Political Dictionary Chapter 21: Civil Rights

Prepared by a Student

1. Heterogeneous is of another or different race, family or kind; composed of a mix of elements. The fact that the people in the United States are a heterogeneous lot, and are getting more so year to year, makes society vulnerable to discrimination and the government responsible for affirmative action and equality.

2. Immigrants are those aliens that are legally admitted as permanent residents. They make the United States more heterogeneous and have a profound effect on the American social, political, and economic landscape.

3. Reservations are public lands set aside by a government for use by Native American tribes. It is a way for government to segregate the Native Americans from the rest of the society.

4. Refugees are those who seek protection from war, persecution, or some other danger. They seek the better government of the United States, willing to serve under it.

5. Assimilation is the process by which people of one culture merge into and become part of another culture. It is a way for immigrant groups to adapt and survive in American society.

6. Segregation means the separation of one group from another. It makes society unequal and creates conflict among the heterogeneous citizens.

7. Jim Crow Laws were laws that separated people on the basis of race. These laws required segregation in public and private facilities.

8. Separate-But-Equal Doctrine is a constitutional basis for laws that separate one group from another on the basis of race. It soon became the constitutional justification for segregation in several fields and enabled discrimination to further exist.

9. Integration is the process of bringing a group into the mainstream of society. This became the basis of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which supported desegregation and justice among the American people.

10. De Jure Segregation is segregation by law, with legal sanction. They are the acts required by a “constitutional” law that kept inequality persistent.

11. De Facto Segregation is segregation by fact, even if no law requires is. It is caused by housing patterns that society imposes on a race.

12. Affirmative Action is a policy that requires most employers take positive steps to remedy the effects of past discrimination. It applies to all the agencies of the Federal Government, to all the States and other local governments, and to all those private employers who sell goods or services to any agency of the Federal Government.

13. Quotas are rules requiring certain number of jobs or promotions for members of certain groups. They were used to balance out the kind of employees employers hire.

14. Reverse Discrimination is discrimination against the majority group. Critics on affirmative action say that it demands that preference be given to females and/or nonwhites solely on the basis of sex or race, and they insist that the Constitution requires that all public policies be “color blind.”

15. Citizen is a member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to it by birth or naturalization and is entitled to full civil rights. They are given equal protection under the government regardless of any differences.

16. Jus Soli is the law of the soil, or where one is born. The 14^th Amendment confers citizenship according to the location of a person’s birth. It is a way for the children of immigrants to become legal citizens.

17. Jus Sanguinis is the law of the blood, or whom one is born. It makes a child a citizen if at least one of the parents is a citizen, and who has at some time lived in the United States.

18. Naturalization is the legal process by which a person becomes a citizen of another country at some time after birth. It provides a constitutional basis for an individual to attain civil rights.

19. Aliens are citizens or nationals of a foreign state living in this country. They are the ones who undergo the naturalization process provided by Congress.

20. Expatriation is the legal process by which a loss of citizenship occurs. It gives citizens the freedom to voluntarily change citizenship.

21. Denaturalization is the process where naturalized citizens lose their citizenship involuntarily. It can only occur by court order and only after it has been shown that the person became a citizen by fraud or deception.

22. Deportation is the legal process in which aliens are legally required to leave the United States. This is the difference of the status of aliens and citizens. It lets the court apply punishment to those aliens who break the laws set by the government.