STUDY GUIDE FOR FINAL 

Key Terms I: Overall Legal Framework

1. Constrained Court

   • Courts are limited in creating social change due to political, institutional, and social constraints.

2. Dynamic Court

   • Courts can create significant social change, even against resistance from other government branches.

3. Life Tenure, Good Behavior

   • Federal judges serve for life unless committing serious offenses, ensuring independence.

4. Judicial Independence

   • Courts function without undue influence from legislative or executive branches.

5. Due Process

   • Legal guarantees ensure the government respects all owed legal rights.

6. Judicial Review

   • Courts decide if laws/actions are unconstitutional (e.g., Marbury v. Madison).

7. Levels of Judicial Scrutiny

   • Rational Basis: Presumed valid if reasonably related to a legitimate government interest.

   • Intermediate Scrutiny: Furthering an important interest in a substantially related way.

   • Strict Scrutiny: requires compelling interest and narrowly tailored means.

Key Terms II: Reproductive Rights

1. Counter-majoritarian

   • Courts protect minority rights, even against the majority's will.

2. Constitutional Right to Privacy

   • Implied right in the Constitution to protect personal decisions (e.g., reproductive choices).

3. Democratic Constitutionalism

   • Constitutional meaning evolves via public dialogue and activism.

4. Secular Humanism

   • A worldview emphasizing reason, ethics, and justice without religious influence.

5. Open Secret

   • Publicly known but unacknowledged facts.

6. Abortion Reform

   • Efforts to amend abortion-related laws and policies.

7. Worldview

   • Comprehensive lens for interpreting the world (e.g., religious vs. secular on reproductive rights).

Key Terms III: Guns & Originalism

1. Originalism

   • Interpreting the Constitution based on its original meaning when ratified.

2. Original Public Meaning

   • The Constitution’s words as understood by the public at the time.

3. Original Intent

   • The framers’ intentions.

4. Militia

   • Citizens organized for defense, central to Second Amendment debates.

5. Individual Rights Reading

   • Interprets the Second Amendment as protecting personal gun ownership.

6. Means-ends Reasoning

   • Balancing law’s purpose against its methods.

7. Heritage v. History

   • Tension between celebrating tradition and acknowledging historical realities.

8. Abhorrence Problem

   • Reconciling originalism with historical injustices.

Key Terms IV: LGBT Rights

1. Act-Status Distinction

   • Differentiates punishing acts (e.g., sodomy) vs. discriminating against status (e.g., being gay).

2. Sodomy Laws

   • Laws criminalizing specific sexual acts, historically targeting LGBTQ+ people.

3. Harm Principle

   • Laws should only restrict actions causing harm to others.

4. Equal Protection

   • Constitutional guarantee of equal law application.

5. “Rational Basis with a Bite”

   • Stricter rational basis review in some LGBTQ+ cases.

6. Morality Laws

   • Laws enforcing moral beliefs, often challenged in LGBTQ+ contexts.

7. But-for Reasoning

   • Determines discrimination by asking if the outcome differs "but for" someone’s status.