AP Government: Civil Rights (Ch.5)

Grutter v. Bollinger

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority in a 5-4 decision and joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, ruled that the University of Michigan Law School had a compelling interest in promoting class diversity. The court held that a race-conscious admissions process that may favor "underrepresented minority groups," but that also took into account many other factors evaluated on an individual basis for every applicant, did not amount to a quota system that would have been unconstitutional under Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.

Regents of University of California v. Bakke

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

Equal Rights Amendment

A constitutional amendment originally introduced in Congress in 1923 and passed by Congress in 1972, stating that "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S. or by any state on account of sex." Despite public support, the amendment fell short of the three-fourths of state legislatures requires for passage.

Grandfather Clause

A grandfather clause (or grandfather policy) is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from the new rule are said to have grandfather rights or acquired rights.

Voting Rights Act (1965)

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

Gratz v. Bollinger

Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003),[1] was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the University of Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admissions policy. In a 6-3 decision announced on June 23, 2003, Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the Court, ruled the University's point system's "predetermined point allocations" that awarded 20 points to underrepresented minorities "ensures that the diversity contributions of applicants cannot be individually assessed" and was therefore unconstitutional.

Civil Rights Act 1964

The law making racial discrimination in hotels, motels, and restaurants illegal and forbidding many forms of job discrimination

Affirmative Action

a policy designed to give special attention to or contemporary treatment for members of some previously disadvantaged group

Civil Rights

policies designed to protect people against arbitrary or discriminatory treatment by government officials or individuals

Poll Taxes

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 1944

Brown v. Board

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 U.S.

Plessy v. Ferguson

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

Fisher v. University of Texas

Fisher v. University of Texas, 570 U.S. ___ (2013), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Texas at Austin. The Supreme Court voided the lower appellate court's ruling in favor of the University and remanded the case, holding that the lower court had not applied the standard of strict scrutiny, articulated in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), to its admissions program. The Court's ruling in Fisher took Grutter and Bakke as given and did not directly revisit the constitutionality of using race as a factor in college admissions.[1]

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7-2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the Court denied Scott's request. For only the second time to that point in its history, the Supreme Court ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.

Minority majority

In the United States of America majority-minority or minority-majority area is a United States state or jurisdiction whose population is composed of less than 50% non-Hispanic whites. Racial data is derived from self-identification questions on the U.S. Census and on U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Lawrence v. Texas

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court. In the 6-3 ruling 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 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.

Equal Protection Clause

Part of the Fourteenth Amendment emphasizing that the laws must provide equivalent "protection" to all people

White Primary

Primary elections from which African Americans were excluded, an exclusion that, in the heavily Democratic South, deprived African Americans of a voice in the real contests. The Supreme Court declared white primaries unconstitutional in 1944.

California Proposition 209

Proposition 209 was on the November 5, 1996 general election ballot in California as an initiated constitutional amendment, where it was approved. Proposition 209 amended the California Constitution to prohibit public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity.

Equal Pay Act

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap). It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.