Prepare for AP Government with these social movements and equal protection questions. This guide covers civil rights movements, the 14th Amendment, and landmark Supreme Court cases.
Q: Bostock v. Clayton County (2020)
Answer: An employer who fires an individual employee merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Q: Defense of Marriage Act (1996)
Answer: Declares that states are not obligated to recognize any same sex marriages that might not be legally sanctioned in other states, defined marriage and spouse in heterosexual terms for federal law
Q: “don’t ask, don’t tell” (1994)
Answer: Policy on service by gays and lesbians in the military instituted by the Clinton Administration on February 28, 1994
Q: Equal Pay Act of 1963
Answer: Legislation that requires employers to pay men and women equal pay for equal work
Q: Equal Rights Amendment (1972)
Answer: constitutional amendment passed by Congress but never ratified that would have banned discrimination on the basis of gender
Q: Martin Luther King Jr.
Answer: U.S. Baptist minister and civil rights leader. A noted orator, he opposed discrimination against blacks by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations.
Q: Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
Answer: state law may not ban sexual relations between same-sex partners
Q: “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Answer: Written by Martin Luther King Jr. after he had been arrested when he took part in a nonviolent march against segregation. He was disappointed more Christians didn’t speak out against racism.
Q: National Women’s Organization
Answer: a group of activists who wanted to end sex discrimination. Today, the organization remains as a cornerstone of the women’s rights movement.
Q: 19th Amendment (1920)
Answer: Gave women the right to vote
Q: Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
Answer: Struck down state bans on same sex marriage.States must recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.
Q: Strict Scrutiny
Answer: A Supreme Court test to see if a law denies equal protection because it does not serve a compelling state interest and is not narrowly tailored to achieve that goal
Q: Title IX of Education Act of 1972
Answer: Prohibited gender discrimination in federally subsidized education programs
Q: Civil Rights Act of 1875
Answer: Prohibited discrimination against blacks in public place, such as inns, amusement parks, and on public transportation. Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Q: Civil Rights Act of 1964
Answer: outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
Q: Civil Rights Cases (1883)
Answer: Legalized segregation with regard to private property.
Q: 15th Amendment (1870)
Answer: U.S. cannot prevent a person from voting because of race, color, or creed
Q: 14th Amendment (1868)
Answer: Grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the US”; it forbids any state to deny any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.”
Q: grandfather clause
Answer: A clause in registration laws allowing people who do not meet registration requirements to vote if they or their ancestors had voted before 1867.
Q: Jim Crow Laws
Answer: Limited rights of blacks. Literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes limited black voting rights
Q: literacy test
Answer: a requirement that citizens show that they can read before registering to vote
Q: poll tax
Answer: A requirement that citizens pay a tax in order to register to vote
Q: Separate but equal
Answer: Principle upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public facilities was legal.
Q: 13th Amendment (1865)
Answer: Abolishes and prohibits slavery
Q: Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Answer: bans discrimination in public places on basis of race, color, national origin, or religion
Q: Voting Rights Act of 1965
Answer: a law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African-American suffrage
Q: 24th Amendment (1964)
Answer: Abolishes poll taxes
Q: white primary
Answer: the practice of keeping blacks from voting in the southern states’ primaries through arbitrary use of registration requirements and intimidation
Q: White Flight
Answer: working and middle-class white people move away from racial-minority suburbs or inner-city neighborhoods to white suburbs and exurbs
Q: Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Answer: unanimously held that the racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Overruled Plessy v. Ferguson’s “separate but equal” doctrine and would eventually led to the desegregation of schools across the South
Q: Equal Protection Clause
Answer: 14th amendment clause that prohibits states from denying equal protection under the law, and has been used to combat discrimination
Q: freedom-of-choice plans
Answer: A school integration plan mandating no particular racial balance
Q: majority-minority districts
Answer: In the context of determining representative districts, the process by which a majority of the population is from the minority.
Q: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Answer: Established separate but equal
Q: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
Answer: once violations of previous mandates directed at desegregating schools had occurred, the scope of district courts’ equitable powers to remedy past wrongs were broad and flexible.