Chapter 18 VocabularyCivil Liberties

Created By: Britany Stergos!

Clear-and-present-danger testA 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 pro-

Communist 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. middle-class whites, from neighborhoods

undergoing racial integration.