Chp 5 Key Terms

substantive due process doctrine

One interpretation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; in this view the Supreme Court has the power to overturn laws that infringe on individual liberties.

rational basis test

The use of evidence to suggest that differences in the behavior of two groups can rationalize unequal treatment of these groups.

disparate impact standard

The idea that discrimination exists if a practice has a negative effect on a specific group, whether or not this effect was intentional.

de facto

Relating to actions or circumstances that occur outside the law or “by fact,” such as the segregation of schools that resulted from housing patterns and other factors rather than from laws.

de jure

Relating to actions or circumstances that occur “by law,” such as the legally enforced segregation of schools in the American South before the 1960s.

“separate but equal” doctrine

The idea that racial segregation was acceptable as long as the separate facilities were of equal quality; supported by Plessy v. Ferguson and struck down by Brown v. Board of Education. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared that race based school segregation violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Protectionism

The idea under which some people have tried to rationalize discriminatory policies by claiming that some groups, like women or Black Americans, should be denied certain rights for their own safety or well-being.

Jim Crow laws

State and local laws that mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the South, many border states, and some northern communities between 1876 and 1964.

grandfather clause

A type of law enacted in several southern states to allow those who were permitted to vote before the Civil War, and their descendants, to bypass literacy tests and other obstacles to voting, thereby exempting White Americans from these tests while continuing to disenfranchise Black Americans and other people of color.

intersectionality

The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.

civil rights

Rights that guarantee individuals freedom from discrimination. These rights are generally grounded in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and more specifically laid out in laws passed by Congress, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Disenfranchised

To have been denied the ability to exercise a right, such as the right to vote.