U.S. Civil Rights & Equal Protection – Key Vocabulary

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering major concepts, court cases, laws, and movements related to U.S. civil rights and equal protection discussed in the lecture.

Civil Rights

Government-guaranteed protections ensuring equal treatment and opportunity for historically marginalized groups.

Equality

State of being equal in rights, opportunities, or status.

Equity

Fairness or justice in the distribution of outcomes or resources, often requiring different treatment to achieve equality.

Normative

Pertaining to or establishing a norm or standard; relating to how things "should be."

Empirical

Based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

Equal Protection Clause

Fourteenth Amendment provision forbidding states from denying any person equal protection of the laws.

Rational Basis Test

Lowest level of judicial review; discrimination allowed if reasonably related to a legitimate government interest.

Intermediate Scrutiny

Court standard for sex-based laws; government must show discrimination is substantially related to an important objective.

Strict Scrutiny

Highest level of review for laws involving race, ethnicity, religion, or fundamental rights; requires compelling government interest and narrow tailoring.

Disenfranchisement

Strategies or laws that strip or limit a group's right to vote.

Racial Profiling

Law-enforcement tactic of targeting individuals for suspicion based on race or ethnicity rather than behavior.

Affirmative Action

Policies that provide advantages to groups previously subject to discrimination to promote equal opportunity.

Reconstruction

1865–1877 period of rebuilding the South and extending civil and political rights to freedpeople.

Emancipation Proclamation

Executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, declaring enslaved people in Confederate states to be free.

Black Codes

Post-Civil War southern laws designed to limit freedoms of formerly enslaved people and maintain labor control.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local statutes enforcing racial segregation and inequality in the South after Reconstruction.

Poll Tax

Fee required to vote, used to keep poor—especially Black—citizens from the polls until banned federally.

Grandfather clause

Post-Reconstruction laws that exempted individuals from poll taxes or literacy tests if their ancestors had voted before a certain date, effectively disenfranchising Black citizens.

Literacy tests

Reading and writing comprehension exams formerly used to prevent individuals, especially African Americans, from voting.

Separate-but-Equal Doctrine

Legal principle from Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) permitting segregation if facilities were equal—overturned in 1954.

De Jure Segregation

Racial separation mandated by law.

De Facto Segregation

Racial separation resulting from private choices or economic patterns rather than legal requirements.

Civil rights movement

Broad social and political movement, primarily from the 1950s-1960s, aimed at ending racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans.

Civil disobedience

The nonviolent refusal to obey laws or governmental demands as a way of influencing legislation or policy.

Freedom rides

Civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into segregated Southern United States to challenge non-enforcement of Supreme Court decisions.

Sit-in

A form of direct action in which protesters occupy a place refusing to leave until their demands are met.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

1909 organization using legal strategies to fight racial discrimination and segregation.

Feminism

The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

Hate crime

A criminal offense committed against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.

Coverture

Historical legal doctrine under which a married woman’s legal identity was subsumed by that of her husband, limiting her rights.

Suffrage

The right to vote in political elections.

Glass ceiling

An unacknowledged barrier to advancement in a profession, especially affecting women and members of minorities.

Sexual harassment

Harassment in a workplace or other professional or social context, involving the making of unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks.

Reservations

Areas of land managed by Native American tribes under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, designated as their original tribal lands.

Thirteenth Amendment

1865 constitutional amendment abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude (except as criminal punishment).

Fourteenth Amendment

1868 amendment granting citizenship, due process, and equal protection to all persons.

Fifteenth Amendment

1870 amendment prohibiting voting denial based on race, color, or previous servitude.

Nineteenth Amendment

1920 constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

Proposed but unratified constitutional amendment designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Landmark law banning discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and federally funded programs.