Chapter 6 Civil Rights Vocab

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Civil rights

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The government-protected rights of individuals against arbitrary or discriminatory treatment by governments or individuals. Civil rights were introduced with the Fourteenth Amendment, which introduced the notion of equality into the Constitution.

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Thirteenth Amendment

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One of three Civil War Amendments. This amendment specifically bans slavery in the United States. Southern states were required to ratify this amendment in order to rejoin the Union after the Civil War.

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Black Codes

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The laws passed in southern states denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves. It prohibited African Americans from voting, sitting on juries, or even appearing in public places.

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Fourteenth Amendment

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One of three Civil War Amendments. This amendment guarantees equal protection and the due process of law to all U.S. citizens.

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Fifteenth Amendment

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One of three Civil War Amendments. This amendment specifically enfranchised newly freed male slaves. It guaranteed citizens the right to vote regardless of their “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

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Jim Crow Laws

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Laws enacted by southern states that discriminated against blacks by creating “whites only” schools, theaters, hotels, and other public accommodations.

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Civil Rights Cases (1883)

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The name attached to five cases brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In 1883, the Supreme Court decided that discrimination in a variety of public accommodations, including theaters, hotels, and railroads, could not be prohibited by the act because such discrimination was private discrimination and not state discrimination. The Supreme Court determined that Congress could prohibit only state or governmental action and not private acts of discrimination.

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Grandfather clause

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Voting qualification provision in many southern states that allowed only those whose grandfathers had voted before Reconstruction to vote unless they passed a wealth or literacy test. Since black voters’ grandfathers had been slaves before Reconstruction and most slaves lacked the wealth or literacy to pass, this clause prevented newly freed slaves from voting.

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Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

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A Supreme Court case that challenged a Louisiana statute requiring that railroads provide separate accommodations for blacks and whites. The Court found that separate but equal accommodations did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the case, Homer Plessy, a man who was one-eighth black, boarded the “whites only” car of a train and was arrested when he refused to take a seat in the car reserved for African Americans. Plessy challenged the law, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited racial segregation, but the Supreme Court disagreed.

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Suffrage movement

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The drive for voting rights for women that took place in the United States from 1890 to 1920. The movement focused only on voting rights, and not the broader issues of women’s rights. The movement also took on racist overtones through its argument that undereducated African American men could vote.

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Nineteenth Amendment

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An amendment to the Constitution that guaranteed women the right to vote. The charge for this amendment was led by the more radical National Woman’s Party and finally ratified in 1920.

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Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

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A U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that school segregation is inherently unconstitutional because it violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

The case was actually made up of four different cases that were brought to the Supreme Court from the South. The Supreme Court overturned its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson and desegregated the schools in the South.

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Equal protection clause

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A section of the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees that all citizens receive “equal protection of the laws.”

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Civil Rights Act of 1964

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Wide-ranging legislation passed by Congress to outlaw segregation in public facilities and discrimination in employment, education, and voting; it created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

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De jure discrimination

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Racial segregation that is a direct result of a law or an official policy. The Supreme Court outlawed de jure descrimination in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District.

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De facto discrimination

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Racial discrimination that results from practice (such as housing patterns or other social or institutional, non-governmental factors) rather than the law.

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

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A federal agency created to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race, creed, national origin, religion, or sex in hiring, promotion, or firing. The agency failed to enforce the part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 regarding sex discrimination.

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Equal Rights Amendment

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A proposed amendment to the Constitution that was initially proposed in 1972 and states that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” It was renamed the Women’s Equality Amendment in 2007.

Opposers of the amendment initially tried to manipulate the wording to imply that ERA supporters were anti-family and would force women into the workforce since husbands would no longer be responsible for their wives. These opposers put a stop to the initially successful progression of the amendment. Currently, opposers of the amendment felt that it would be unnecessary to create a new amendment since the Supreme Court had since extended the equal protection clause to include women.

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Suspect classification

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A category or class, such as race, that triggers the highest standard of scrutiny from the Supreme Court.

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Strict scrutiny

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A heightened standard of review used by the Supreme Court to determine the constitutional validity of a challenged practice. It is used in cases regarding fundamental freedoms (religion, speech, assembly, press, and privacy) and those regarding suspect classifications (race, alienage, and national origin).

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Title IX

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A provision of the Educational Amendments of 1972 that bars educational institutions from receiving federal funds from discriminating against female students. Title IX expanded opportunities for women in educational institutions by banning those institutions from receiving funds if they discriminate against female students.

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Affirmative action

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Policies designed to give special attention or compensatory treatment to members of a previously disadvantaged group. A large debate regarding affirmative action’s legality is ongoing since it goes against the idea that the Constitution is colorblind and equally applies to everyone.

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Americans with Disabilities Act (1991)

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Anti-discriminatory legislation that extends the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to all those with physical or mental disabilities.