Chapter 5: Civil Rights and Public Policy

Voting Rights Act of 1965

1) A law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African American suffrage. 2) Under the law, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were registered, and the number of African American elected officials increased dramatically.

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

1) A law passed in 1990 that requires employers and public facilities to make "reasonable accommodations" for people with disabilities and prohibits discrimination against these individuals in employment. 2) Passed by Congress in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the nation's first comprehensive civil rights law addressing the needs of people with disabilities, prohibiting discrimination in employment, public services, public accommodations, and telecommunications.

equal protection of the laws

1) A phrase in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution requiring that states guarantee the same rights, privileges, and protections to all citizens. 2) The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its territory the equal protection of the laws. This means that a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances.

Poll taxes

1) Small taxes levied on the right to vote. This method was used by most Southern states to exclude African Americans from voting. Poll taxes were declared void by the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964. 2) A poll tax is a tax levied as a prerequisite for voting. After Reconstruction, the twelve-year period of rebuilding that followed the American Civil War, many southern states passed poll taxes in an effort to keep African Americans from voting.

Thirteenth Amendment

1) The Constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude. 2) The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution is important because it abolished slavery in all American states.

fourteenth amendment

1) The constitutional amendment adopted after the Civil War that states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" 2) the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War, including them under the umbrella phrase "all persons born or naturalized in the United States."

Fifteenth Amendment

1) The constitutional amendment adopted in 1870 to extend suffrage to African American. 2) The 15th Amendment was important because it gave African American men the right to vote. It was passed in 1870 and stated that the right to vote was guaranteed to any person no matter their race, color or "previous condition of servitude."

Nineteenth Amendment

1) The constitutional amendment adopted in 1920 that guarantees women the right to vote. 2) the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote—a right known as woman suffrage. At the time the U.S. was founded, its female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote.

Twenty-fourth Amendment

1) The constitutional amendment passed in 1964 that declared poll taxes void in federal elections 2) The 24th amendment is important because African Americans in the South faced significant discrimination and could not vote for elected officials that would work to end the discrimination. Although the poll tax was never a large sum of money, it was just enough to stop poor African Americans and whites from voting.

civil rights

1) The rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality. 2) Civil rights ensure every human being receives equal treatment. Civil rights are based on specific legally protected characteristics, such as race, gender, and disability.

white primary

1) White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern states of the United States of America in which only white voters were permitted to participate. 2) White primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in many Southern states after 1890.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

1) a landmark piece of civil rights and US labor law legislation in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 2) ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement.

affirmative action

1) a policy designed to give special attention to or compensatory treatment for members of some previously disadvantaged group. 2) It is important because the gaol is to move beyond equal opportunity toward equal results

Equal Rights Amendment

1) a proposed amendment to the US Constitution stating that civil rights may not be denied on the basis of one's sex. 2) The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed modification to the US constitution granting equal rights to women. After its passage through the Houses in 1972, it was sent to the State for ratification.

suffrage

1) the legal right to vote, extended to African American by the Fifteenth Amendment, to women by the Nineteenth Amendment, and to 18 to 20 years olds by the Twenty sixth Amendment. 2) Women vote today because of the woman suffrage movement, a courageous and persistent political campaign which lasted over 72 years, involved tens of thousands of women and men, and resulted in enfranchising one-half of the citizens of the United States.

Korematsu v. United States

A 1944 Supreme Court decision that upheld as constitutional the internment of more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent in encampments during World War 2.

Hernandez v. Texas

A 1954 Supreme Court decision that extended protection against discrimination to Hispanics.

Regents of the University of California v. Bake

A 1978 Supreme Court decision holding that a state university could weight race or ethnic background as one element in admissions but could not see aside places for members of particular racial groups

Adarand Constructors v. Pena

A 1995 Supreme Court decision holding that federal programs that classify people by race, even for an ostensibly benign purpose such as expanding opportunities for minorities, should be presumed to unconstitutional

Plessy v. Ferguson

An 1896 Supreme Court decision that provide a constitutional justification for segregation by ruling that a Louisiana law requiring "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" was constitutional.

Scott v. Sandford

The 1857 Supreme Court decision ruling that a slave who had escaped to a free state enjoyed no rights as a citizen and that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories.

Brown v. Board of Education

The 1954 Supreme Court decision holding that school segregation was inherently unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. This case marked the end of legal segregation in the Unit d States.

Craig v. Brown

The 1976 ruling in which the Supreme Court established the "intermediate scrutiny" standard for determining gender discrimination.

Reed v. Reed

The landmark case in 1971 in which the Supreme Court for the first time upheld a claim of gender discrimination.