Government Chapter 9 Vocabulary

Voting Rights Act of 1965

1965; invalidated the use of any test or device to deny the vote and authorized federal examiners to register voters in states that had disenfranchised blacks; as more blacks became politically active and elected black representatives, it rboguth jobs, contracts, and facilities and services for the black community, encouraging greater social equality and decreasing the wealth and education gap

petition for writ of certiorari

A document which a losing party files with the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to review the decision of a lower court

Civil Rights Act of 1968

Added to CRAo1964, act made racial discrimination in housing illegal and provided protection for civil rights workers. It is also referred to as the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

An organization founded by MLK Jr., to direct the crusade against segregation. Its weapon was passive resistance that stressed nonviolence and love, and its tactic direct, though peaceful, confrontation.

Earl Warren

Appointed in 1953 by Eisenhower, served as chief justice until 1969. Brown v. Board. Warren declared that "separate educational facilities" were "inherently unequal" because the intangible inequalities of separation deprived black students of equal protection under the law.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)

Bakke, a 35-year old white male, applied to the University of California Medical School. Bakke claimed that the school denied him admission because he did not help fulfill a minority admissions quota, reverse discrimination, Court proclaimed that although affirmative action programs are legal, race and gender could not be the only factors

Betts v. Brady (1942),

Betts was denied his request for an attorney,in prison, Betts filed a habeas corpus petitioncourt rejected his petition, he filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court,Court found in favor of Betts, however, it stated that only under special circumstances did the defendant have the right to an attorney in a non-capital case

Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad v. Chicago (1897)

Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad sued the City of Chicago for forcing the company to sell its property to the city for a very low price.violated the Fifth Amendment, which states that private property shall not "be taken for public use, without just compensation." compensation originally offered to the railroad was sufficient. stated that the Fifth Amendment is applicable to the states through the due process clause

League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience

Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).

Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives, Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy".

Harper v. Virginia (1966).

Court forced state governments to incorporate the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, Harper contended that Virginia's poll tax was unconstitutional. The Court agreed, decision prohibited poll taxes in any state or local election

Powell v. Alabama (1932)

Court ordered the state to provide an attorney to poor defendants accused of capital crimes, State law required the appointment of counsel in capital cases, but the attorneys that were appointed did not consult with the boys and merely appeared to represent them at the trial,Court held that the trials did deny due process because the defendants were not given reasonable time and opportunity to secure counsel in their defense.

Gratz v. Bollinger (2001)

Court rejected a point-system plan for undergraduate admissions

Roe v. Wade (1973).

Court ruled that a woman's choice to have an abortion was protected as a private decision between her and her doctor, legalizing abortion for any woman for any reason, up through the first trimester, with possible restrictions for maternal health in the second, and possibly illegal in the third

Grutter v. Bollinger (2001)

Court upheld the "flexible" consideration of race as one factor for admission to public institutions of higher learning

Rosa Parks

December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger, Parks' action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and had recently attended the Highlander Folk School. "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement"

Furman v. Georgia (1972)

Furman was trying to escape from a house robbery, he tripped and his gun fired accidentally. The inadvertent shot killed one of the residents, Court held that states must use stronger guidelines in administrating the death penalty. Following the decision, Congress and 38 states re-wrote and passed new capital punishment laws.

Gregg v. Georgia (1976)

Gregg was convicted of armed robbery and murdering two men and was sentenced to death.Court disagreed with Gregg, stating that the careful and judicious use of the death penalty can be applied if the crime is outrageously vile, horrible, and inhuman. upheld states' rights to impose capital punishment, so long as sentencing is reached separately from determining guilt

Woodson v. North Carolina (1976)

James Woodson of first-degree murder and automatically sentenced him to death. Woodson appealed, Court determined that removing sentencing discretion is "cruel and unusual" and that a mandatory death penalty rule is too rigid and unworkable

Fourteenth Amendment

June 1866, amendment defines citizenship as anyone born in the United States, forbids any state from diminishing the "privileges or immunities" of citizenship, which is the section that struck down the Black Codes. prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without "due process of law" and forbids states to deny any person "the equal protection of the laws."

Robinson v. California (1962)

Lawrence Robinson was convicted of being addicted to narcotics and sentenced to the required prison time. Robinson appealed, claiming that the law was a form of cruel and unusual punishment,Court held that laws imprisoning persons afflicted with the "illness" of narcotic addiction inflicted cruel and unusual punishment and violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments

Lochner v. New York (1905),

Lochner fined 50 dollars for violating a New York statute that prohibited bakers from working more than 60 hours a week or 10 hours a day. Court viewed the statute as a labor law and said that states could not restrict ordinary workers' hours.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Mississippi sharecropper, 1962, she set out to register to vote and was arrested. worked to give black Americans voting rights by working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Organized in the fall of 1960 by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. as a student civil rights movement inspired by sit-ins, it challenged the status quo and walked the back roads of Mississippi and Georgia to encourage Blacks to resist segregation and to register to vote.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Plessy was only one-eighth black, under Louisiana law he was considered black, and therefore required to sit in the"colored" car. Instead, Plessy sat in the "white" car,Court's majority opinion stated that separate railroad facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal."

Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman (1979)

Schools in Dayton, Ohio, had substantial racial imbalance and used "optional attendance zones" that allowed white students to avoid attending predominantly black schools, Court agreed, declaring that the school board's inaction and failure to fulfill desegregation duties showed discriminatory intent

Smith v. Allwright (1944).

Smith, a black Texas resident, was denied the right to vote in the 1940 ounty election official S.S. Allwright, claiming that this law violated the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court agreed with Smith and found the restrictions against black citizens unconstitutional.

Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)

Supreme Court refused to put 14 amendment into laws.

Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857),

Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants —whether or not they were slaves — could never be citizens of the United States, slaves could not sue in court,

Civil War Amendments.

Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments,

executive order in 1948

Truman, abolished segregation in the armed forces and in the federal bureaucracy, split the Democratic Party and spawn the Dixiecrats, a state's rights Democratic Party

United Steelworkers of America v. Weber (1979)

United Steelworkers of America developed a training program designed to educate black workers. Half of the positions in the program were reserved for blacks. Weber, who was white, was passed over for the program, Court disagreed with Weber, claiming that private, race conscious, affirmative action plans are legal as long as they are designed to remedy past discrimination

"Freedom Rides"

Volunteers traveled on buses throughout the South; black volunteers used restaurants, restrooms, and waiting areas that were reserved for whites and white volunteers used the "colored" facilities, challenged the federal government to enforce the anti-segregation legislation that had been sent down by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

last congressional Reconstruction measure, prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection, transportation, restaurants, and "inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement." 1883, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional; the Court asserted that Congress did not have the power to regulate the conduct and transactions of individuals

civil rights movement

led by several black advocates who fought for the basic rights guaranteed their fellow citizens by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, political action, marches, sit-ins, andboycotts to bring attention to their cause, forcing the Jim Crow system of American segregation to end.

de facto segregation

non-mandated segregation

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

overturned the Betts ruling in 1963, arrested for breaking into a pool hall, could not afford a lawyer, so he requested counsel from the state. The court denied Gideon's requests, and he was forced to represent himself without counsel at the trial. Supreme Court then did what the Florida court would not do: provide him with a lawyer. Gideon's lawyer, Abe Fortas who later became a Supreme Court justice, stated that all defendants in all cases, capital or otherwise, should be allowed a lawyer in court

Civil Rights Act of 1960

passed to help stop violence in the south against potential black voters. authorized the U.S. Attorney General and the Justice Department to appoint referees to investigate allegations of voting fraud and attempts to obstruct persons from voting. act was not enforced and primarily served as a stepping stone for future civil rights legislation.

National Abortion Rights Action League

pro-choice side

National Right to Life Committee

pro-life side

cruel and unusual punishment

prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

provided African-Americans with protected voting rights, banned discrimination in public facilities, and established equal employment opportunity. It also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), withheld federal funds from discriminating institutions, and authorized the Justice Department to initiate suits to desegregate public schools and facilities.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992),

reaffirm the central holding of Roe

Fair Employment Act of 1941

requires that federal agencies only do business with private employers that do not "discriminate against persons of any race, color, creed, or nationality in matters of employment." Roosevelt.

de jure segregation

segregation required by law

separate but equal doctrine

separate facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." Laws requiring the separation of races, the Court declared, do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race

capital punishment

the death penalty, can be enforced on the national level, as well as on the state level. However, at the state level it is up to each state to define the rules

Escobedo v. Illinois (1964)

upheld the Gideon ruling, and extended it to include counsel for those accused of felonies during questioning, as well as at the trial. Escobedo claimed that because he was denied the right to counsel, he was un-fairly convicted. The Court ruled in favor of Escobedo and held that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated

A. Philip Randolph

worked for fair labor laws for black Americans, 1925, Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (first real effort to form a labor union for black Americans), 1941, he proposed a march, 1947, Randolph formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service. in 1963 organized a march of 250,000 people on Washington—this was the largest civil rights demonstration the country had ever seen.

Civil Rights and Women's Equity in Employment Act (1991)

clarified terms in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and strengthened the act, act countered Supreme Court reluctance to allow workers to bring and win job discrimination suits.

Black Codes

codes identified blacks as a separate class with fewer liberties and more restrictions than white citizens. The Codes varied from state to state,

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).

combination of four school segregation cases from the South that involved more serious problems, including inferior segregated schools and a lack of school transportation for blacks, Court decided unanimously to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. The Court declared that "separate educational facilities" were "inherently unequal" because the intangible inequalities of separation deprived black students of equal protection under the law

Civil Rights Act of 1957

created to enforce African-American voting rights in the South and put measures in place to prevent mob violence in school desegregation disputes. It was the first civil rights legislation in the 90 years since the Civil War. bill made it illegal to try to prevent a person from voting in a federal election. created the Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Commission to investigate racial discrimination, especially concerning voting

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1987),

declined to explicitly overrule Roe, because "none of the challenged provisions of the Missouri Act properly before us conflict with the Constitution." Court upheld several abortion restrictions, and modified the Roe trimester framework

affirmative action

designed to give preferential access to education, employment, health care, or social welfare to groups of people, especially minorities and women, who have historically been discriminated against

Martin Luther King, Jr.

eloquent speaker and a natural leader. message of nonviolent resistance to bring about change. organized sit-ins in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma, Alabama, as well as St. Augustine, Florida, fighting for the right to vote, desegregation, fair hiring. "I Have a Dream" speech, assassinated in April of 1968 as he prepared to march on Memphis, Tennessee.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

enforces the Twenty-Fourth and the Fifteenth Amendments. This act prohibited the use of literacy testing and provided federal registration in areas where under half of all eligible voters were registered.

Fifteenth Amendment

enfranchise the newly freed black citizens in the Southern Reconstruction Districts, ratified in 1870, prohibited the states from denying anyone the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972),

extended the right to counsel even in misdemeanor cases if the accused was imprisoned.

Justice Antonin Scalia

filled Burger's place on the Court, has been a vigorous opponent of Roe.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

first civil rights organization to use nonviolent tactics to protest racial discrimination, 1961, CORE used "Freedom Rides" to protest segregation. challenged the federal government to enforce the anti-segregation legislation that had been sent down by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

equal protection clause

forbids states from discriminating against its citizens

James Farmer

founded The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942, and beginning in 1961 "Freedom Rides"

Thirteenth Amendment

freed all slaves, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, and formally incorporated the Emancipation Proclamation into the Constitution

"Little Rock Nine"

1957, Little Rock, Arkansas, nine students prevented from entering school by mobilized troops from the Arkansas National Guard. Eisenhower federalized the National Guard, as he had the authority to do, and also used the US Army to ensure that the federal mandate was carried out at Little Rock Central High School.

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

1964, amendment ended poll taxes in federal elections that were previously used to obstruct poor black Americans from voting. It also gave Congress the power to enforce the article with appropriate legislation

partial-birth abortion

abortions utilizing intact dilation and extraction procedures

modest civil rights legislation

advocated by president truman,

Civil Rights Bill of 1866.

attempt to overcome the repressive Codes, granted American citizenship to blacks and denied the states the power to restrict their rights to hold property, testify in court, and make contracts for their labor

Hyde Amendment

barring federal funding of abortions for poor women through the Medicaid program

Sweatt v. Painter (1950),

challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Fergusonblack man, Herman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to the University of Texas School of Law on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education, Texas trial court, instead of granting the plaintiff a writ of mandamus, continued the case for six months allowing the state time to create a law school only for blacks.Court reversed the lower court decision, saying that the separate school failed to measure up because of quantitative differences

habeas corpus petition

civil lawsuit filed by inmate against prison, warden, etc. alleging that they are being held unlawfully... (this is federal)

W.E.B. DuBois

civil rights leader and political activist who campaigned for equality for black Americans, 1905, he helped found the Niagara Movement,1909, he helped to found the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)