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Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. For 10 years, he lived in Illinois, which was a free state. After returing to Missouri, Scott sued unsuccessfully in the Missouri courts for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. Scott wanted to be a free man. The court did not rule in favor of him. The court case was significant in the fact that it ruled that slaves were not citizens of the US, and therefore could not be free. -
13th Amendment
In the 18th and 19th centuries, slavery was an institution in America. When the North abolished slavery, the South revolted and began a Civil War. The Confederate States of America was formed, but soon was defeated. The 13th Amendment was ratified eventually by the North and South, and prohibited slavery in the United Sates. -
14th Amendment
Adopted after the Civil War. This case provides a broad definition of citizenship, and overruled the decision in the Dred Scott case. The Due Process clause included in the amendment has been used to apply the Bill of Rights to the states. The Equal Protection Clause requires states to provide equal protection to all people within their jurisdiction. -
15th Amendment
Known as the last of the Reconstructive Amendments, the 15th amendment closed the last loophole in the establishment of civil rights for previous black slaves. It ensured that a person’s race, color, or prior history could not be used to keep that person from voting. -
Poll Taxes
A capital tax given equally to every adult in the community. It provided a lot of money for governments until the late 1800s, but has been attacked for being unfair to those who are lesser able to pay the tax. -
White Primaries
White primaries were primary elections in the South in which any non-White voter was prohibited from participating White promarys were found in many Southern States after about 1890 and through the mid-1960s. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
This court case approved, and upheld racial segregation. Plessy was a 7/8 Caucasian man. When he sat in the “whites only” car, and was asked to move to the blacks car, he didn’t, and was arrested. The Supreme Court upheld racial segregation, stating “the state law is within constitutional boundaries.” -
19th Amendment
Prohibits each state and the United States government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of the citizen’s gender. This allowed women the right to vote. -
Brown v. Board of Education
This landmark case declared that state laws establishing separate public schools and laws denying equal educational opportunities were unconstitutional. It overturned earlier rulings dating all the way back to Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action describes policies that take into consideration race, ethnicity, physical disabilities, gender, social class, and military status. These policies are meant to increase equal opportunity as well as ethnic diversity. This program began in the 1960s in order to address the inequality of African Americans, by John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, and was continued by President Bill Clinton. -
24th Amendment
The 24th Amendment was the legislation that ended poll taxes. The poll taxes were a main aspect of the South during Reconstruction. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed the unequal voter registration and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited states from imposing any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure…to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote. -
Reed v. Reed
This court law challenged the idea that men were preferred to females. Mrs. Reed and Mr. Reed’s son had died and both challenged to be administrators of his estate (they were separated). When Mr. Reed was stated as the administrator, Mrs. Reed challenged it. The court agreed with her, stating that the idea that men were better than women was unconstitutional. -
Equal RIghts Amendment
The ERA was a proposed amendment to the Constitution which was intended to guarantee that equal rights under any federal, state, or local law could not be denied on account of sex. The ERA passed both houses of Congress, but failed to gain ratification before its June 30, 1982 deadline. The ERA was reintroduced into Congress on July 21, 2009. -
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke- Bakke is known for barring the use of race as the sole criteria for denying an applicant consideration into a special college admissions program. This also means that it allowed schools to consider race as a factor in an admissions program, but only to improve the diversity of a learning environment. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
Michael Bowers was caught by police engaging in homosexual acts. This violated the law of Georgia prohibiting criminal sodomy. Bowers challenged the law as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court agreed with Bowers, and the Georgia ruling was overturned. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
26 Jul 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act- This Act prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability. It protects Americans with disabilities just as the Civil Rights Act protects discrimination based on race, national origin, and gender. -
Lawerence v. Texas
This case struck down the sodomy law in Texas. The court found that intimate sexual activity was part of the due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The case has the potential to call into question other legal limitations on same-sex sexuality.
