civil rights

Abigail Fisher Case

Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas-Austin, arguing that using race in university admissions violates the equal protection clause. The Supreme Court heard her case in 2012.

Benign Discrimination

Discrimination based on perceived reasonable differences, not hatred.

Civil Rights Definition:

Powers and privileges guaranteed to individuals and protected against arbitrary withdrawal by the government or individuals.

Invidious Discrimination:

Harmful discrimination based on animus or ill will.

Equality Forms

A form of equality recognizes that real disparities exist between groups that require attention.

Discrimination (General

to make or recognize differences

Quota

Requires a specified proportional share of some benefit to go to a given group

Thirteenth Amendment

Abolished slavery

Equal Protection Clause

Located in the Fourteenth Amendment

Reconstruction Amendments

• The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments are collectively known as the Reconstruction amendments.

Black Codes

Enacted by former slave states after the Civil War to restrict the freedoms of blacks.

Poll Tax

First imposed in Georgia in 1877, it was a way to prohibit disenfranchised blacks from voting

Tactics to Prevent Black Voting

• White southerners used poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, intimidation, and violence.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Upheld state-imposed racial segregation and endorsed the separate-but-equal doctrine. Homer Plessy challenged Louisiana's racial segregation policies by refusing to move from a "whites-only" Louisiana train car.

Separate-but-Equal Doctrine:

First instituted in Plessy v. Ferguson

NAACP Challenge (Lloyd Gaines

• Lloyd Gaines sued Missouri after it attempted to pay his tuition to another school outside of the state.

Truman's Executive Order (1948Truman's Executive Order (1948

Ordered the dismantling of authorized racial segregation of the armed forces. This is an example of desegregation.

Brown v. Board of Education:

The Brown family brought a lawsuit against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas because Linda Brown was refused admittance to a white-only school because she was black.

Brown v. Board of Education II

• The Supreme Court ordered that public school systems must desegregate "with all deliberate speed."

De Facto Segregation

If a school has all black students because only black families live in the neighborhoods that feed into the school, it is an example of de facto segregation. Racial segregation that is not the result of government action is called de facto segregation.

De Jure Segregation

Government-imposed segregation.

White Flight

Affected inner-city schools by making most of them predominantly black.

Civil Rights Advancement

In addition to the courts, political activists have been instrumental in advancing the civil rights of African Americans.

Civil Rights Laws (Prior to 1964):

Congress enacted civil rights laws in 1957 and 1960, dealing mainly with voting rights

President Johnson's Plan

• The Civil Rights Act was one part of President Johnson's plan known as the "Great Society."

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

Ratified in 1964, it banned poll taxes in primary and general elections for national office

Grove City College v. Bell (1984)

Congress responded by passing legislation that made it clear that if any part of an institution gets federal money, no part of it can discriminate.

Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Provided for equal access to public accommodations, equal employment opportunities, withholding federal grants-in-aid from discriminatory state programs, and strengthened voting rights legislation.

President Johnson's Priority

• President Lyndon Johnson considered civil rights legislation his top priority.

Civil Rights Act of 1964 Bans

Private and governmental acts of discrimination.