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Scott v. Sanford
The 1857 Supreme Court decision ruling no to slaves who escaped to a free state enjoyed no rights as a citizen and that Congress and no authority to ban slavery in the territories. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude. -
Fourteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment adopted after the Civil War that states, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without the due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” -
Plessy v. Ferguson
An 1896 Supreme Court decision that provided a constitutional justification for exact location by ruling that a Louisiana law requiring “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” was constitutional. -
Nineteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment adopted in 1920 that guarantees women the right to vote. -
Korematsu v. US
A 1944 Supreme Court decision that upheld as constitutional the internment of more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent in encampments during World War 2 -
Brown v. Board of Education
The 1954 Supreme Court decision holding the school segregation was inherently unconstitutional because it violated the 14th amendment guarantee’s of equal protection. This case marked the end of legal segregation in the United States. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The law making racial discrimination in hotels, motels, and restaurants illegal and forbidding many forms of job discrimination. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
A law designed to help and formal and informal barriers to african-american suffrage. Under the law, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were registered, and the number of African American elected officials increased dramatically. -
Roe v. Wade
The 1973 Supreme Court decision holding that a state ban on abortions unconstitutional. The decision forbade state control over abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy, permitted States to limit abortions to protect the mother's health in the second trimester, and permitted states to ban abortion during the third trimester. -
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
A law passed in 1990 that requires employers and public facilities to make "reasonable accommodations" for people with disabilities and prohibits discrimination against these individuals in employment. -
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
a 1992 case in which Supreme Court loosened its standards on evaluating restrictions on abortion from one of strict scrutiny of any restraints on the fundamental right to one of undue burden that permits considerably more regulation.
