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Civil Rights / Liberties
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Dred v Sandford
Dred Scott v. Sandford,[1] 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), commonly referred to as The Dred Scott Decision, was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants[2]—whether or not they were slaves—were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. -
13th amdendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was adopted on December 6, 1865, and was then declared in a proclamation of Secretary of State William H. Seward on December 18. It was the first of the Reconstruction Amendments. -
Poll Taxes
A poll tax is a discriminatory tax that is a pre-condition of the exercise of the ability to vote. This tax emerged in some states of the United States in the late 19th century. After the ability to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment, many Southern states enacted poll tax laws which often included a grandfather clause that allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without payin -
14th amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted after the Civil War as one of the Reconstruction Amendments on July 9, 1868.
The Fourteenth Amendment provides a broad definition of citizenship, overruling the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had excluded slaves and their descendants from possessing Constitutional rights.
Its Due Process Clause has been used to apply most of the Bill of Rights to the states. This clause has also been used to -
15th amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (i.e., slavery). It was ratified on February 3, 1870.
The Fifteenth Amendment is one of the Reconstruction Amendment -
Plessy V Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation even in public accommodations (particularly railroads), under the doctrine of "separate but equal". -
White Primaries
White primaries were primary elections in the Southern States of the United States of America in which any non-White voter was prohibited from participating. White primaries were found in many Southern States after about 1890 and through the mid-1960s.[1] -
19th Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits each state and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920. -
Brown V Board of Edu
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),[1] was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students and denying black children equal educational opportunities unconstitutional. The decision overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inhere -
24th amendment
The Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964. -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public ("public accommodations"). -
Voting Rights Act
The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. § 1973–1973aa-6)[1] outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the United States. -
Reed v Reed
Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), was an Equal Protection case in the United States in which the Supreme Court ruled that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. After the death of their adopted son, Sally and Cecil Reed sought to be named the administrator of their son's estate; the Reeds were separated. -
Univ. of California V Bakke
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on the permissible scope and purpose of affirmative action programs.
Though there was no clear-cut majority opinion, Bakke (based on page 307 of Justice Powell's opinion) came to stand for barring the use of race as the sole criteria for excluding an applicant from consideration for a special college admissions program. Bakke also came to be viewed as affirming -
ERA
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States 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 was originally written by Alice Paul. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress, but failed to gain ratification before its June 30, 1982 deadline. -
Bowers v. Hardwick
Bowers v. Hardwick , , was a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law that criminalized oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals -
Americans with Disabilities
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990[1][2] (ADA) is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. Its long title is "An Act to establish a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability." It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009.[3] -
Affirmitive Action
In the United States, affirmative action refers to policies that take gender, race, or ethnicity into account in an attempt to promote equal opportunity and increase ethnic diversity in workplaces and schools. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and public contracting goals, to educational outreach and health programs. The impetus towards affirmative action is twofold: to maximize diversity and its presumed benefits in all levels of society, and to redress perceived disadvantages d -
Lawrence V Texas
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003),[1] was a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the justices struck down the sodomy law in Texas. The court had previously addressed the same issue in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick, where it upheld a challenged Georgia statute, not finding a constitutional protection of sexual privacy.