3574959
| Question | Answer |
| civil rights | the rights and privileges guaranteed 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 |
| inherent characteristics | individual attributes such as race, national origin, religion, and gender |
| suspect classifications | distinctions based on race, religion, and national origin, which are assumed to be illegitimate |
| strict scrutiny test | the guidelines the courts use to determine the legality of suspect classificationbased discrimination; on the basis of this test, discrimination is legal if it is a necessary means by which the government can achieve a compelling public interest |
| heightened scrutiny test (intermediate scrutiny test) | the guidelines used most frequently by the courts to determine the legality of sex-based discrimination; on the basis of this test, sex-based discrimination is legal if the government can prove that it is substantially related to the achievement of an important public interest |
| ordinary scrutiny test (rational basis test) | on the basis of this test, discrimination is legal if it is a reasonable means by which the government can achieve a legitimate public interest |
| 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 |
| civil disobedience | active, but nonviolent, refusal to comply with laws or governmental policies that are morally objectionable |
| standing to sue | the legal right to bring lawsuits in court |
| Reconstruction era | the time after the Civil War between 1866 and 1877 when the institutions and infrastructure of the South were rebuilt |
| Black Codes | laws passed immediately after the Civil War by the confederate states that limited the rights of “freemen” (people formerly enslaved) |
| Jim Crow laws | laws requiring 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 |
| de jure segregation | segregation mandated by law |
| white primary | a primary election in which a party’s nominees for general election were chosen but in which only white people were allowed to vote |
| literacy test | a test to determine eligibility to vote; designed so that few African Americans would pass |
| poll tax | a fee for voting; levied to prevent poor African Americans in the South from voting |
| 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 |
| Plessy v. Ferguson | 1896 Supreme Court ruling creating the separate but equal doctrine |
| 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” |
| separate but equal doctrine | established by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, it said that separate but equal facilities for whites and nonwhites do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause |
| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka | the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled that segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment |
| intersectionality | the experience of multiple forms of oppression (based on race, gender, class, and/or sexuality) simultaneously |
| 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 |
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