APGoPo Ch 8 and 9 Terms
Chapter 8 Key Terms
Civil liberties: constitutionally established guarantees and freedoms that protect citizens, opinions, and property against arbitrary government interference
Civil War amendments: the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and granted civil liberties and voting rights to newly freed people after the Civil War
Clear and present danger test: established in Schenck v U.S. this test allowed the government to restrict certain types of speech deemed dangerous
Commercial speech: public expression with the aim of making a profit; it has received greater protection under the First Amendment in recent years but remains less protected than political speech
Direct incitement test: established in Brandenburg v. Ohio, this test protects threatening speech under the First Amendment unless that speech aims to and is likely to cause imminent “lawless action”
Double jeopardy: being tried twice for the same crime; this is prevented by the Fifth Amendment
Due process clause: part of the 14th Amendment that forbids states from denying “life, liberty, or property” to any person without the due process of law
Due process rights: the idea that laws and legal proceedings must be fair; found in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution
Establishment clause: part of the First Amendment that states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” which has been interpreted to mean that Congress cannot sponsor or favor any religion
Exclusionary rule: the principle that illegally or unconstitutionally acquired evidence cannot be used in a criminal trial
Fighting words: forms of expression, that “by their very utterance” can incite violence; these can be regulated by the government but are often difficult to define
Free exercise clause: part of the First Amendment that states that Congress cannot prohibit or interfere with the practice of religion unless there are important secular reasons for doing this
Hate speech: expression that is offensive or abusive, particularly in terms of race, gender, or sexual orientation; it is currently protected under the First Amendment
Intermediate scrutiny: the middle level of scrutiny the courts can use when determining whether a law is constitutional. To meet this standard, the law or policy must be “content neutral,” must further an important government interest in a way that is “substantially related” to that interest, and must use means that are a close fit to the government’s goal and not substantially broader than is necessary to accomplish that goal
Lemon test: the Supreme Court uses this test, established in Lemon v. Kurtzman, to determine whether a practice violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause
Libel: written false statements that damage a person’s reputation; they can be regulated by the government but are often difficult to distinguish from permissible speech
Miller test: established in Miller v. California, this three-part test is used by the Supreme Court to determine whether speech meets the criteria for obscenity; if so, it can be restricted by the government
Miranda rights: the list of civil liberties described in the Fifth Amendment that must be read to a suspect before anything the suspect says can be used in a trial
Prior restraint: a limit on freedom of the press that allows the government to prohibit the media from publishing certain materials
Privacy rights: liberties protected by several amendments in the Bill of Rights that shield certain personal aspects of citizens’ lives from governmental interference, such as the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures
Selective incorporation: the process through which most of the civil liberties granted in the Bill of Rights were applied t o the states on a case-by-case basis through the Fourteenth Amendment
Slander: spoken false statements that damage a person’s reputation; they can be regulated by the government but are often difficult to distinguish from permissible speech
Strict scrutiny: the highest level of scrutiny the courts can use when determining whether a law is constitutional; to meet this standard the law or policy must be shown to serve a “compelling state interest” or goal, be narrowly tailored to achieve that goal, and be the least restrictive means of achieving that goal
Symbolic speech: nonverbal expression, such as the use of signs or symbols; it benefits from many of the same constitutional protections as verbal speech because of its expressive value
“Time, manner, and place” restrictions: reasonable and content-neutral limits imposed by the government to regulate the context of expression
Chapter 9 Key Terms
Affirmative action: policies to help people who have been historically excluded or underrepresented, such as women and minorities, have better access to higher education and employment
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 Civil Rights Act of 1964
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
Disenfranchised: to have been denied the ability to exercise a right, such as the right to vote
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
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 whites from these tests while continuing to disenfranchise African Americans and other people of color
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
“Letter from Birmingham Jail”: a letter written by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 from his jail cell in Alabama as a response to a newspaper ad by white religious leaders telling King that the issue of civil rights should be argued in the courts and not the streets. King’s letter justified civil disobedience, saying that everyone has an obligation to follow just laws but also an equal obligation to break unjust laws
Protectionism: the idea under which some people have tried to rationalize discriminatory policies by claiming that some groups, like women or African Americans should be denied certain rights for their own safety or well-being
Rational basis test: the use of evidence to suggest that differences in the behavior of two groups can rationalize unequal treatment of these groups
“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
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
Title IX of the Education Amendments: a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. One of the most visible effects of the law was the equalize intercollegiate sports by creating more opportunities for women and elimination some men’s terms in order to achieve parity
Voting Rights Act of 1965: a federal law that banned racial discrimination in voting; the law provided for federal election examiners to enforce the law, covered certain jurisdictions within a history of voting discrimination to stop illegal voting practices before they were put in place, and prohibited any jurisdiction from requiring a person to comply with any “test or device” to register to vote or cast a ballot