Unit 3: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

Question 1

Bill of rights

Answer 1

Ten Amendments Added to the Constitution to protect Individual Liberties and rights from Government Interference

Question 2

Civil liberties

Answer 2

The rights of citizens to be free from undue government interferences in their lives, including those rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and those established by long legal precedent (such as the right to marry or travel freely)

Question 3

civil rights

Answer 3

The rights of citizens to be free of unequal or discriminatory treatment on the basis of race, gender, or membership in a particular demographic group

Question 4

individual liberties

Answer 4

Constitutionally-established rights and freedoms protected by law from interference by the government

Question 5

First amendment

Answer 5

Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and to petition

Question 6

Second amendment

Answer 6

Right to keep and bear arms

Question 7

Third amendment

Answer 7

Right to not quarter (or house) soldiers during time of war

Question 8

Fourth amendment

Answer 8

Right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure

Question 9

Fifth amendment

Answer 9

Rights in criminal cases, including due process and protection from self-incrimination; no person can be tried for a serious crime without the indictment of a grand jury

Question 10

Sixth amendment

Answer 10

Right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, to an attorney, and to confront witnesses

Question 11

Seventh amendment

Answer 11

Right to a trial by jury in civil cases

Question 12

Eighth amendment

Answer 12

Right to not face excessive bail, fines, or cruel and unusual punishment

Question 13

Ninth amendment

Answer 13

There are other rights besides the ones listed in the Bill of Rights and the federal government cannot violate those rights

Question 13

Tenth amendment

Answer 13

All powers not given to the national government or prohibited to the states are reserved to states or to the people

Question 14

Establishment Clause

Answer 14

the first clause of the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This prevents the federal government from supporting an official religion and sets the United States apart from many European nations, which provide official government support for a national, or “established,” church.

Question 15

free exercise clause

Answer 15

The second clause of the First Amendment, which prevents the federal government from interfering with its citizens’ religious beliefs and practices. The Supreme Court has upheld some limits on religious practices that conflict with secular laws, such as religious drug use or polygamy.

Question 16

nondenominational prayer

Answer 16

Prayer that does not advocate the beliefs of a specific religion but that acknowledges the existence of a divine being.

Question 16

Lemon test

Answer 16

A test to determine whether a law violates the establishment clause devised by the Supreme Court in the 1971 case Lemon v. Kurtzman. Based on the Lemon test, laws are constitutional only if they have a legitimate secular purpose, neither advance nor inhibit religion, and do not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religion.

Question 17

Secular

Answer 17

Nonreligious or unaffiliated with religion

Question 17

“wall of separation” between church and state

Answer 17

A phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter, which described his view that there should be complete separation between the government and religion.

Question 18

“clear and present danger

Answer 18

Formulated during the 1919 case Schenck v. United States, the “clear and present danger” test permitted the government to punish speech likely to bring about evils that Congress had a right to prevent, such as stirring up anti-war sentiment. Since the 1960s, the Supreme Court has replaced the “clear and present danger” test with the “direct incitement” test, which says that the government can only restrict speech when it’s likely to result in imminent lawless action, such as inciting mob violence.

Question 19

Defamation

Answer 19

The act of damaging someone’s reputation by making false statements. Defamation through a printed medium is called libel, while spoken defamation is called slander.

Question 20

hate speech

Answer 20

Written or spoken communication that belittles a group based on its characteristics, such as race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Question 21

Obscenity

Answer 21

wd or sexual art or publications. Although the Court has struggled to define what constitutes obscenity, it has upheld restrictions on materials that “to the average person applying contemporary community standards” depict offensive or sexual conduct and lack literary or artistic merit.

Question 22

symbolic speech

Answer 22

Nonverbal forms of speech protected by the First Amendment, such as picketing, wearing armbands, displaying signs, or engaging in acts of symbolic protest such as flag burning.

Question 23

time, place, and manner restrictions

Answer 23

Limits to freedom of expression based on when, where, and how individuals or organizations express opinions. For example, a city may require an organization to obtain a permit in order to conduct a public protest.

Question 24

Libel

Answer 24

The act of damaging someone’s reputation by printing false statements. Although ordinary citizens can sue for libel based on false statements alone, public persons or officials must also prove that the false statements were made with malicious intent.

Question 25

Pentagon Papers

Answer 25

A top-secret account of US military action in Vietnam, which showed that President Lyndon Johnson had lied to Congress and the public about the extent of the war. Analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1970.

Question 26

prior restraint

Answer 26

Government censorship of free expression by preventing publication or speech before it takes place. The Supreme Court has established a “heavy presumption against prior restraint” (in other words, it is likely the Court will declare an act of the government that blocks free expression unconstitutional).

Question 27

Second Amendment

Answer 27

A provision in the Bill of Rights that protects the right to bear arms (weapons).

Question 28

selective incorporation

Answer 28

A judicial doctrine applying some protections of the Bill of Rights to the states, based on the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 29

rule of law

Answer 29

The principle that government is based on a body of law applied equally and fairly to every citizen, not on the whims of those in charge, and that no one is above the law—including the government.

Question 30

Due process

Answer 30

the legal requirement that an individual’s rights must be respected by a state or government; protected at the federal level by the Fifth Amendment, and at the state level by the Fourteenth

Question 31

Fourteenth Amendment

Answer 31

explicitly guarantees certain rights against infringement by states, including citizenship, due process, and equal protection for all citizens; before the Amendment’s 1868 adoption, these rights were protected at the Federal level by the Bill of Rights, but not explicitly at the state level

Question 32

Fundamental rights

Answer 32

rights and immunities protected by the Bill of Rights and interpreted by the Supreme Court as “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,”and therefore protected against state governments in addition to the federal government

Question 33

Total incorporation

Answer 33

a doctrine that applies all the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to the state level without exception; this doctrine has never been adopted by a Supreme Court majority opinion, although several dissenting justices have advocated for it

Question 34

Incrementalism

Answer 34

the process of incorporating specific rights and provisions of the Bill of Rights to the state level on a case-by-case basis; compare to total incorporation

Question 35

“penumbra” of privacy

Answer 35

Derived from the Latin for “partial shadow.” The Supreme Court has ruled that several amendments in the Bill of Rights cast a “penumbra” of the right to privacy, although the right to privacy itself is never explicitly named. For example, the Court has interpreted that the Fourth Amendment right of the people to be secure in their houses from unreasonable searches and seizures implies a right to privacy in the home.

Question 36

right to privacy

Answer 36

The right to “be left alone,” or to be free of government scrutiny into one’s private beliefs and behavior.

Question 37

Civil Rights

Answer 37

Rights of individuals against discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, sex, ability, sexual orientation, age, or pregnancy.

Question 38

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Answer 38

Legislation passed by Congress prohibiting segregation of public facilities, as well as discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. The Civil Rights Act also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce these provisions.

Question 39

Civil Rights Movement (1960s)

Answer 39

A movement, led by both grassroots and national civil rights organizations, to end segregation and other forms of discrimination against African American citizens.

Question 40

due process clause

Answer 40

A clause of the Fourteenth Amendment stipulating that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” This clause aims to ensure that neither states nor the federal government infringe upon the rights of individuals without following proper legal procedures.

Question 41

equal protection clause

Answer 41

A clause of the Fourteenth Amendment stipulating that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The equal protection clause has served as the basis for most legal challenges to discrimination.

Question 42

LGBTQ movement

Answer 42

A civil rights movement which emerged in the 1970s, dedicated to combating legal restrictions on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, and queer citizens on the basis of Fourteenth Amendment protections. Note that some advocate for using alternative acronyms, such as LGBTQIA+ and GSRM.

Question 43

National Organization for Women (NOW)

Answer 43

An organization founded in 1960 with the goal of advancing the rights of women through legislative and legal challenges to sex discrimination.

Question 44

pro-life (anti-abortion) movement

Answer 44

A movement opposed to abortion, led by the National Right to Life Committee, which argues that Fourteenth Amendment protections begin at conception.

Question 45

Betty Friedan

Answer 45

Author of The Feminine Mystique, a 1963 book that raised concerns about the status of women in society and fueled the women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Friedan became the first president of the National Organization for Women.

Question 46

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Answer 46

Civil rights activist and religious leader whose nonviolent protests helped bring about desegregation and equal protection legislation for African Americans. He delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

Question 47

Thurgood Marshall

Answer 47

Founder and first executive director of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which pursued a strategy of legal challenges to segregation on the basis of the equal protection clause. Marshall successfully argued Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) and later became the first African American Supreme Court justice.

Question 48

Title IX

Answer 48

A provision of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prevents schools and universities receiving federal funding from discriminating against female students.

Question 49

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Answer 49

Legislation prohibiting racial discrimination in voting, including the use of literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses.

Question 50

majority-minority districts

Answer 50

Congressional districts with boundaries set so that the majority of voters are from one minority group. The aim of creating districts in this way is to make it easier for citizens of a racial or ethnic minority to elect a representative who reflects their concerns, and to prevent their collective votes from being diluted when spread across several different districts.

Question 51

affirmative action

Answer 51

Efforts to improve opportunities for underrepresented or disadvantaged groups, especially in relation to employment or education.

Question 52

the “colorblind” Constitution

Answer 52

The belief that the Constitution protects citizens of all races equally, and that additional measures such as affirmative action are unnecessary.

Question 53

Full Faith and Credit Clause

Answer 53

The Full Faith and Credit Clause is a provision in Article IV, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution that requires states to recognize and enforce the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. This clause ensures that legal decisions made in one state are respected and upheld in another, promoting unity and cooperation among states within the federal system.