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Dred Scott v. Stanford
Dred Scott was a slave who escaped from his master, and brought his case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided that slaves were property and "balck men", whether slaves or not, enjoyed no rights as citizens, and also that the Supreme Court had no rights to ban slavery. -
13th Amendment
This came about around the end of the civil war, with the Union win the ratified the thirteenth amendment which banned slavery and involuntary servitude. -
14th Amendment
This amendment gave African Americans citizenship and them "equal protection of the law." This was widely ingonred for about a century. -
15th Amendment
The ratification of this amendment gave African American males the right to vote, although many discriminators found ways to discourage them from voting. -
Plessy V Ferguson
This was a supreme court case brought by a man who was partially African American, and had tried to sit on a bus that was designated for whites only. He sued for equal rights. Here the supreme court ruled that separate but equal was constitutional. -
Poll Taxes
Poll taxes were required payments in order to vote. these were set up in the southern states to discourage African Americans form voting. These taxes were applicable to everyone but targeted the African American population beacause they didn't have that much money after coming out of forced servitude. They were put into effect from 1889 to 1910 and lasted until 1964, when they were abolished by the 24th amendment. -
Nineteenth Amendment
This gives women the right to vote. -
White Primaries
White primaries were primary elections (elections to narrow down candidates for presidency) in whick only white voters were allowed to participate. These lasted from around 1890 to 1944, when the supreme court ruled against the white primary system in Texas in the court case Smith v. Allwright. -
Brown V Board of Education
This case was a landmark ruling making quite a lot of ground for equal rights. In this case the supreme court decided that separate but equal public schooling was not constitutional and was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. This decision overturned Plessy V Ferguson and paved the way for integration. -
Affirmative Action
Afirmative is a process of positive discrimination in which the people of a disadvantaged group are preferable and chosen over an advantaged group. It mostly focuses on employment and education for women and minorities or groups that have been historically excluded or underrepresented. It is the outcome of the CIvil Rights Movement. -
24th Amendment
This Amendment prohibited poll taxes in federal elections. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Bans any form of discrimination against any groups in public accomodations such as hotels, motels, and restaurants, and also forbids many forms of employment discrimination. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This was a law designed to help eliminate formal and informal barriers to African American suffrage and eradicate racial discrimination in voting. It sent registrars to Southern states to help regulate the voting process and enforce the regulations. -
Reed V Reed
This was a landmark case in the fight for women's rights. Here the Supreme Court upheld a claim of gender discrimination. This was decided under the Equal Protection Clause, that administrators of estates cannot be names in a way that discriminates via sex. -
Equal Rights Amendment
Equal rights under the law shall shall not be denied or abridged by the US or by any state on account of sex. Basically this states that discrimination on the basis of gender was not allowed. This is a huge step towards women's rights. This failed to aquire the 3/4ths vote necessary, and was unable to become an amendment. -
Regents of the Univeristy of Caifornia v. Bakke
A state university could not admit less qualified individuals solely because of meir race. The Supreme Court ruled that a university's use of racial "quotas" in its admissions process was unconstitutional, but a school's use of "affirmative action" to accept more minority applicants was constitutional in some circumstances. This case is important because it forced schools to not discriminate so students of different races could get in if they were smart enough. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
In Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not protect the right of gay adults to engage in private, consensual sodomy. The Court first argued that the fundamental "right to privacy," as protected by the Constitution's Due Process Clause against the states, does not confer "the right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy." This case is important because it was a large set back to the gay community. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
This act requires public facilities and employers to make reasonable accomodations for people with disabilities and prohibits the discrimination of the disabled. This is an unfunded mandate, which forces the states to pay for these accomodations. Some exaples of these accomodations are handicap spaces and ramps. -
Lawerence v. Texas
The Supreme Court overturned Bowers v. Hardwick when it violated a Texas antisodomy law on the grounds that such laws were unconstitutional intrusions of the right to privacy. This case is important because it started to provide homosexual couples the rights like heterosexual couples. This case also gave Homosexual couples the right to privacy.
