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| Rights that guarantee individuals freedom from discrimination. These rights are generally grounded in the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and more specifically laid out in laws passed by Congress, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act. |
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| An agreement between pro- and anti-slavery groups passed by Congrss in 1820 in an attempt to ease tensions by limiting the expansion of slavery while also maintaining a balance between slave states and free states. |
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| To have been denied the ability to exercise a right, such as the right to vote. |
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| A type of law enacted in several southern states to allow those who were permitted to vote before the Civil War, and their descendants, to bypass literacy tests and other obstacles to voting, thereby exempting whites from these test while continuing to disenfranchise African Americans and other people of color. |
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| State and local laws that mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the South, many border states, and some northern communities between 1876 and 1964. |
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| The idea that racial segregation was acceptable as long as the separate facilities were of equal quality; supported by Plessy v. Ferguson and struck down by Brown v. Board of Education |
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| The idea under which some people have tried to rationalize discriminatory policies by claiming that some groups, like women or African Americans, should be denied certain rights for their own safety or well-being. |
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| Relating to actions or circumstances that occur "by law," such as the legally enforced segregation of schools in the American South before the 1960s. |
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| Relating to actions or circumstances that occur outside the law or "by fact," such as the segregation of schools that resulted from housing patterns and other factors rather than from laws. |
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| Disparate Impact Standard |
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| The idea that discrimination exists if a practice has a negative effect on a specific group, whether or not this effect was intentional. |
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| The use of evidence to suggest that differences in the behavior of two groups can rationalize unequal treatment of these groups, such as charging sixteen- to- twenty-one-year-olds higher prices for auto insurance than people over twenty-one because younger people have higher accident rates. |
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| Intermediate Scrutiny Standard |
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| The middle level of scrutiny the courts use when determining whether unequal treatment is justified by the effect of a law; this is the standard used for gender-based discrimination cases and for many cases based on sexual orientation. |
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| The highest level of scrutiny the courts use when determining whether unequal treatment is justified by the effect of the law. It it applied in all cases involving race. Laws rarely pass the strict scrutiny standard; a law that discriminates based on race must be shown to serve some "compelling state interest" in order to be upheld. |
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| Substantive Due Process Doctrine |
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| One interpretation of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment; in this view the Supreme Court has the power to overturn laws that infringe on individual liberties. |
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| What actions were taken by the South to repress black voters? |
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