Chapter 5 Civil Rights

1. What does “Civil Rights” mean?

Using the law to provide equal access to the opportunities present in our society and to public facilities, like schools, restaurants…

2. What did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 do, exactly?

Forbids discrimination in voting and registration procedures, and helped to increase the participation of Blacks around the country in elections since 1965

3. What is the Equal Protection clause?

The part of the Fourteenth Amendment, that is used to insure that NO ONE is excluded from participation in our society

4. What is the problem with the “full faith and credit clause”?

Gay marriage…there has been no determination on whether states must recognize gay marriages that were recognized in other states

5. Of all the legislation passed to achieve equal rights, which act has been the most significant?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, following Kennedy’s assassination and pushed through by LBJ, made the largest sweeping enactment of law to allow for equal access.

Review: What is the establishment clause?

The First Amendment provision stating that government may not favor one religion over another or favor religion over no religion, and prohibiting Congress from passing laws respecting the establishment of religion

6. From where does Congress get the power to pass laws regarding civil rights and business’s ability to discriminate as they see fit?

From the Commerce Clause, and the right of the federal government to regulate interstate commerce.

7. Brown

 Overturned “separate but equal” from Plessey

7. Brown  Overturned “separate but equal” from Plessey  Beginning of the Civil Rights period

7. Brown  Overturned “separate but equal” from Plessey  Beginning of the Civil Rights period  Court used sociological evidence that children who were segregated saw themselves differently

7. Brown  Overturned “separate but equal” from Plessey  Beginning of the Civil Rights period  Court used sociological evidence that children who were segregated saw themselves differently  Fourteenth Amendment – equal protection clause

8. The ERA, or Equal Rights Amendment would have banned discrimination based on…

Gender

9. Civil Liberties vs. Civil Rights? What is the difference?

Civil Liberties applies to everyone, white, black, brown, yellow, women, all of us, while Civil Rights applies to groups of people excluded from the American process

10. There are a bunch of Vietnamese people who want to live in the same neighborhood. What is this called?

De Facto Discrimination – there is no law requiring, it’s based on our living patterns and who we want as our neighbor

Review: What is procedural due process?

The Constitutional requirement that government must follow proper procedures before a person can legitimately be punished for an illegal offense

11. What is the intermediate standard (or scrutiny) test?

A moderately difficult standard to meet – gender issues – courts presume these laws to be neither constitutional or unconstitutional…the male only registering for the military draft

12. Why were most claims of gender discrimination dismissed by the Supreme Court?

Because most claims of discrimination against women were considered ‘reasonable’, like excluding them from combat or the draft

13. How were most advancements in civil rights made in the twentieth century?

Through court action and the Supreme Court

14. In the 1970s, bussing, or the forced integration of schools, was an attempt to deal with what type of discrimination?

De facto segregation, people of the same color living in neighborhoods and going to the same schools – creating all black and all white school districts

15. What did the Thirteenth Amendment do?

Freed the slaves and made slavery illegal

Review: What is the Exclusionary Rule?

It bars the use of trials of evidence obtained in violation of a person’s constitutional rights, established as a result of the Weeks v. US Supreme Court case

16. What does the Equal Employment Opportunity Act do?

It made gender and racial discrimination in the workplace illegal

17. When or where in the US Constitution does the idea of equality first appear?

The Fourteenth Amendment

18. What are some of the specifics of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

 It forbade discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, or gender  It created the equal employment opportunity commission  Strengthened voting rights legislation

19. What is de jure segregation?

Segregation by law, like separate but equal

20. How quickly did the Supreme Court order schools to be desegregated after Brown?

With “all deliberate speed”. Now, if you know what that means, you’re ahead of school boards around the country in the 1950s.

Review: What is the Clear & Present Danger test?

Oliver Wendle Holmes said Congress could restrict free speech if it was “of such a nature as to create a clear & present danger to the nation’s security…established as a result of Schenck v. United States

21. What is the Hyde Amendment?

 Restricts the use of federal funds for abortions  Medicaid funds can’t be used for abortions for low-income women  Has been upheld as constitutional by the US Supreme Court

22. Can a private organization ban gay men from being members?

Yes, for example, the Boy Scouts of America can ban gay men from serving, as upheld by the Supreme Court

23. Before Brown, were there other cases or attempts by the black community to seek equal rights?

Yes, there were a number of cases…Brown was a logical extension of other civil rights cases. Brown did not just come out of the blue.

24.Why was bussing an ineffective tool to achieve integration in public schools?

 White families began sending their children to private schools  It fragmented otherwise unified neighborhoods  Public schools lost their sense of community  Supreme Court rulings began to constrict what was and wasn’t considered segregated neighborhoods

25. Under the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

Colleges can consider race a factor in admissions because a diverse student body is a legitimate educational goal

Review: What is Federalism?

The separation of sovereign authority between state and federal government, as a result of the Tenth Amendment

Review: What is selective incorporation?

The absorption of certain provisions of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment so that these rights are protected from infringement by the states

The End