American Government Unit 5, Chapture 12 (Tcn)

Front 1

affirmative action

Back 1

A term used to describe hiring policies that are designed to compensate for historical discrimination against minority groups.

Front 2

busing

Back 2

Transporting public school students to schools outside of their own neighborhoods in an effort to achieve racial desegregation.

Front 3

Equal Protection Clause

Back 3

the provision of the fourteenth amendment that prohibits states from denying their residents equal protection under the law.

Front 4

Equal Rights Amendment

Back 4

A proposed amendment to the Constitution that would make it illegal to deny equality of rights on the basis of biological sex.

Front 5

grandfather clause

Back 5

Legal provisions adopted by some southern states in order to deny African-Americans the right to vote. These provisions specified that only those persons whose ancestors had voted prior to 1867 had the right to vote.

Front 6

literacy test

Back 6

A test once required by many southern states in an effort to disenfranchise black voters.

Front 7

poll tax

Back 7

A tax on voting once used by many southern states to disenfranchise black voters.

Front 8

separate-but-equal doctrine

Back 8

The Supreme Court doctrine, overturned in 1954, which held that segregation was constitutional as long as public facilities for African-Americans were equal in quality to those for whites.

Front 9

strict scrutiny

Back 9

Standard of judicial review that states that a provision must be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling government interest if it is to be considered constitutional.

Front 10

List and describe the Civil War amendments to the Constitution.

Back 10

--13th, abolished slavery
--14th, provided citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the US and declared that states were obliged to uphold basic due process rights and equal protection for all persons.
--15th, gave the right of suffrage to freed male slaves.

Front 11

Briefly outline three methods used by Southern states after the Civil War in order to suppress voting by African-Americans.

Back 11

In an effort to deter African-American voters, southern states used grandfather clauses, which specified that only those persons whose ancestors had voted prior to 1867 had the right to vote. The states also implemented poll taxes, which most African-Americans could not afford, and literacy tests, which were conducted in a biased manner.

Front 12

When did women receive the constitutiional right to vote in the US?

Back 12

1920 by way of the 19th amendment

Front 13

What doctrine did the Supreme Court adopt in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson? When was this doctrine overturned?

Back 13

the separate-but-equal doctrine. This doctrine held that segregation was legal as long as public facilities for African-Americans were equal in quality to those for whites. The separate-but-equal doctrine was overturned by the Court in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Front 14

What controversial method of desegragation was ordered by the federal courts as a result of the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education?

Back 14

Busing was the controversial method ordered by the federal courts in an effort to promote desegragation of local school systems.

Front 15

According to the Supreme Court, are affirmative action programs constitutional?

Back 15

The Sureme Court has issued mixed rulings on affirmative action. In recent years, the Court has applied more stringent standards to this program. In fact, in a 1995 ruling, it said that affirmative action programs were subject to strict judicial scrutiny. Thus, while the Court has not absolutely declared affirmative action to be unconstitutional, it has made it clear that race and diversity cannot be primary factors in hiring or admissions decisions.

Front 16

what is the current status of the Equal Rights Amendment?

Back 16

Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, but it was not ratified by a sufficient number of states. Since that time, the ERA has largelyy fallen from the public agenda.