Transcript Chapter 18 Vocabulary Civil Liberties

Chapter 18 Vocabulary
Civil Liberties
Created By: Britany Stergos!
Clear-and-present-danger test
A legal interpretation that reconciled two
views of the First Amendment right of
free speech, the first that Congress
could not pass any law to restrict
speech and the second that it could
punish harms caused by speech.
Proposed by Supreme Court justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes in1919, it held
that Congress could punish only
speech that created a “clear and
present danger” of bringing about the
actions that Congress is authorized to
prevent.
Communist Control Act
• 1954 Legislation that outlawed the
Communist Party of the United States
and prohibited communists from being
an official of any labor organization.
Due Process Clause of 14th
Amendment
• the principle that the government must
respect all of a person's legal rights
instead of just some or most of those
legal rights when the government
deprives a person of life, liberty, or
property. Due process has also been
frequently interpreted as placing
limitations laws and legal proceedings,
in order for judges instead of
legislators to guarantee fundamental
fairness, justice, and liberty.
Espionage and Sedition Acts
• Espionage Act:
–1917, made it a crime for a person
to convey information with intent
to interfere with the operation or
success of the armed forces of
the United States or to promote
the success of its enemies.
Continued:
• Sedition Act:
– The passing of this act forbade
Americans to use "disloyal, profane,
scurrilous, or abusive language"
about the United States government,
flag, or armed forces during war. The
act also allowed the Postmaster
General to deny mail delivery to
dissenters of government policy
during wartime.
Establishment Clause
• From first amendment, generally
been interpreted to prohibit
– 1) the establishment of a national
religion by Congress,
– or 2) the preference of one religion
over another or the support of a
religious idea with no identifiable
secular purpose.
Exclusionary rule of freedom of
expression
• A rule that hold evidence gathered in
violation of the Constitution cannot be
used in trial.
Freedom of Religion
is the freedom of an individual or
community, in public or private, to
manifest religion or belief in
teaching, practice, worship, and
observance. It is generally
recognized to also include the
freedom to change religion or to
not follow any religion.
Free Exercise Clause
• is the accompanying clause with
the Establishment Clause of the
first amendment. It reads:
• “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.
Good Faith Exception
• Giving the police greater freedom to their
investigating because they are authority
figures.
Hate Crime
• a crime that violates the
victim's civil rights and that is
motivated by hostility to the
victim's race, religion, creed,
national origin, sexual
orientation, or gender
Internal Security Act
• 1950 is a law that required the registration of
Communist organizations with the Attorney
General in the United States and established
the Subversive Activities Control Board to
investigate persons thought to be engaged in
"un-American" activities, including
homosexuals. Members of these groups
could not become citizens, and in some
cases, were prevented from entering or
leaving the country. Citizen-members could
be denaturalized in five years.
Libel
• defamation by written or
printed words, pictures, or in
any form other than by spoken
words or gestures.
McCarthyism
• the practice of making accusations
of disloyalty, esp. of proCommunist activity, in many
instances unsupported by proof or
based on slight, doubtful, or
irrelevant evidence.
Obscenity
• the character or quality of
being obscene; indecency;
lewdness.
• an obscene word or
expression, esp. when used as
an invective.
Prior Restraint
• a court order banning
publication of unpublished
material.
Probable Cause
• Also see “Search warrant”
• When police have a persuadable reason
[to a judge] to search without a real
warrant to find evidence.
Public Figure
• A famous person whose life and
behavior are the focus of intense
public interest and scrutiny.
Search Warrant
• An order from a judge authorizing the
search of a place; the order must describe
what is to be searched and seized, and
the judge can issue it only if he or she is
persuaded by the police that good reason
(probable cause) exists that a crime has
been committed and that the evidence
bearing on the crime will be found at a
certain location.
Sedition Act
• Sedition Act of 1918" was an amendment
to the Espionage Act of 1917 passed at
the urging of President Wilson, who was
concerned that dissent, in time of war, was
a significant threat to morale. The passing
of this act forbade Americans to use
"disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive
language" about the US Government, flag,
or armed forces during war. The act also
allowed the Postmaster General to deny
mail delivery to dissenters of government
policy during wartime.
Smith Act
• is a federal statute that makes it a criminal
offense for anyone to knowingly or willfully
advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty,
necessity, desirability or propriety of
overthrowing the Government of the
United States or of any State by force or
violence, or for anyone to organize any
association which teaches, advises or
encourages such an overthrow, or for
anyone to become a member of or to
affiliate with any such association.
Symbolic Speech
• An act that conveys a political
message, such as burning a
draft card to protest the draft.
Wall of separation principle
• A Supreme Court interpretation of the
establishment clause in the First
Amendment that prevents
government involvement with religion,
even on a non-preferential basis.
Affirmative action
• The requirement, imposed by law or
administrative regulation, that an
organization (business firm,
government agency, labor union,
school, or college) take positive steps
to increase the number or proportion of
women, African Americans, or other
minorities in its membership.
Alien
• a resident born in or belonging to
another country who has not
acquired citizenship by; a
foreigner.
Brown v Board of Education
• Handed down on May 17,1954, the
Warren Court's unanimous (9-0)
decision stated that "separate
educational facilities are inherently
unequal." As a result, dejure racial
segregation was ruled a violation of the
Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
• was a landmark legislation that
outlawed segregation in the US
schools and public places.
Compensatory action
• An action designed to help members of
disadvantage groups, especially
minorities and women, catch up,
usually by giving them extra education
training, or services.
De facto segregation
• segregation (especially in schools) that
happens in fact although not required
by law
De jure segregation
• segregation that is imposed
by law
Equality of opportunity
• situation in which every person has an
equal chance, especially in areas such
as education, employment and political
participation.
Equality of results
• to reduce or eliminate differences in
material condition between individuals
or households in a society. This usually
means equalizing income and/or total
wealth to a certain degree.
Fourteenth Amendment
• first intended to secure rights for
former slaves. It includes the due
process and equal protection clauses
among others.
Hyde Amendment
• is a provision barring the use of federal
funds to pay for abortions for low-income
women, first passed by Congress in 1976. It
was so named because its chief sponsor was
Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of
Illinois. The measure was introduced in
response to the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v
Wade decision legalizing abortion, and
represented the first major legislative
success by abortion opponents in the US.
Jim Crow
• a practice or policy of segregating or
discriminating against blacks, as in
public places, public vehicles, or
employment.
NAACP
• National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
• is one of the oldest and most influential
civil rights organizations in the US.
Non-violent civil disobedience
• is the active refusal to obey certain
laws, demands and commands of a
government, or of an occupying power,
without resorting to physical violence.
Plessy v Ferguson
• was a landmark Supreme Court
decision in the jurisprudence [study of
the law] of the US, upholding the
constitutionality of racial segregation
even in public accommodations
(particularly railroads), under the
doctrine of “separate but equal".
Preferential treatment
• To give preference to one class of
workers or applicants over another
class of workers or applicants because
of their disability, sex or race. Most
often used as it relates to affirmative
action efforts to bring about parity.
Reverse discrimination
• Discrimination against a privileged
group in order to correct previous
discrimination against a disadvantaged
group. The accusation of ‘reverse
discrimination’ is often directed against
those favoring equity programs or
affirmative action programs.
Roe v Wade
• Supreme Court case that resulted in a
landmark decision regarding abortion.
According to the Roe decision, most
laws against abortion in the US violated
a constitutional right to privacy under
the Due Process Clause of the 14th
Amendment. The decision overturned
all state and federal laws outlawing or
restricting abortion that were
inconsistent with its holdings.
Rostker v Goldberg
• was a decision of the Supreme Court
holding that the Congress could
require the Selective Service system to
adopt a policy of requiring only men to
register for the draft.
Separate but Equal Doctrine
• is a set phrase denoting the system of
segregation that justifies giving
different groups of people separate
facilities or services with the
declaration that the quality of each
group's public facilities remain equal.
Strict Scrutiny
• the highest level of judicial scrutiny
that is applied esp. to a law that
allegedly violates equal protection in
order to determine if it is narrowly
tailored to serve a compelling state
interest
Suspect Classifications
• a classification of groups which
meet a series of criteria suggesting
they are likely the subject of
discrimination.
Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg
• was an important Supreme Court
case dealing with the busing of
students to promote integration in
public schools.
White Flight
• the movement of whites, esp. middleclass whites, from neighborhoods
undergoing racial integration.