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Dred Scott V. Sandford
The Supreme Court ruled that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; they considered him to be "property rather than an actual person with rights. -
13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864 and by the House on January 31, 1865. -
14th Amendment
The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". -
Plessy V. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality – a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal".The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877). -
White Primaries
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. -
19th Amendment
the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. Initially introduced to Congress in 1878, several attempts to pass a women's suffrage amendment failed until 1919, when suffragists pressed President Woodrow Wilson to call a special congressional session. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. It was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman, and was first introduced in Congress in December 1923. -
Brown V. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),[1] was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that American state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
Poll taxes
A poll tax is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual. Although often associated with states of the former Confederate States of America, poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states -
24th Amendment
The twenty-fourth Amendment, amendment to the Constitution of the United States that prohibited the federal and state governments from imposing poll taxes before a citizen could participate in a federal election. It was proposed by the U.S. Congress on August 27, 1962 and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. This document was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. Seprate but equal is not constitutional. -
Voting rights act of 1965
Outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many Southern states after the civil war,including, literacy test as a prerequisite to voting -
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action describes policies that support members of a disadvantaged group that has previously suffered discrimination (and may continue to) in such areas as education, employment, or housing. Historically and internationally, support for affirmative action has sought to achieve goals such as bridging inequalities in employment and pay, increasing access to education, promoting diversity, and redressing apparent past wrongs, harms, or hindrances. -
Reed V. Reed
eed v. Reed was the first major Supreme Court case that addressed that discrimination based on gender was unconstitutional because it denies equal protection. The director for the ACLU, Mel Wulf, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote Sally Reed's brief. -
Regents of the University of California V. Bakke
Although the Supreme Court had outlawed segregation in schools, and had even ordered school districts to take steps to assure integration, the question of the legality of voluntary affirmative action programs initiated by universities remained unresolved. Proponents deemed such programs necessary to make up for past discrimination, while opponents believed they were illegal and a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. -
Bowers V. Hardwick
Bowers v. Hardwick is a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy, though the law did not differentiate between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy.he majority opinion, by Justice Byron White, reasoned that the Constitution did not confer “a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy”. -
Americans With Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities -
Lawrence V. Texas
Lawrence v. Texas was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that American laws prohibiting private homosexual activity between consenting adults are unconstitutional.The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy" that earlier cases, such as Roe v. Wade, had found the Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated. -
Obergefell V. Hodges
Obergefell v. Hodges is a civil rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The 5–4 ruling requires all fifty states.
