past discrimination, often by having "quotas" for certain racial/ethnic groups, or taking into account diversity in applications

intermediate scrutiny

Intermediate scrutiny is a test used in some contexts to determine a law's constitutionality. To pass intermediate scrutiny, the challenged law must further an important government interest by means that are substantially related to that interest.

Lawrence v. Texas

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. The Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory. The Court, with a five-justice majority, overturned its previous ruling on the same issue in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute and did not find a constitutional protection of sexual privacy.

Reed v. Reed

Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), was an Equal Protection case in the United States in which the Supreme Court ruled that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes.

University of California v. Bakke

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy.

Schenck v. US

Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), is a United States Supreme Court decision concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in a famous opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., concluded that defendants who distributed leaflets to draft-age men, urging resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense. The First Amendment did not alter the well-established law in cases where the attempt was made through expressions that would be protected in other circumstances. In this opinion, Holmes said that expressions which in the circumstances were intended to result in a crime, and posed a "clear and present danger" of succeeding, could be punished.

strict scrutiny

Strict scrutiny is a form of judicial review that courts use to determine the constitutionality of certain laws. To pass strict scrutiny, the legislature must have passed the law to further a "compelling governmental interest," and must have narrowly tailored the law to achieve that interest.

Hatch Act

The Hatch Act of 1939, officially An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law whose main provision prohibits employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president, vice-president, and certain designated high-level officials of that branch, from engaging in some forms of political activity.

Incorporation

The Supreme Court, in Gitlow vs. New York (1925), and subsequent cases has interpreted the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to apply the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to state and local governments (thus, incorporation)

Establishment Clause (of the Constitution)

creates a "wall of separation between Church and State." Because the Church and government are separate in the US, Congress cannot establish any religion as the national religion, nor favor one religion over another, nor tax American citizens to support any one religion.

Schenck vs. United States (1919)

established the clear-and-present-danger test

symbolic speech

flag burning is protected by the Constitution (Texas vs. Johnson, 1989), but draft card burning is not (United States vs. O'Brien, 1968)

Free Exercise Clause (of the Constitution)

guarantees the right to practice any religion or no religion at all. The Court has ruled that while religious belief is absolute, the practice of those beliefs may be restricted, especially if those practices conflict with criminal laws

Substantive Due Process

involves the policies of government or the subject matter of the laws, determining whether the law is fair or if it violates constitutional protections

no ex post facto laws

laws applied to acts committed before the law's passage are unconstitutional

Equal Protection Clause (of the 14th Amendment)

provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws"

Due Process Clause (of 5th and 14th Amendments)

says that the government cannot deprive a person of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Engel v. Vitale (1962)

the Court ruled school-sanctioned prayer in public schools is unconstitutional

Gideon v. Wainright (1963)

the Court ruled that in state trials, those who cannot afford an attorney will have one provided by the state, overturning Betts v. Brady

Exclusionary Rule

the Court's effort to deter illegal police conduct by barring from court evidence that was obtained illegally (without a warrant)

no prior restraint

the Government cannot explicitly restrain a newspaper or other publication form from publishing something, but jurisdiction can follow the publication of certain materials, should they be deemed "obscene" or otherwise unfit for print (clear-and-present-danger)

Brown vs. Board of Education (1954)

the Supreme Court overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision, ruling that "separate but equal" is unconstitutional

Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

the Supreme Court upheld the Jim Crow laws by allowing separate facilities for the different races if those facilities were equal. This created the "separate but equal" doctrine.

Gitlow v. New York

the court applied the protections of free speech to the states under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

Procedural Due Process

the method of government action or how the law is carried out, according to established rules and procedures

pure speech

the most common form or speech, verbal speech; given the most protection by the courts

civil rights

the positive acts of government, designed to prevent discrimination and provide equality before the law

eminent domain

this right allows government to take property for public use but also requires that government provide just compensation for that property

civil liberties

those rights that belong to everyone; they are protections against government and are guaranteed by the Constitution, legislation, and judicial decisions

speech plus

verbal and symbolic speech used together, such as a rally and then picketing; may also be limited

self-incrimination and double jeopardy

you are protected against these in the Bill of Rights

no bill of attainder

you cannot be punished without a trial

writ of habeas corpus

you must be brought before the court and informed of charges against you