| civil rights | the rights and privileges guaranteed to all citizens under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments; the idea that individuals are protected from discrimination based on characteristics such as race, national origin, religion, and sex
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| inherent characteristics | individual attributes such as race, national origin, religion, and gender
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| suspect classifications | distinctions based on race, religion, and national origin, which are assumed to be illegitimate
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| strict scrutiny test | the guidelines the courts use to determine the legality of suspect classification-based discrimination; on the basis of this test, discrimination is legal if it is a necessary means by which the government can achieve a compelling public interest
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| heightened scrutiny test (intermediate scrutiny test) | the guidelines used most frequently by the courts to determine the legality of sex-based discrimination; on the basis of this test, sex-based discrimination is legal if the government can prove that it is substantially related to the achievement of an important public interest
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| ordinary scrutiny test (rational basis test) | on the basis of this test, discrimination is legal if it is a reasonable means by which the government can achieve a legitimate public interest
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| civil disobedience | active, but nonviolent, refusal to comply with laws or governmental policies that are morally objectionable
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| standing to sue | the legal right to bring lawsuits in court
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| Reconstruction era | the time after the Civil War between 1866 and 1877 when the institutions and infrastructure of the South were rebuilt
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| Black Codes | laws passed immediately after the Civil War by the confederate states that limited the rights of "freemen" (former slaves)
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| Jim Crow laws | laws requiring strict separation of racial groups, with whites and "nonwhites" required to attend separate schools, work in different jobs, and use segregated public accommodations, such as transportation and restaurants
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| de jure segregation | segregation mandated by law
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| white primary | a primary election in which a party's nominees for general election were chosen but in which only white people were allowed to vote
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| literacy test | a test to determine eligibility to vote; designed so that few African Americans would pass
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| poll tax | a fee for voting; levied to prevent poor African Americans in the South from voting
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| grandfather clause | a clause exempting individuals from voting conditions such as poll taxes or literacy tests if they or their ancestor had voted before 1870, thus sparing most white voters
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| Plessy v. Ferguson | 1896 Supreme Court ruling creating the separate but equal doctrine
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| equal protection clause | the Fourteenth Amendment clause stating that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"
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| separate but equal doctrine | established by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, it said that separate but equal facilities for whites and nonwhites do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause
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| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka | the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled that segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
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| steering | the practice by which realtors steered African American families to certain neighborhoods and white families to others
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| de facto segregation | segregation caused by the fact that people tend to live in neighborhoods with others of their own race, religion, or ethnic group
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| hate crime | a crime committed against a person, property, or society, where the offender is motivated, in part or in whole, by his or her bias against the victim because of the victim's race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity
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| affirmative action | in the employment arena, intentional efforts to recruit, hire, train, and promote underutilized categories of workers (women and minority men); in higher education, intentional efforts to diversify the student body
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