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| Programs attempting to compensate for past discrimination by giving preference to minorities and women in areas like hiring and promotion. The Supreme Court has announced a complex set of standards governing this field. In general, quotas or preference systems instituted by government employers must be supported by proff of past discrimination and have a "compelling" justification. Such preference systems, however cannot extend to layoffs, only hiring and promotion. |
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| Any person who is not a U.S. citizen. |
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| Brown v. Board of Education |
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| A Supreme Court decision in 1954 which overruled the doctrine of "separate but equal" by forbidding segregation in public education. The Court held that segregation produces a detrimental "feeling of inferiority" in black children. |
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| A legal requirement that all government classification must be reasonable. |
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| A federal law banning discrimination in public accommodations and employment. It also authorized the attorney general to bring suit to force the integration of public schools on behalf of citizens. |
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| A person of public stature, such as a celebrity or elected official, who must prove "actual malice" to win a libel suit. |
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| A condition that must be satisfied before a judge can issue a search warrant. It requires that a judge must be persuaded by the police that good reason exists to believe that a crime has been committed and that the evidence bearing on that crime will be found at a certain location. |
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| A Supreme Court decision in 1973 that holds that the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment implies a right of privacy, allowing women to choose whether to have an abortion within certain guidelines. In the first three months of pregnancy, the decision belongs solely to the woman; in the fourth through the six months, states can enact laws protecting the mother's health but cannot forbid abortions; abortions can be forbidden beginning in the seventh month of pregnancy. |
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| A Surpreme Court Decision in 1981 allowing Congress to require men to register for the military draft but not women. |
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| An order from a judge authorizing the seach of a place. The warrant must describe what is to be searched and seized and is issued only after a judge is convinced by police that probable cause exists to believe that a crime has been committed and that evidence bearing on the crime will be found at a certain location. |
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| A federal law enacted in 1798 which made it a crime to express anything false, scandalous, and malicious about officers of the federal government or to excite hatred against the government itself. |
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| A federal law enacted in 1940 which made it illegal to advocate the overthrow of the government by force or violence. |
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| separate-but-equal doctrine |
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| A doctrine approved by the Supreme Court in PLessy v. Ferguson that allowed states under the Fourteenth Amendment to provide separate facilities for blacks and whites so long as the quality of the facilities were similar. The doctrine was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. |
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| The standard by which the Supreme Court judges classification based on race. To be accepted, such a classification must be closely related to a "compelling" public purpose. |
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| A judicial policy that regards treating people on the basis of their race or ethnicity as unreasonable and subjects such classifications to strict scrutiny. |
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| Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg |
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| A Supreme Court decision in 1971 dealing with the constitutionality of court-ordered busing to integrate public school systems. The Court held that busing is a permissible option for integration if certain conditions are met, notably that the school system has engaged in racial discrimination in the past. |
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| Whites' moving out of cities to suburbs to avoid mandatory busing or other integration measures imposed on school systems. |
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