Reference no: EM133348128

Civil Rights versus Civil Liberties

How does the textbook define civil rights? Civil rights and civil liberties are both types of legal rights. How are they different from each other?
What is meant by the terms "public discrimination" and "private discrimination"?

Three Sources of Civil Rights Laws

Which kind of discrimination (public or private) is prohibited by the Constitution? Which kind can only be prohibited by laws passed by legislatures or regulatory agencies?
According to the textbook, what is the most important provision of the U.S. Constitution with respect to civil rights?
What is meant by the "state action doctrine"?
Be sure to understand what public accommodations are. (Remember, they are privately owned, and thus discrimination by them is private discrimination.)
Which act of Congress (passed in 1964) bans discrimination by public accommodations? Is discrimination by public accommodations prohibited by the U.S. Constitution or by legislative statutes?

The U.S. Supreme Court's Standards of Review for Determining the Constitutionality of Public Discrimination

What is meant by standards of review? What are the three standards?
What is strict scrutiny? It is applied to "suspect classes." What examples of suspect classes are discussed in the textbook?
What is intermediate scrutiny? How is it different from strict scrutiny? To what form(s) of discrimination is intermediate scrutiny applied?
What is meant by "rational basis"?

3. The African American Struggle for Civil Rights

The Rise of Jim Crow

After the Reconstruction Period, so-called Jim Crow laws emerged across the South that deprived African Americans of many of their constitutional rights and created a system of subjugation.
What role did white supremacist terror organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, play in perpetuating the Jim Crow system?
What was the convict-leasing system? And what is meant by "peonage"?
In what state did the most lynchings occur between 1877-1950? How many lynchings occurred across the nation during this period?
What happened during the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906?
How did this and other riots and massacres impact the civil rights movement and African American rights?
Literacy tests, poll taxes, and the white primary were three ways that African Americans were disenfranchised despite the 15th Amendment.
How were these used to deter African Americans from voting?
What impact did this have on voting in the South?
In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court established the doctrine of separate but equal. What was this doctrine? What was its significance for the Jim Crow system of segregation?

Resistance and Progress: The Dismantling of Jim Crow (1909-1968)

The NAACP influenced a major shift in the judicial system's stance toward Jim Crow in the South.
In what case did the Supreme Court declare that the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place in public education?
How did the NAACP help end the peonage system?
The textbook highlights three acts of Congress that were the most influential acts of civil rights legislation of the 1960s. What were those three acts?

Contemporary African American Civil Rights Issues

What is meant by "affirmative action"?
What is the concept of reparations? And what does it have to do with the racial wealth gap in the U.S.?

4. Civil Rights of Other Racial Minority Groups

The European conquest of North America, in particular, decimated the indigenous peoples' populations by 90%. How did the long-term effects of this extreme population loss impact the rise of the American Indian Movement?
What were the goals of the Chicano Movements of the 1960s and how do they relate to the UFW?
According to the textbook, what are the central issues today surrounding the deportation of illegal immigrants?
What did Congress do in 1988 to compensate Japanese Americans for their internment during World War II?

5. Civil Rights of Women

What is meant by the term "patriarchy"?
The "marriage law doctrine of coverture" is just one example of historical barriers faced by women in the U.S. What does this term mean? And what are some other examples of historical barriers faced by women according to the textbook?
How did the Supreme Court rule on the male-only military draft?
In 1996, the Supreme Court heard a case regarding admission into the Virginia Military Institute. What was decided in this case? What was the impact of that decision?
What standards were set by the Supreme Court's 1993 ruling on sexual harassment lawsuits?

5. Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans

What do the different letters of "LGBTQ+" stand for?
While the LGBTQ+ community is diverse, what common goals hold the coalition together?
What is meant by "heteronormativity"? How does this relate to homophobia and the oppression of LGBTQ+ people?
Be sure to know and understand the current status of these discriminatory laws or practices that have impacted the LGBTQ+ community (see the table in the textbook):
Laws prohibiting same-sex marriage and the associated government-guaranteed spousal rights and benefits
Laws prohibiting same-sex sodomy (but allowing it for heterosexuals)
Laws prohibiting openly LGTBQ+ from serving in the military
Legal environment allowing landlords, house sellers, and private lenders to discriminate against LGBTQ+ persons in access to housing and mortgages.