Exam 16: Civil Rights: the Struggle for Political Equality

If a group of people were systematically discriminated against in the past, which of the following would constitute an affirmative action policy designed as a remedy to help the members of this group overcome the legacy of discrimination?

What was the Supreme Court's rationale in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) for why Congress could not prohibit discrimination in public accommodations?

The __________ was enacted in 1990 and is designed to protect the civil rights of disabled Americans.

What does the Lilly Ledbetter Act do?

The Supreme Court has prohibited school districts from using race when determining which students will attend which schools.

__________ upheld the right of private individuals-but not government-to discriminate in the provision of public accommodations.

What did the Supreme Court decide in Loving v. Virginia (1967)? What was public opinion on the issue before and after this ruling? Does this say anything about whether the federal government should be a role model for the promotion of civil rights for gays and lesbians by approving same-sex marriage?

In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Supreme Court determined that __________ were unconstitutional.

Make an argument for interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment as supporting the right of gays and lesbians to get married to their same-sex partners.

What was the objective of the women's suffrage movement?

Describe the statutory techniques used in the South to render the Fifteenth Amendment's voting guarantees ineffectual for African Americans. When statutory techniques did not work, whites resorted to terror. What forms did intimidation through terror take? How long did preventing voting through terror last?

What did the Supreme Court mean when it declared during World War II that race was a "suspect classification"?

Under the Court's review standards, a law that classifies people according to __________ will be given strict scrutiny by the Supreme Court to determine its constitutionality.

According to the Supreme Court decisions in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and the two University of Michigan cases noted in the chapter, what sorts of affirmative action programs for admission to public universities are permissible, and what sorts are not?

What is the status of affirmative action in college admissions after the Supreme Court decisions in the two Michigan cases, one involving the University of Michigan undergraduate program and one the law school?

In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court overturned the separate-but-equal doctrine that the Court had established in Brown v. Board of Education.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has ruled that it is contrary to law to create a work environment that is __________, and the courts have used this standard in deciding sexual harassment cases.

In 1964, Congress passed the __________ to help keep the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Compare and contrast the due process clause and the equal protection clause in the Constitution.

How did the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in 1993 come about? What is the current status of the policy? What was the point of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed by Congress in 1996? What is the current status of that act?