Affirmative action
A use of programs and policies designed to assist groups that have historically been subject to discrimination.
American Indian Movement (AIM)
The Native American civil rights group responsible for the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973.
Black codes
Laws passed immediately after the Civil War that discriminated against freed people and other African Americans and deprived them of their rights.
Brown v. Board of Education
The 1954 Supreme Court ruling that struck down Plessy v. Ferguson and declared segregation and “separate but equal” to be unconstitutional in public education.
Chicano
A term adopted by some Mexican American civil rights activists to describe themselves and those like them.
Civil disobedience
An action taken in violation of the letter of the law to demonstrate that the law is unjust.
Comparable worth
A doctrine calling for the same pay for workers whose jobs require the same level of education, responsibility, training, or working conditions.
Coverture
A legal status of married women in which their separate legal identities were erased.
De facto segregation
Segregation that results from the private choices of individuals.
De jure segregation
Segregation that results from government discrimination.
Direct action
Civil rights campaigns that directly confronted segregationist practices through public demonstrations.
Disenfranchisement
The revocation of someone’s right to vote.
Equal protections clause
A provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that requires the states to treat all residents equally under the law.
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
The proposed amendment to the Constitution that would have prohibited all discrimination based on sex.
Glass ceiling
An invisible barrier caused by discrimination that prevents women from rising to the highest levels of an organization— including corporations, governments, academic institutions, and religious organizations.
Grandfather clause
The provision in some southern states that allowed illiterate white people to vote because their ancestors had been able to vote before the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified.
Hate crime
Harassment, bullying, or other criminal acts directed against someone because of bias against that person’s sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, ethnicity, or disability.
Intermediate scrutiny
The standard used by the courts to decide cases of discrimination based on gender and sex; burden of proof is on the government to demonstrate an important governmental interest is at stake in treating men differently from women.
Jim Crow laws
State and local laws that promoted racial segregation and undermined black voting rights in the South after Reconstruction.
Literacy tests
Tests that required the prospective voter in some states to be able to read a passage of text and answer questions about it; often used as a way to disenfranchise racial or ethnic minorities.
Plessy v. Ferguson
The 1896 Supreme Court ruling that allowed “separate but equal” racial segregation under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Poll tax
Annual tax imposed by some states before a person was allowed to vote.
Rational basis test
The standard used by the courts to decide most forms of discrimination; the burden of proof is on those challenging the law or action to demonstrate there is no good reason for treating them differently from other citizens.
Reconstruction
The period from 1865 to 1877 during which the governments of Confederate states were reorganized prior to being readmitted to the Union.
