Lesson 26: How Does the Constitution Safeguard the Right to Equal Protection of the Law?

Terms

boycott  To refuse to buy from or deal with a store or company as an act of protest.

Civil Rights Act of 1964  This law ended segregation in public places, including restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels. The law also said that employers could not unfairly discriminate against people because of their race, national origin, religion, or gender.

equal protection clause  Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which has been used to prevent states from treating individuals unfairly because of their race, national origin, citizenship status, or gender. It prohibits laws that unreasonably and unfairly favor some groups over others; it states that laws may not arbitrarily discriminate against persons.

Jim Crow laws  Laws common in the South from 1877 until the 1950s that required African Americans to use separate schools and other public facilities and that prevented them from exercising the right to vote.

segregation  The separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group from the rest of society.

separate but equal  The argument, once upheld by the Supreme Court but later reversed, that different public facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional if the facilities were of equal quality.