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Affirmative Action
Programs by employers or schools aimed at favoring individuals belonging to groups with a history of discrimination.
Asexual
Persons who either do not feel or do not act upon sexual desires.
Bisexual
Persons who feel sexual attraction to persons of either the male or female genders and who identify as being members of a community of others who share this attraction.
Black Codes
A set of discriminatory laws passed after the Civil War by Southern white leaders that deprived African Americans of many rights.
Cisgender
Persons whose gender identity corresponds with their biological birth sex.
Civil Disobedience
Deliberate, open acts of lawbreaking intended to create awareness of unjust laws or government practices and thereby catalyze reforms of those laws or practices.
Civil Liberties
Legal rights designed to protect individuals from abuse of power by government.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
A federal law that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, and religion in areas like education, employment, and (privately owned) "public accommodations" such as restaurants, theatres, and hotels. (It also prohibits discrimination based on sex—as well as race, color, etc.—in employment.)
Civil Rights
Legal rights that aim at eliminating and/or remedying various forms of unequal treatment in American society. More specifically, civil rights are primarily concerned with discrimination against people based on such characteristics as race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
Convict-Leasing System
System of re-enslavement, by which Black men were arrested and convicted for minor crimes, given long prison sentences, and then leased (like property) by state governments to private industrial companies that ruthlessly drove them to do backbreaking work under extremely dangerous conditions.
Coverture
Traditional marriage law doctrine by which women sacrificed most of their rights and very legal existence to their husband upon being wed. According to this doctrine, among other things, married women could not own property, enter into contracts, or earn a salary in their own name.
Discrimination
Conscious or unconscious denial of equal treatment to a person based on their membership in some recognizable social group.
Double-V Campaign
Campaign launched by the Pittsburgh Courier, a prominent Black newspaper, that sought to galvanize African Americans to help the United States fight for victory against Nazi Germany in World War II while also fighting for victory against Jim Crow at home.
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that prohibits state governments from passing or enforcing any law that denies to any person within their jurisdiction the “equal protection of the laws.”
Fair Housing Act of 1968
Federal law that prohibits discrimination in the selling or rental of a dwelling on account of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Gay
A male homosexual.
Glass Ceiling
An invisible barrier that keeps women out of top managerial and executive positions.
Heteronormativity
The culturally reinforced belief that the only natural and appropriate form of sexual relationships are heterosexual and between cisgender persons.
Homophobia
The feeling of dislike, fear, revulsion, or hatred of LGBTQ+ persons or non-heteronormative persons or behavior.
Homosexual
Persons who feel sexual attraction to others of their same identified gender and who identify as being members of a community of others who share this attraction.
Intermediate Scrutiny (or heightened scrutiny)
The Court’s middle-level standard of review that says a law is presumed to be unconstitutional unless the government can demonstrate it is substantially related to the promotion of an important government interest. The Supreme Court applies this standard of review to sex-based discrimination.
Internalized Homophobia
Feelings of guilt, revulsion, shame, and/or inferiority due to not meeting the heteronormative expectations that one believes are the only acceptable standards for sexuality and gender identity.
Lesbian
A female homosexual.
LGBTQ+
Acronym used to encompass the wide breadth of non-heterosexual, non-heteronormative identities. These include, but are not limited to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgendered, queer, questioning, intersex and others.
LGBTQIAPK
letters stand, respectively, for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (or Transsexual), Queer (or Questioning), Intersex, Asexual, Polygamous (or Polyamorous), and Kink.
Literacy Tests
Legal devices, outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that aimed at disenfranchising African Americans. These laws required prospective voters to pass civic knowledge tests and/or demonstrate reading ability, but allowed for subjective decisions by local election officials who systematically declared Africans Americans to be insufficiently literate and therefore unqualified to vote.
Nonviolent Direct Action
Resisting unjust laws through acts of civil disobedience and/or marches and demonstrations while refusing to physically retaliate even after being violently attacked by one’s adversary
Patriarchy
A social order in which men are predominant in status, authority, and power.
Peonage
Illegal method of re-enslavement by which individuals were forced or deceived into signing labor contracts that obligated them to work for no pay with demeaning labor conditions in exchange for their “employer” paying off their debt.
Poll Tax
A device aimed at disenfranchising African Americans that involved requiring citizens to pay a sum of money to register to vote. Poll taxes had the effect of disenfranchising both poor whites and poor blacks, but the burden fell much harder on the latter and, thus, resulted in a greater reduction in Black registrations.
Polygamous / Polyamorous
A long-term relationship involving more than two partners, or the desire to be in one. Non-monogamous.
Preclearance Requirement
A legal requirement imposed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is that certain states and counties with a history of voter suppression must receive permission from the federal government prior to making any changes to their voting laws or procedures. 1965 is
Private Discrimination
Discrimination by private, non-governmental individuals or entities.
Public Accommodations
Privately owned hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and other businesses that are essential for living as a free and equal member of the community.
Public Discrimination
Discrimination by government.
Queer
General umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender, or who reject the notions of male, female, heterosexual, and homosexual altogether.
Radical Reconstruction
A program adopted by the Republican Party between 1866 and 1875 including emancipatory programs and policies that supported the Reconstruction Amendments.
Rational Basis Review
The Court’s lowest standard of review, meaning it makes it the easiest to declare a government action constitutional. By this standard, the Court presumes a law to be constitutional unless it is shown that the law is not rationally related to a legitimate government interest. The Court applies this standard of review to cases involving discrimination based on age, disability, and economic status.
Reconstruction Amendments
Three amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth) to the U.S. Constitution passed during the Reconstruction Era.
Segregation
A series of laws (or informal practices) whereby different races are separated from each other through differential access to resources and facilities.
Separate but Equal
A legal standard put forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that served to legally justify segregation. The doctrine held that white Americans and Black Americans can be forcibly separated but still treated equal and, therefore, such separation does not necessarily lead to a denial of equal protection of the laws.
Sexual Harassment
Harassment of a job applicant, employee, customer, or client in the form of unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. According to current federal law (as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court), sexual harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).
Standards of Review
Analytical framework for reviewing the constitutionality of laws that appear to infringe upon civil rights. By this framework, the Court applies one of three standards: strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, or rational basis.
State Action Doctrine
The principle that the Constitution’s protections for civil rights do not apply to private conduct but rather only apply to government actions.
Strict Scrutiny
The Court’s highest standard of review, meaning it makes it the most difficult for a law to be deemed constitutional. When applying this standard, the Court presumes a law to be unconstitutional unless the government can make a convincing case that the law is narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest. The Court applies this standard of review to discrimination based on race, skin color, ethnicity, religion, and national origin.
Transgender
Denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.
Transsexual
A person who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex of their birth gender.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
A federal law that protects the voting rights of minorities from discriminatory voting practices. For example, it prohibits literacy tests, requires jurisdictions with a significant language minority to provide non-English ballots, and (before the Supreme Court ruled part of it unconstitutional in 2013) required jurisdictions with a history of Black voter suppression to receive approval from the federal government prior to changing their voting laws.
White Primary
Election tactic used by the Democratic Party in the South during the Jim Crow era that allowed only whites to vote in primaries, further disenfranchising African Americans. Party
