American Government: Stories of a Nation (Presidential Election Update) - Chapter 9

Concepts--

● The NAACP legal strategy to end segregated schools

• Go case by case initially to chip away at Plessy

• Brown v Board - attack all of Plessy directly and get a ruling overturning all of it

• Interview poor black schools in the South

• Doll test - proof segregation damages children

● Methods used to limit black suffrage after Reconstruction ends

• literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, whites-only primaries

● Factors that led to the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment

• Phyllis Schlafly led a campaign against the ERA

• Not enough state ratifications

• Lack of legal support and access for women’s rights

● Group efforts for civil rights inspired by African Americans and women’s rights activism

• SCLC

• National Association for Colored Women

• NAACP

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Civil rights

• Protections for individuals from discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, sex, and other characteristics, ensuring equal treatment under the law

“504 sit-ins”

• Protests that called for enforcement of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which forbade discrimination of people with disabilities

Dred Scott v. Sanford

• Pre-Civil War ruling that stated slaves, former slaves, and their descendants were not US citizens

Americans with Disabilities Act

• 1990 legislation signed by George H. W. Bush that, among other things, guaranteed that persons with disabilities are not discriminated against in employment, buying goods and services, or participating in government programs

• Provisions: protections against discrimination in the workplace, improved access to public transportation/services/other areas of public and commercial life

Thirteenth Amendment

• An amendment to the Constitution passed in 1865 prohibiting slavery in the United States

Fourteenth Amendment

• An amendment to the Constitution passed in 1868 granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and placing restrictions on state laws that sought to abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States

Equal Protection Clause

• Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that has been used to protect the civil rights of Americans from discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, gender, and other characteristics

Fifteenth Amendment

• An amendment to the Constitution passed in 1870 granting voting rights to African Americans

Plessy v. Ferguson

• The famous separate but equal case; Homer Plessy, who was 7/8ths white and 1/8th black, was arrested under Louisiana’s Jim Crow laws for boarding a white train car

• Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment was not violated by Louisiana, and that “separate but equal” facilities do not violate the Constitution

Separate but equal

• The doctrine that racial segregation was constitutional so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

NAACP

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - led the battle for legal desegregation

Thurgood Marshall

• NAACP lawyer from Howard University, a black university with a good law school

Kenneth Clark

• A psychologist who pioneered the doll test in the Brown v. Board of Education case

Brown v. Board of Education

• A combination of five cases, arguing for the overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson based on the fact that segregation is detrimental to children and their education

• Oliver Brown of Topeka tried to enroll his daughter in an all-white elementary school so she wouldn’t have to walk through a dangerous railroad yard, but was denied

Earl Warren

• The Chief Justice of the Warren Court, a Court that strengthened civil liberties / rights in the cases it heard

Brown v. Board II

• A follow up decision to Brown v. Board in which it instructed states to act “with all deliberate speed” - basically as slow as they wanted

De jure segregation

• The separation of individuals based on their characteristics, such as race, by law

De facto segregation

• A separation of individuals based on their characteristics that arises not by law but because of other factors, such as residential housing patterns

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg

• Busing, or the use of transportation to desegregate public schools, was allowed by the Constitution, even when children had to travel further from their homes than was necessary

Affirmative Action

• A policy designed to address the consequences of previous discrimination by providing special consideration to individuals based upon their characteristics, such as race or gender

Social movement

• Large groups of citizens organizing for political change

Civil disobedience

• The intentional refusal to obey a law to call attention to its injustice

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

• A letter written by Martin Luther King Jr. while being jailed in Birmingham, advocating for peaceful protest and direct action

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• An organization dedicated to challenging racial segregation and advocating for civil rights

• MLK Jr. was president and co-founder

Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Legislation outlawing racial segregation in schools and public places and authorizing the attorney general to sue individual school districts that failed to desegregate

• Provisions: prohibited discrimination in employment, voting, public accommodations

Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Legislation outlawing literacy tests and authorizing the Justice Department to send federal officers to register voters in uncooperative cities, counties, and states.

• Provisions: ^

Nineteenth Amendment

• A 1920 constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote

Title IX

• Legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in schools receiving federal aid

• Significance: increased female participation in sports programs

Strict scrutiny standard

• Burden of proof on the government, “compelling interest” required to justify

• e.g. race, religion, country of origin

Rational-basis standard

• An equal protection test where burden of proof is on the individual

• e.g. income, age

Intermediate scrutiny

• “Substantial relationship” to a legitimate government purpose needs to be proven

• e.g. gender