Poli Sci 220 - Quiz 2

14th Amendment

"No State shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Civil Rights

Are guarantees of equal opportunity and protection through obligations imposed on government to protect individuals.

Equal Protection Clause

The specific clause in the 14th Amendment that says no state can deny any of its people equal protection under the law.

Black Codes

Restrictive laws passed in some southern states after the Civil War, that applied to newly freed slaves but not to whites.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

A law passed by Congress that gave citizens of "every race and color...the same right...to full and equal benefit of all laws."

14th Amendment (1868)

Gave all persons born in the U.S. citizenship and equal treatment under the law.

Reconstruction

A period after the civil war where the Radical Republicans enforced laws like the Civil Rights Act and the Civil Rights Amendments in the South through the presence of the U.S. Army.

Klu Klux Klan

A terrorist organization committed to white supremacy that formed after the Civil War to end the Reconstruction. They openly aligned with the Democratic Party.

Hayes-Tilden Compromise

A compromise struck between Republicans and Democrats in 1876 that ended Reconstruction. It allowed Rutherford B. Hayes (R-OH) to claim the presidency in exchange for removal of the federal troops that were protecting Blacks in the South.

Jim Crow Laws

Laws passed during the Counter-Reconstruction that attempted to restore the racial caste system through segregation and the stripping away of black voting rights.

The Civil Rights Cases (1883)

The Supreme Court made segregated businesses and communities legal by overturning the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

State Action Doctrine

The view that only the actions of state and local governments, not those of private individuals, must conform to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court ruling that allowed local and state governments to pass and enforce segregation laws.

Separate but Equal Doctrine

A Supreme Court rule that segregation does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as long as segregated facilities are equal.

Birthright Citizenship

a legal right to citizenship for all children born in a country's territory, regardless of parentage.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)

Chinese man born in America was a citizen of United States; however, first generation immigrants were not, because they were neither White nor Black. This is known as birthright citizenship.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Civil Rights Organization founded in 1909, that relied heavily on a legal strategy to renew the protections of the 14th Amendment.

Smith v. Allwright (1944)

Supreme Court ruling that overturned the white primaries in the South by saying that political parties are public entities.

Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)

The Supreme Court rules that racially restrictive covenants are illegal because contracts require state action to be enforceable.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional because separate is inherently unequal for black children.

The Warren Court (1953-1969)

The pivotal years the SCOTUS was under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Warren Court did more than any other SCOTUS to advance the civil rights of Blacks and other minority groups.

President John F. Kennedy

calls on federal defense contractors to "act affirmatively" to end discrimination in 1961.

President Johnson

lays out rationale for affirmative action in his "Freedom is Not Enough" speech at Howard University in 1964.

Executive Order 11246

President Johnson makes affirmative action the official policy of the federal government. Creates the Office of Federal Contract Compliance to oversee racial desegregation in defense industries.

Social Movements

Are sustained campaigns brought by and on behalf of disadvantaged populations in support of a political or social goal. The Black Civil Rights Movement is a paradigmatic example in the American context.

Civil Disobedience

A peaceful well-publicized violation of the law to dramatize that law's injustice. Dr. King and other movement leaders used this tactic to turn up the pressure on elected officials after the Warren Court issued the Brown ruling.

Civil Rights Act (1964)

A law passed by Congress that bans segregation and discrimination in all its forms in American life.

Voting Rights Act (1965)

A law passed by Congress that protected the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities.

Milliken v. Bradley (1974)

SCOTUS ruling that said that state and local governments had no obligation to integrate public schools that resulted from de facto segregation.

De Facto Segregation

Segregation that occurs due to the decisions of private individuals.

De Jure Segregation

Racial segregation that is legally sanctioned by governments.

Bakke v. UC Regents decision (1978)

SCOTUS ruling that race could be one factor in admissions what

racial quotas were impermissible. Even a SCOTUS built with the specific goal of rolling back that Warren Court's progressivism found that governments could work to address racial inequalities in society.

Strict Scrutiny

The Burger Court's enduring legacy is elevation of the "strict scrutiny test" as the standard means for determining if laws using racial classifications pass constitutional muster. Strict scrutiny says that the government must show that their use of race is critically important to government interests and be narrowly tailored to minimize harm to other groups.

Parents Involved v. Seattle Unified School District (2007)

SCOTUS ruling that said that state and local governments had no obligation to acheive racial balance in public schools.

Shelby County v. Holder (2013)

SCOTUS ruling that overturned Section 4b of the Voting Rights Act that required southern states to get "Pre-Clearance" before they changed their voting requirements.

SFFA v. Harvard

SCOTUS ruling that overturned the use of race in college admissions on the basis that they generated "reverse racism" against Asian applicants.

Executive Order 14173

President Trump makes eliminates the Office of Federal Contract Compliance created by Johnson's EO 11246.

Bertrand and Mullainathan (2003)

Found in their famous "Black names study" that candidates with

names associated with Black identity were less likely to receive callbacks even when they had better credentials on resumes.

DeCelles (2017)

Found that the same phenomenon diminished the callbacks that Asian candidates received; also showed that sending out the same resumes with "whitened" names doubled the number of callbacks.

19th Amendment

Gave women the right to vote in federal and state elections.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

An Amendment to the Civil Rights Act that prohibited discrimination based on gender.

Rep. Howard Smith (D-VA)

Inserted Title VII into the Civil Rights Act to kill the bill; he thought white men in Congress would never want their wives and daughters to be equal and would therefore vote against the entire Civil Rights Act.

Equal Rights Amendment

Proposed Amendment to the Constitution that banned gender

discrimination; the campaign for passage of the ERA failed three states (36 out of 38 needed) short of ratification.

Illinois General Assembly

Ratified the ERA in 2018; there is currently a debate about whether the amendment will be constitutional if two more dates

ratify it because the deadline passed in 1982.

Craig v. Boren (1976)

The Burger Court struck down a law that allowed women to buy alcohol at 18 but required men to wait until 21. The SCOTUS enunciated the "intermediate scrutiny" test; which held that gender-based distinctions are acceptable only when they have a "substantial relationship to an important governmental objective."

The "intermediate scrutiny"

standard applied to gender cases is a weaker test than the "strict scrutiny" test used when probing the validity of racial classifications.

The Rehabilitation Act (1973)

the first law to prohibit discriination against individuals on the basis of disabilities.

The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund

Was a legal activist organization, modeled on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, that formed to propel the movement forward with test cases.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)

A law that gaurantees disabled Americans access to public spaces and prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and healthcare.

Public Opinion

The aggregation of people's views about issues, situations, and public figures.

V.O. Key

defines public opinion as "those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed."

Socialization

The end result of all the processes by which social groups give individuals their beliefs and values; most socialization happens in childhood years.

Self-interest

This is a view of public opinion that suggests that attitudes are shaped by individual interests.

Education (Public Opinion)

Higher education predisposes individuals to toleration of others, volunteerism, and political efficacy.

Political Efficacy

The belief that one can make a difference in politics by expressing an opinion or acting politically.

Reference Groups

The view that individuals sometimes look to their group memberships to determine where they stand on an issue.

The Media

The media have occasionally demonstrated an ability to shape the opinions of the public on policy issues and politicians.

Prescientific Polling

Before the 20th Century politicians would just guess based on their contacts with the masses.

Literary Digest Poll 1916

A poll of 2 million magazine subscribers that correctly predicted Woodrow Wilson's election.

George Gallup

Predicts the outcome of the 1936 presidential election using just 5, 000 respondents and scientific sampling techniques; the Literary Digest poll incorrectly predicted Republican Alf Landon would defeat Roosevelt.

Pres. Election of 1948

Gallup and Roper predict a win victory for Thomas Dewey over President Truman; Dewey loses.

California Governor's Election of 1982

Polls predicted Mayor Tom Bradley would become first black governor of California; he does not.

Pres. Election of 2000

Exit Polls lead news agencies to call the state of Florida for Al Gore; they must later retract this call.

Partisanship

Political science research shows that membership in a political party is one of the most important predictor of an individual's political attitudes about an issue. This is so because parties are constantly sending ideological cues through their elites and the media.

Political Elites

Elected officials try to shape the opinions of both their committed partisans and their opponents by issuing public statements. In the 1950s, political scientists believed that these

statements were very impactful. The rise of the modern media

landscape has diminished trust in political leaders.

The Mass Media

The media have occasionally demonstrated an ability to shape the opinions of the public on policy issues and politicians. The media often have editorial viewpoints that frame issues in ways that make them more than neutral observers of politics.

Public Opinion Poll

Scientific instruments for measuring public opinion using random and representative samples of respondents.

Sampling Error

The chance variation that arises in surveys from using a representative, but small, sample to estimate the characteristics of larger populations; all surveys contain some sampling error. We correct for this by calculating a statistical "margin of error."

Selection Bias

The distortion caused when a sampling method systematically includes or excludes people with certain attitudes from the sample; this is what plagued the magazine polls in the early 20th Century.

Measurement Error

The error that arises from attempting to measure something as subjective as public opinion. Our questions often are not measuring what we believe they should be measuring!

Public Opinion is Uninformed

Americans are not very knowledgeable about the specifics of American government, national leadership, and policy issues.

Public Opinion is Non-Ideological

Americans tend to lack organizing principles that connect their

views on political issues together into a coherent system.

Public Opinion is Inconsistent

Americans sometimes express widely divergent attitudes about issues and politicians from poll to poll.

Anthony Downs (1957)

Argued in his book An Economic Theory of Democracy that

Americans are too busy working to learn about politics and develop complex ideologies.

Informational Costs

The time and mental effort required to absorb and store information.

Why is Public Opinion Inconsistent?

Measurement errors derived from question-wording effects give us inconsistent gauges on public opinion.

John Zaller (1992)

Responses to surveys are often the visceral expressions of subjective sentiments; questions the validity of surveys.

Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro (1993)

Have argued that in the aggregate, public opinion is far more rational and stable than most researchers believe.

James Stimson (1991)

Has argued that researchers can discern the general

"mood of the public by analyzing" multiple surveys.

Political Participation

An individual act aimed at expressing one's political views or shaping the outcomes of democratic processes. Voting is the most fundamental form of participation in a democracy.

Suffrage

A term for voting rights; which are regarded as the most important indicator of participation in a democracy.

Anglo-Enlightenment Theorists

believed that propertied men were more responsible citizens than men without property. The Framers of the US Constitution carried this view with them into their early laws on suffrage rights.

John Adams (1735-1826)

was the second president of the republic. He argued that "men without property had not judgement of their own" because they were too economically vulnerable to think rationally about the common good.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

was the lone vocal dissenter among the Founders at the Constitutional Convention to argue for universal male suffrage.

Western Expansion and White Male Suffrage

As the boundaries of the United States pushed westward after the Louisiana Purchase, the new territories and states loosened

property requirements for white men to vote. These trends created a feedback loop that loosened the requirements in the original 13 states by 1830.

15th Amendment (1870)

The Radical Republicans amend the Constitution to allow Black men to vote thereby achieving "universal manhood suffrage" in principle.

!9th Amendment (1920)

A constitutional amendment that gives women the right to vote; as with the initial expansion of suffrage rights, western expansion plays a pivotal role in shaping the politics.

Voting Rights Act (1965)

A "force bill" that gave the federal government the power to enforce the 15th Amendment in the southern states that were disfranchising Black voters.

Anthony Downs

Most political scientists belive that political participation has declined in modern america becuase it is costly.

Fiorina et al

Also note that individual benefits to voters have declined markedly since the 19th century - when vote buying was common.

Compulsory Voting

Levying fines or other penalties on non-voters,

Registration in the U.S.

Controlled by the states; closes 30 to 14 days before electionn; depresses turnout by as much as 20 percent of the voting age population.

Robert Putnam (b. 1941)

Argues that a decline in "social capital" -- reciprocity and trust forged through rich social connections -- is responsible for decreased participation.

Sam Huntington

high voter participation can be a hallmark of conflict

Putnam cites several societal changes as being the cause

mobility and urban sprawl, technology and mass media, generational change

Compositional Effect

A shift in the behavior of a group (i.e., American voters) that results from a change in the group's composition, rather than a change in the behavior of individuals.

Low Turnout is a sign of broken democracy in 3 ways:

• Low turnout means that we are not fully engaged in developing citizens.

• Low turnout means that we have failed to address the "real" (i.e., economic issues) that matter to voters.

• Low turnout skews elections and public policies in favor of richer, better-educated and whiter Americans.

The case against high rates of participation

• High Turnout is a symptom of political strife and division in Democracies.

• Many elitists argue that high turnout maximizes the impact of ignorant and uninformed voters.

• Many Marxists believe that high turnout rates lull people into a sense of false consciousness.

Three ways to lower institutional barriers to voting

election-day registration, motor-voter laws, and making election day a national holiday

Voter Mobilization

the efforts of political parties, interest groups, and others to organize and encourage large numbers of people to engage in political activity.