Chapter 5: Civil Rights Flashcards
affirmative action
In the employment arena, intentional efforts to recruit, hire, train, and promote underutilized categories of workers (women and minority men); in higher education, intentional efforts to diversify the student body.
black codes
Laws passed immediately after the Civil War by the confederate states that limited the rights of “freemen” (people formerly enslaved).
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
→ segregated schools violate equal protection clause of 14th
civil disobedience
Active, but nonviolent, refusal to comply with laws or governmental policies that are morally objectionable, while accepting the consequences of violating these laws.
civil rights
The rights and privileges guaranteed to all citizens under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; the idea that individuals are protected from discrimination based on characteristics such as race, national origin, religion, and sex.
de facto segregation
segregation maintained by practice
de jure segregation
segregation mandated by law
equal protection clause
The Fourteenth Amendment clause stating that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
grandfather clause
A clause exempting individuals from voting conditions such as poll taxes or literacy tests if they or their ancestors had voted before 1870, thus sparing most white voters.
hate crime
A crime committed against a person, property, or society, in which the offender is motivated, in part or in whole, by his or her bias against the victim because of the victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
heightened scrutiny test (intermediate scrutiny test)
The guidelines used most frequently by the courts to determine the legality of sex-based discrimination
sex-based discrimination legal if is SUBSTANTIALLY RELATED to the ACHIEVEMENT of an IMPORTANT public interest.
weaker than strict
inherent characteristics
race, national origin, religion, and sex.
→ + gender sexuality and disabilities ?
intersectionality
The experience of multiple forms of oppression (based on race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or sexual identity) simultaneously.
Jim Crow Laws
Laws requiring the strict separation of racial groups, with whites and “nonwhites” required to attend separate schools, work in different jobs, and use segregated public accommodations, such as transportation and restaurants.
literacy test
A test to determine eligibility to vote; designed so that few African Americans would pass.
ordinary scrutiny test (rational basis test)
sex-based discrimination legal if REASONABLE and for a LEGITIMATE public interest.
– rational differential treatment; based on age
Plessy v. Ferguson
1896 Supreme Court ruling creating the separate but equal doctrine.
poll tax
A fee for voting; levied to prevent poor African Americans in the South from voting.
