Exam 3 Gov
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POLS 1101: American Government (Spring 2023)
Exam 3 Study Guide
C
HAPTER
5: C
IVIL
L
IBERTIES
2. Civil Liberties: Foundational Concepts
●
Be sure to know and understand the definition of civil liberties. (002)
○
Civil liberties
- legal rights designed to protect individuals from abuse of power by the government.
■
The right to engage in political speech
■
To bear arms
■
To live according to the tenets of one’s religion
■
To not be abused by police officers
■
To not be sent to prison without having one’s guilt proven through a fair trial
■
To not be subjected to cruel or unusual punishments
The Nature and Constitutional Sources of Civil Liberties
●
Do constitutions protect civil liberties against infringement by private individuals (or businesses) or do constitutions only protect against infringement by government? ○
Constitutions only protect against infringement by the government
.
●
Did civil liberties listed in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution apply to actions taken by state
governments prior to the Civil War? Did they apply to actions taken by the federal
government prior to the Civil War?
○
Civil liberties listed in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution apply to actions taken by state governments AFTER
the Civil War.
○
They did apply to actions taken by the federal government prior to the Civil War.
Judicial Enforcement and Interpretation of Civil Liberties
●
What is “Incorporation”? What does it have to do with the Due Process Clause of the 14
th
Amendment?
○
Incorporation - Name for when the U.S. Supreme Court holds that a civil liberty from the Bill of Rights applies to state governments (rather than only the federal government) through the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause’s command that n “State deprive any person of…liberty…without due process of law”.
■
The Court declares a civil liberty from the Bill of Rights to be protected against state government abuse through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
○
What’s the difference between “selective incorporation” and “total corporation”? Which approach has the U.S. Supreme Court used?
■
Selective incorporation - Gradual process by which the Supreme Court has chosen (one case and one right at a time) which civil liberties from the Bill of
Rights to incorporate through the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause.
■
Total incorporation
- The idea that all of the civil liberties protected by the Bill of Rights should automatically be incorporated into the Due Process Clause all at once.
●
The supreme court rejected this approach and chose instead the gradual process of selective incorporation.
●
These two concepts are closely tied to the Due Process Clause of the 14
th
Amendment: (1) Incorporation and (2) Unenumerated Constitutional Rights. (010*) What’s the difference between those two constitutional sources of civil liberties?
○
Incorporation - Name for when the U.S. Supreme Court holds that a civil liberty from the Bill of Rights applies to state governments (rather than only the federal government) through the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause’s command that n “State deprive any person of…liberty…without due process of law”.
○
Unenumerated Constitutional Rights
- Rights that are said to be implied by the Constitution but that are not actually mentioned in it.
■
The U.S. Supreme Court typically holds that these rights are protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
○
Difference
- Incorporation is about those rights explicitly
listed, Unenumerated Constitutional Rights involves rights that are NOT explicitly
mentioned.
3. First Amendment I: Religious Freedom
●
How does the textbook define “religious freedom”? What is the name of the first two clauses of the First Amendment that are the constitutional basis of religious freedom in the United States?
○
Religious freedom
- The freedom to develop and live according to one’s own religious beliefs insofar as doing so does not interfere with the similar freedom of others.
■
The name of the first two clauses of the First Amendment
that are the constitutional basis of religious freedom
are the Establishment Clause
and the Free Exercise Clause
■
Establishment Clause - “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
■
Free Exercise Clause
- “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the free exercise of religion.”
Establishment Clause
●
The Establishment Clause establishes there can be no official or mandatory government religion in the United States.
○
What is the difference between the concepts of “separation of church and state” and “accommodationism”?
■
Separation of church and State
- The view, often endorsed by liberal Supreme Court justices, that the Establishment Clause is designed to reduce or eliminate the role of religion in government affairs altogether.
■
Accommodationism
- The view, often endorsed by conservative Supreme Court justices, that the Establishment Clause does not mandate the separation of church and state.
●
Instead, the government may, and perhaps should, accommodate religion so long as it does not compel activity or show preferential treatment.
Free Exercise Clause
●
What was the “belief-action” framework?
○
The Court held that the Free Exercise Clause only bars the government from interfering with religious beliefs on opinions.
■
It does not prohibit the government from interfering with religious practices.
●
There are two phases in the Sherbert Test. (003) Which questions are asked are in each phase?
○
Phase 1:
■
The person has a claim involving a sincere religious belief, and
■
The government action is an actual burden on the person’s ability to act on that belief
○
Phase 2:
■
The government interference with religious practice is the result of pursuing
a compelling government interest, and
■
There is a way for the government to pursue the compelling government interest that would have placed less of a burden on the free exercise of religion.
●
What is strict scrutiny? What does it have to do with the Sherbert Test?
○
Strict scrutiny
- the label given to the most stringent approach taken by courts when
reviewing potentially unconstitutional government actions.
○
Relation to Sherbert Test
- a court makes the presumption that the government action in question is unconstitutional. The action is then ruled constitutional only if the government can prove the action in question was:
■
In furtherance of a compelling government interest; and
■
The least restrictive (or least burdensome) option available to the government for pursuing that compelling government interest.
4. First Amendment II: Freedom of Expression
The Court’s Baseline Rule: No Content-Based Restrictions on Expression
●
A baseline rule of the Supreme Court’s approach to the freedom of expression is that government may not (with a few clearly defined exceptions) enact “content-based restrictions” on expression (especially if the expression is political). (004)
○
What does Oliver Wendell Holmes’ notion of a “marketplace of ideas” have to do with the Court’s insistence that content-based restrictions are almost always in violation of the constitutional right to free expression?
■
Presented the idea that the best response for defeating beliefs and ideas we dislike is not to use government to ban their expression but, rather, to
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demonstrate the superiority of our own beliefs and ideas through our own acts of free expression.
●
This doctrine has led the Supreme Court to strike down several content-based restrictions on free expression even when, as with Neo Nazi’s hateful views, the restricted content was highly unpopular.
○
The textbook discusses two forms of expression that are protected by the U.S. Constitution (as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court) but that are not constitutionally protected in other democratic countries. What are those two forms of expression?
■
Protection of hate speech
■
Protection of spending money on political campaigns
○
What does it mean to say the First Amendment allows for content-neutral “time, place, and manner” regulations of expressive activities
■
The government may not restrict the content of speech because the government may impose content-neutral regulations that interfere with speech so long as such regulations are reasonable.
Expression Receiving Less First Amendment Protection
●
According to the Supreme Court, which of the following forms of expression are entitled to less
First Amendment protection than ordinary forms of political expression:
flag burning; slander of public figures
;
obscenity
; student speech (in public schools)
; hate speech; the spending of money on political campaigns; “fighting words;
” expression that merely promotes (but is unlikely to actually produce) lawless action; content-neutral restrictions on the time, place and/or manner in which ideas are expressed;
expression that promotes, and is likely to incite or produce, imminent lawless action; libel of public figures?
○
Expressions receiving LESS First Amendment Protection:
■
Student Speech
■
Speech promoting, and likely to incite/produce, “Imminent Lawless Action”
■
Fighting words
■
Defamation (libel and slander)
■
Obscenity
5. Second Amendment: Gun Rights
●
In the United States today, is it liberals or is it conservatives who more often favor gun rights more than gun control? How do proponents of gun rights differ from proponents of gun control in
how they interpret the Second Amendment?
○
Conservatives more often favor gun rights more than gun control.
○
Proponents of GUN RIGHTS:
■
The SECOND part of the SecondAmendment is the most important.
■
“The people” have a “right…to keep and bear Arms” and that this “shall not be infringed” by government.
●
To them, it means that the Constitution protects the rights of individual persons to own and carry guns for their own self-defence and perhaps even for recreational activities (hunting and target shooting)
○
Proponents of GUN CONTROL:
■
The FIRST part of the Second Amendment is the most important.
■
“Well regulated militia” indicates that the 2nd Amendment is not concerned
with individual persons being able to own and carry guns for recreational purposes or even for their own protection.
■
First part shows that the amendment’s purpose is solely to assure that citizens are able to “bear Arms” when serving in a “well-regulated Militia”
●
According to 21
st
century U.S. Supreme Court decisions, does the Second Amendment protect a right for individuals to own firearms for self-defense? Or does it only protect the right for persons
to own guns for purposes of serving in a “well-regulated militia”?
○
According to 21st century U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Second Amendment protects an individual person’s right to own a firearm for self-defense.
●
Has the U.S. Supreme Court incorporated the Second Amendment under the Due Process Clause of the 14
th
Amendment?
○
The U.S. Supreme Court DID incorporate the Second Amendment under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
6. Civil Liberties in the Criminal Justice System
●
Civil liberties pertaining to criminal justice establish rules and procedures that the executive and judicial branches must follow when investigating, accusing, convicting, and punishing criminal suspects and convicts.
○
What, according to the textbook, is the purpose (or “aim”) of these rules and procedures?
■
To strike a balance between respecting the rights of those suspected of crimes and empowering the government to deter and punish crimes.
○
Generally speaking, how do liberals and conservatives tend to differ in how they interpret
civil liberties pertaining to the criminal justice system?
■
Liberals:
●
Are MORE concerned than conservatives with protecting the rights of criminal suspects and convicts.
●
Liberals see these liberties as providing strong protections for the criminally accused
■
Conservatives:
●
MORE concerned than liberals with the importance of empowering government to prevent and punish criminal activity.
●
Conservatives tend to interpret these liberties as providing more modest protections.
○
Why, according to the textbook, is the incorporation of criminal justice rights under the 14
th
Amendment “especially important”?
■
The incorporation of criminal justice rights under the 14th Amendment is “especially important” because most law enforcement activities are conducted by state and local police departments and most criminal trials take place in state courts and pertain to state criminal laws.
●
Guarantees protections for the criminally accused at the level of government (state and local) where most law enforcement activities and criminal legal proceedings take place.
Fourth Amendment: Searches and Seizures
●
What, according to the textbook, is “the primary purpose” of the 4
th
Amendment?
○
The primary purpose of the 4th Amendment/Fourth Amendment is to protect citizens from unjustified government interference when law enforcement officials search for evidence of criminal activity.
●
What is the exclusionary rule? Why did the Court create that rule? Why are a growing number of constitutional scholars, lawyers and judges questioning its wisdom?
○
Exclusionary Rule
- Rule that if government seizes evidence through an unconstitutional search, then the evidence may not be admitted into court.
○
The Court created the Exclusionary Rule because it is a negative incentive to lead police to follow the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
○
There are a growing number of constitutional scholars, lawyers and judges questioning its wisdom because police may have failed to strictly follow Fourth Amendment standards.
■
One criticism is that the exclusionary rule is too rigid/strict.
■
Another criticism is that the exclusionary rule does not effectively serve its purpose.
Fifth Amendment and Self-Incrimination
●
What did the Supreme Court declare about the right of self-incrimination in Miranda v. Arizona (1966)? Specifically, according to the Court in Miranda, what must police tell criminal suspects before they question them? (008) Relatedly, what are “Miranda warnings”?
○
The Court declared that the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination requires police to tell suspects about their right to remain silent and to have an attorney, and to warn suspects about the potential consequences of choosing to waive those rights.
○
“You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present, you will have the right to stop answering
at any time until you talk to an attorney.”
○
A failure by law enforcement to issue a Miranda warning prior to questioning can result in statements made by a suspect to be excluded as evidence at trial.
■
These rules were first established in a case called Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
Sixth Amendment: Rights Pertaining to Criminal Trials
●
The Sixth Amendment provides six separate rights, all of which pertain to defendants in criminal trials.
●
If someone goes a full year after being charged with a crime before having a trial, would this necessarily result in charges being dropped on account of the person being deprived of their right to a speedy trial?
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○
If someone goes a full year after being charged with a crime before having a trial, this would probably result in charges being dropped.
●
According to the Supreme Court, what exactly is required by the 6
th
Amendment command that criminal trials must be by an “impartial jury”?
○
The pool of potential jurors must be drawn randomly from the population so that they closely resemble the community from which they are drawn.
○
The judge and lawyers on both sides of the case are allowed to question potential jurors and remove anyone whom they think would be in some way biased for or against the defendant.
●
What did the Supreme Court declare about the 6
th
Amendment right to an attorney in Gideon v. Wainwright
(1963)? What specific impact (discussed by the textbook) did this decision have on the criminal justice system?
○
The Court overturned Gideon’s conviction and ruled that the Sixth Amendment/6th
Amendment requires government to provide an attorney to any criminal defendant who requests one and cannot afford one.
○
Impact: state governments now directly employ over 15,000 Public Defenders who each year provide legal counsel to millions of criminal defendants who cannot afford
their own attorneys.
Eighth Amendment: Cruel and Unusual Punishment
●
According to the Supreme Court, in what specific circumstances does the Eighth Amendment not allow imposing the death penalty?
○
The Court ruled unconstitutional a Georgia law that allowed for capital punishment
for those convicted of rape when the victim did not die from the crime.
■
Even sexual assault of young children cannot be punished by te death penalty unless the crime results in the death of the victim.
○
The Court has also held that the Eigth Amendment prohibits certain kinds of defendants from being executed, most notably those who are under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged murder
○
Or who are unable to rationally understand the reasons for their execution due to insanity, dementia, or being significantly intellectually disabled.
7. Unenumerated Constitutional Rights Pertaining to Abortion, Sexual Intimacy, and Marriage
●
In Roe v. Wade
(1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court held that the
Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause protects an unenumerated constitutional right to privacy (010*) that include the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion. ●
What did the Supreme Court declare about the constitutional right to choose to have an abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health (2022)? As a result, abortion laws are now determined primarily by what level of government (federal or state)?
○
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health (2022), the Supreme Court declares that the U.S. Constitutional does nto guarantee the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion.
○
As a result, abortion laws are now determined primarily at the state level of government.
●
On what ground did the U.S. Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), declare unconstitutional a Texas statute that made it a crime to engage in sodomy “with another individual of the same sex.”
○
Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the Texas law promoted “no legitimate [government] interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.”
●
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, what part of the U.S. Constitution is violated if state or local governments deprive same sex couples of the right to marry?
○
The Due Process Clause is violated if state or local governments deprive same sex couples of the right to marry.
C
HAPTER
6: C
IVIL
R
IGHTS
2. Legal Basics of Civil Rights
Civil Rights versus Civil Liberties
●
How does the textbook define civil rights? Civil rights and civil liberties are both types of legal rights. How are they different from each other?
○
Civil rights
- Legal rights that aim at eliminating and/or remedying various forms of
unequal treatment in American society.
■
Are primarily concerned with discrimination against people based on such characteristics as race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
○
Differences:
■
Civil liberties are legal rights focused on protecting individuals from abuse of power by government, civil rights are focused on equality.
■
Civil liberties only apply to government actions, civil rights can apply to discrimination by private actors (such as business owners) as well as by government.
●
What is meant by the terms “public discrimination” and “private discrimination”?
○
Public discrimination
- Discrimination by government
○
Private discrimination
- Discrimination by private non-governmental individuals or entities.
Three Sources of Civil Rights Laws
●
Which kind of discrimination (public or private) is prohibited by the Constitution? Which kind can only be prohibited by laws passed by legislatures or regulatory agencies?
○
Public discrimination is prohibited/made illegal by the Constitution.
○
Private discrimination is only made illegal by legislative statues or prohibited by laws passed by legislatures or regulatory agencies.
●
According to the textbook, what is the most important provision of the U.S. Constitution with respect to civil rights?
○
The most important provision of the U.S. Consitution with respect to civil rights is the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment/Fourteenth Amendment.
●
What is meant by the “state action doctrine”?
○
State action doctrine
- The principle that the Constitution’s protections for civil rights do not apply to private conduct, but rather only apply to government actions.
○
When it comes to civil rights, the Constitution is concerned only with discriminatory
actions taken by the state: with public discrimination.
●
Be sure to understand what public accommodations are. (Remember, they are privately owned, and thus discrimination by them is private discrimination.)
○
Public accommodations
- Privately owned hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and other businesses that are essential for living as a free and equal member of the community.
●
Which act of Congress (passed in 1964) bans discrimination by public accommodations? Is discrimination by public accommodations prohibited by the U.S. Constitution or by legislative statutes?
○
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination by public accommodations.
○
Discrimination by public accommodations is prohibited by legislative statues (Congress).
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Standards of Review for Determining the Constitutionality of Public Discrimination
●
What is meant by standards of review? What are the three standards?
○
Standards of review
- Analytical framework for reviewing the constitutionality of laws that appear to infringe upon civil rights. ○
By this framework, the Court applies one of three standards: strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, or rational basis.
○
What is strict scrutiny? It is applied to discrimination against “suspect classes”? What examples of suspect classes are discussed in the textbook?
■
Strict scrutiny
- The highest standard of review, meaning it makes the most difficult for a law to be deemed constitutional.
■
The Court only applies strict scrutiny to laws that affect groups that are part of a “Suspect class”.
●
The Court considers: race, skin color, ethnicity, religion, and national origin. NOT sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. (They are reviewed under different standards)
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○
What is intermediate scrutiny? How is it different from strict scrutiny? To what form(s) of discrimination is intermediate scrutiny applied?
■
Intermediate scrutiny/heightened scrutiny
- The Court’s middle-level standard of review that says a law is presumed to be unconstitutional unless the government can demonstrate it is substantially related to the promotion of an important government interest.
■
Difference from Strict scrutiny
- differs in the goal of the law must be merely
“important” rather than “compelling” and it need only be “substantially related” to serving that important goal rather than “narrowly tailored” to doing so.
■
Forms of discrimination:
sex-based discrimination
○
What is meant by “rational basis”?
■
Rational basis
- The Court’s lowest standard of review, meaning it makes it the easiest to declare a government action constitutional.
■
By this standard, the Court presumes a law to be constitutional unless it is shown that the law is not rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
■
The Court applies rational basis to cases of discrimination based on age, disability, and economic status.
3. The African American Struggle for Civil Rights
The Rise of Jim Crow
●
After the Reconstruction Period, so-called Jim Crow laws emerged across the South that deprived
African Americans of many of their constitutional rights and created a system of subjugation.
○
What role did white supremacist terror organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan, play in perpetuating the Jim Crow system?
■
The violence suppressed African Americans from voting, depriving them of the political power needed to counteract the legal and institutional basis of their subordination.
■
Intimidated them into making a change in the system. Prevented blacks from speaking out against the system.
○
What was the convict-leasing system? And what is meant by “peonage”?
■
Convict-leasing system - a system of re-enslavement, by which Black men were arrested and convicted for minor crimes, given long prison sentences, and then leased (like property) by state governments to private industrial companies that ruthlessly drove them to do backbreaking work under extremely dangerous conditions.
■
Peonage - illegal method of re-enslavement by which individuals were forced
or deceived into signing labor contracts that obligated them to work for no pay with demeaning labor conditions in exchange for their “employer”
paying off their debt.
○
In what state did the most lynchings occur between 1877-1950? How many lynchings occurred across the nation during this period?
■
Lynchings occurred the most in Georgia (mostly southern states, but most in
Georgia).
■
Over 4,000 African Americans were lynched during this period across the United States.
○
What happened during the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906?
■
During this five-day (September 22-26) rampage, much of which occurred within blocks of the present location of the Atlanta campus of Georgia State University, an estimated 10,000 whites stormed through Atlanta beating every Black person in sight. In the end, these white mobs killed an estimated
22-25 African Americans, injured over a hundred more, and burned Black homes and businesses to the ground.
○
How did this and other riots and massacres impact the civil rights movement and African American rights?
■
Allowed whites to commit hate crimes with no fear of consequences; Jim Crow excluded blacks from any government participation.
○
Literacy tests, poll taxes, and the white primary were three ways that African Americans were disenfranchised despite the 15
th
Amendment.
■
How were these used to deter African Americans from voting?
●
Poll tax
- disenfranchising both poor whites and poor African Americans, but the burden fell much harder on African Americans, and, thus, resulted in a greater reduction in their votes.
●
Literacy test
- Systematically excluded literate African Americans while allowing illiterate whites to vote.
●
Overall
: successfully suppressed African Americans from voting and
participating in any form of government.
■
What impact did this have on voting in the South?
●
The Black voting rate in the South in presidential elections dropped from an estimated 75% (1876) to 40% in (1900) and to less than 20%
(1922). By the late 1930s, less than 5% of African Americans in the South were even registered to vote.
○
In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court established the doctrine of separate but equal. What was this doctrine? What was its significance for the Jim Crow system of segregation?
■
Doctrine - “Separate but Equal” held that white Americans and Black Americans can be forcibly separated but still treated equal and, therefore,
such separation does not necessarily lead to a denial of equal protection of the laws.
■
Significance - it became the constitutional justification for all other forms of government mandated segregation in the Jim Crow era.
Resistance and Progress: The Dismantling of Jim Crow (1909-1968)
●
The NAACP influenced a major shift in the judicial system’s stance toward Jim Crow in the South.
○
In what case did the Supreme Court declare that the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place in public education?
■
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
○
How did the NAACP help end the peonage system?
■
They raised awareness and fought for federal action to end the convict leasing and peonage systems.
■
Set up many chapters all over the nation to help educate and challenge Jim Crow.
●
The textbook highlights three acts of Congress that were the most influential acts of civil rights legislation of the 1960s. What were those three acts?
○
Civil Rights Act of 1964
- a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, and religion in areas like education, employment, and (privately owned) “public accommodations” such as restaurants, theatres, and hotels.
○
Voting Rights Act of 1965 - a federal law that protects the voting rights of minorities
from discriminatory voting practices.
○
Fair Housing Act of 1968
- a federal law that prohibits discrimination in the selling or rental of a dwelling on account of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Contemporary African American Civil Rights Issues
●
What is meant by “affirmative action”?
○
Affirmative action
- programs by employers or schools aimed at favoring individuals belonging to groups with a history of discrimination.
○
These programs usually involve some sort of special applicants for employment or to colleges or universities.
●
What is the concept of reparations? And what does it have to do with the racial wealth gap in the U.S.?
○
Concept of reparations
- the compensation of African Americans for how they were deprived of intergenerational wealth on account of slavery and discrimination.
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○
The wealth gap is a product of discriminatory practices and policies in the past that systematically deprived Black families of opportunities to accumulate wealth that were granted to whites.
4. Civil Rights of Other Racial Minority Groups
●
The European conquest of North America, in particular, decimated the indigenous peoples’ populations by 90%. How did the long-term effects of this extreme population loss impact the rise of the American Indian Movement?
○
Articulated many Indigenous American demands and dramatized their plight. This culminated in the Wounded Knee incident of 1973.
○
Pressure from the American Indian Movement (AIM) helped bring about the passage of the American Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act in 1975.
○
Indigenous Americans demanded increased aid to the impoverished reservations and an increased say in how the aid would be spent.
●
What were the goals of the Chicano Movements of the 1960s and how do they relate to the UFW?
○
Goals of the Chicano Movements
- right to organize labor, enfranchisement, and an end to discrimination and racism at the state and federal levels.
○
Relation to the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) - One of the major leaders
of the Chicano Movement was Cesar Chavez, a labor organizer who helped to create
the UFW, a labor union which organized strikes among Latinx farmworkers to force growers to concede to better working conditions in the fields.
●
According to the textbook, what are the central issues today surrounding the deportation of illegal
immigrants?
○
Separation of children from their parents during deportation.
●
What did Congress do in 1988 to compensate Japanese Americans for their internment during World War II?
○
Civil Liberties Act of 1988
○
They recognized the injustice, formally apologized, and paid $20,000 in compensation to each of the survivors of the internment.
5. Civil Rights of Women
●
What is meant by the term “patriarchy”?
○
Patriarchy - a social order in which men are predominant in status, authority, and power.
●
The “marriage law doctrine of coverture” is just one example of historical barriers faced by women in the U.S. What does this term mean? And what are some other examples of historical barriers faced by women according to the textbook?
○
Marriage law doctrine of coverture
- women sacrificed most of their rights and very legal existence to their husband upon being wed. According to this longstanding
legal conception of marriage, married women could not own property, enter into contracts, or earn a salary in their own name.
○
Other examples
- little to no protection from domestic violence or rape by husband, No custody of children granted in divorce, Coverture marriage law, Denial of access
to professions and degrees.
●
How did the Supreme Court rule on the male-only military draft?
○
The Supreme Court upheld the rule. “Was not an ‘accidental by-product of a traditional way of thinking about women.”
●
In 1996, the Supreme Court heard a case regarding admission into the Virginia Military Institute. What was decided in this case? What was the impact of that decision?
○
Decision - Virginia Military Institute (VMI) had to accept women as cadets.
○
Impact - The Court rejected the state’s argument that admitting women would undermine the special character of the institution. The VMI ruling was the final nail
in the coffin for male-only public institutions of higher education in the United States.
●
What standards were set by the Supreme Court’s 1993 ruling on sexual harassment lawsuits?
○
The Supreme Court adopted a legal standard that makes it easier for victims of sexual harassment to sue in federal court.
6. Civil Rights of LGBTQ+ Americans
●
What do the different letters of “LGBTQ+” stand for?
○
L - Lesbian
○
G - Gay
○
B - Bisexual
○
T - Transgender (or Transsexual)
○
Q - Queer (or Questioning)
●
While the LGBTQ+ community is diverse, what common goals hold the coalition together?
○
All groups face cultural, social, and/or legal oppression on account of their sexuality and/or gender identities.
●
What is meant by “heteronormativity”? How does this relate to homophobia and the oppression of LGBTQ+ people?
○
Heteronormativity - The culturally reinforced belief that the only natural and appropriate form of sexual relationships are heterosexual and between cisgender persons.
○
Relation - Heteronormativity is pervasive and “normal”. Everything LGBTQ+ people do is seen as weird/unnatural because it is not heteronormative (or “normal”).
●
Be sure to know and understand the current status of these discriminatory laws or practices that have impacted the LGBTQ+ community (see the table in the textbook):
○
Laws prohibiting same-sex marriage and the associated government-guaranteed spousal rights and benefits
■
Ruled unconstitutional in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).
○
Laws prohibiting same-sex sodomy (but allowing it for heterosexuals)
■
Ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the right to privacy in Lawrence v. Texas (2003).
○
Laws prohibiting openly LGTBQ+ from serving in the military
■
Was ended via executive order issued by President Barack Obama in 2011.
○
Legal environment allowing landlords, house sellers, and private lenders to discriminate against LGBTQ+ persons in access to housing and mortgages.
■
Discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons in housing is illegal under state law in 23 states and Washington D.C. Due to a Supreme Court decision in 2020, the federal Fair Housing Act now protects LGBTQ+ persons from discrimination in buying or leasing homes or in taking out mortgages.
C
HAPTER
8: P
UBLIC
O
PINION
2. What is Public Opinion?
●
How does the textbook define public opinion?
○
Public opinion
- An aggregate measure of the beliefs, attitudes, judgments, and/or preferences of a population over matters of public concern.
3. The Scientific Measurement of Public Opinion
●
What is meant by “sample”? How does it relate to a “population”? How big is a typical sample in opinion polls conducted today?
○
Sample - a small subset of individuals drawn from a population which public opinion researchers seek to estimate the aggregate opinion of the population.
○
Relation to population
- The scientific study of public opinion involves making estimates about the opinions of larger populations based on polled conducted on small samples from those populations.
○
Samples typically range in size from 500 to 1,500 individuals.
Three Necessary Conditions for Accurately Measuring Public Opinion
●
Be able to recognize the following kinds of question-wording problems:
○
Ordering effects
■
Form of survey measurement error in which the order that questions are asked influences responses.
○
Double-barreled questions
■
Question-wording error in which survey researchers ask respondents a question about two or more issues but only allow them to give one answer.
■
Ex: “Do you agree or disagree with this statement? ‘In a democracy, citizens
have a duty to vote and a duty to always follow the law even when they think
a law is unjust.’”
○
Leading questions
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■
Question-wording error in which a question is worded in a way that sways the respondent toward one side of an argument.
■
Ex: “How bad do you think the North Korean system of government is?”
●
How does the textbook define a representative sample? Be sure to know and understand what it means to say a sample is demographically representative.
○
Representative sample
- a sample is one which proportionately reflects the relevant diversity of opinions of the population from which it is drawn.
○
Demographically representative
- a sample that proportionally reflects the racial, ethnic, religious, gender, and class diversity of the population.
●
Be sure to know and understand nonresponse bias (016) and how it can lead to an unrepresentative sample.
○
Nonresponse bias - failure to achieve a representative sample due to individuals with certain characteristics being less likely to respond to surveys than others, thus resulting in a sample that under-represents the characteristics of those who were less likely to respond.
○
Nonresponse bias can lead to an unrepresentative bias because those who are less likely to respond will be under-represented.
○
What is margin of error?
■
Margin of error
- The amount, within a specified level of confidence (typically 95% or higher), that a measured sample value can be expected to deviate from the true population value.
○
What does sample size have to do with the margin of error? (017*)
■
When the margin of error is higher, samples are less precise.
○
Why do pollsters generally not use samples sizes as large as 4,500? (017*)
■
Harder to collect information.
4. A Citizens’ Guide to Interpreting Public Opinion Polls
●
What is meant by “the bandwagon effect”? (018)
○
The bandwagon effect
- a phenomenon in which individuals decide to support a cause or candidate simply because opinion polls demonstrate the popularity of the cause or candidate.
●
What is meant by “poll aggregators”?
○
Poll aggregators
- entity that tracks and aggregates (often averaging) the results from multiple polls in an effort to gain a more accurate estimate of a population value.
5. What Influence Should Public Opinion Have on American Government?
●
Be able to define the delegate and trustee models of representation. What are they? How do they differ with respect to how they think public opinion should influence government?
○
Delegate model of representation
- Normative conception of political representation that holds the first duty of representatives is to follow the opinions of their constituents. The people who vote for representatives are the ones who should exercise judgment over questions of public policy, and if representatives do not follow their lead, they deserve to be voted out of office in the next election.
○
Trustee model of representation
- Normative conception of political representation that says an elected representative is obligated to act according to their own best judgment of what is just or what will promote the public good even if it is unpopular
and leads to their being voted out of office in the next election.
6. Factors Influencing Public Opinion
Political Predispositions
●
What is meant by “political predispositions”? (019)
○
Political predispositions
- pre-existing attitudes, values, beliefs, and social identities that condition how one formulates opinions about public affairs.
●
What is meant by “political socialization”? How does it relate to political predispositions? (020)
○
Political socialization - the process by which our social environment leads us to develop attitudes, values, beliefs, and social identities that shape our orientation toward government and politics.
○
Relation to Political predispositions
- what our socialization is, is what we will be predisposed to.
●
What is meant by the “funnel of causality”? How does it relate to socialization? (021)
○
Funnel of causality
- Political scientific theory that posits that over the course of a lifetime, the environmental factors that influence our political predispositions become fewer in number and more limited in impact - just as space becomes more limited as material moves from the wide end of a funnel toward the narrow end.
○
Relation to socialization - As we age, we develop our socialization based on people we can relate to and also develop our own independent thought.
●
What, according to the textbook, is the most influential agent of socialization on children?
○
Family is the first and most influential socialization influence on children.
Acquiring and Processing Information
●
Be able to describe, in terms of rational ignorance, why Americans tend to have low levels of political knowledge. (023) Why, according to the concept of rational ignorance, do these two factors influence levels of knowledge: interest in politics and party identification?
○
Americans tend to have low levels of political knowledge because they have little to gain personally by putting in the time and effort necessary to become informed about politics.
○
Americans generally do not become informed about politics unless they are predisposed toward being highly interested in politics and/or too strongly identify with one of the two major political parties.
○
Rational ignorance
- The idea that the typical citizen knows little about politics and public affairs because the costs of becoming informed outweigh the expected benefits.
●
What is meant by the term “heuristics”? How does it apply to individuals that are not informed about politics?
○
Heuristics - information shortcuts used for making decisions.
○
Individuals rely on heuristics in order to guess or infer what their opinion would be if they had time to become more informed.
Reacting to Circumstances, Events, and Self Interest
●
How does the state of the economy influence how people feel about the government and politicians?
○
When the economy slows down and/or unemployment goes up, the public on average expressed lower approval for the president, Congress, and the political party of the president.
C
HAPTER
9: M
EDIA
2. Media Basics
Traditional Media versus Social Media: From Mediated to Unmediated Political Communication
●
How does the textbook define media?
○
Media - a term that refers to the means of mass communicating - e.g., newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet - and the journalists, editors, news organization, etc. who use these means of communication to inform the general public.
●
What is meant by unmediated communication?
○
Unmediated communication
- the ability, made possible by social media, for powerful officials to directly communicate with the public without going through traditional media filters.
●
Make sure to know and understand the “upside” and “downside” of unmediated communication according to the textbook.
○
Upside
- Politicians can escape unfair or inaccurate portrayals of themselves created
by biases in the media.
○
Downside
- they ca escape scrutiny from journalists who hold them accountable for corrupt activity, incompetent governance, and/or for making false misleading statements.
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The Freedom of the Press and its Democratic Functions
●
Which amendment of the U.S. Constitution and which section of the Georgia Constitution provide protections for the freedom of the press? (027)
○
First Amendment (1st Amendment) of the U.S. Constitution and Section 1 of the Constitution of the State of Georgia.
●
Where does the term “the press” come from? HINT: It has to do with Johannes Gutenberg
○
The word has its origins in Johannes Gutenber’s world-changing fifteenth century invention: the movable type printing press.
●
What does “freedom of the press” typically mean today?
○
Freedom of the press
- the freedom of journalists and news media organizations to report information without fear of censorship, financial penalty, imprisonment, physical abuse, or intimidation by government.
●
What, according to the textbook, are the “two vital functions a free press and independent media play in democracy”?
○
The two vital functions of a free press and independent media play in democracy: ■
First, when the press investigates and alerts the public about government wrongdoings, it performs what is called the watchdog rule of the press.
■
Second, the free press can facilitate public commentary and debate over the public interest and thereby enlighten and refine citizens’ judgments about matters of public importance.
○
What is the “watchdog role” of the press?
■
Watchdog role
- the role of the press/media in investigating and alerting the public about government wrongdoings.
○
What is the “marketplace of ideas”?
■
Marketplace of ideas
- the theory, famously espoused by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, that government should not suppress expression of unpopular ideas, but, rather should let different viewpoints compete for social acceptance since the “best test of the truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”
○
How do those two concepts relate to the two vital democratic functions of the free press mentioned previously?
■
They allow the press to move independently and freely.
■
The watchdog role helps promote a free flow of information and the marketplace of ideas allows for public commentary and debate.
○
How, according to the textbook, can social media provide a third democratic function?
■
It helps like-minded people find one another, notify each other of political events and participation opportunities, and encourage each other to take action and contribute.
3. The Evolution of the Media
Print Media
●
What is happening to local newspapers today and what impact is this having on the watchdog role
of the media at the local level of government? (029)
●
Despite these efforts at adaptation, most local newspapers are on a path to extinction unless something dramatic changes. Newsroom employment at newspapers in the United States declined by fifty percent between 2008 and 2019, which means there are half as many journalists and editors focused on local events today, including local government and politics, as there were fifteen years ago.
*
As a result, the vital watchdog role of the media is imperiled at the local level.
○
Newsroom employment New Media Trends
●
The rise of the Information Revolution accompanied by the proliferation of cable news has helped create a political knowledge gap in the United States and elsewhere. How does the textbook describe this process? (030) Viewers can watch nearly anything at the click of a button, bypass commercials, and record programs of interest. Citizens who want to watch reality television and movies, or binge watch shows on Netflix, can easily avoid the news. As a result, a knowledge gap has emerged among Americans. Those with little or no interest in politics have been able to avoid political news more easily than before, and consequently know little about politics, while those with a high interest in politics consume political news vociferously and are more knowledgeable than ever.
*
●
What is meant by “citizen journalism”?
Citizen Journalism: Video and print news posted to the Internet or social media by citizens rather than the traditional news media.
Media and FCC Regulations
●
Net neutrality has been an important issue in the past decade. What is net neutrality? (031) What is the debate around it? How did the Obama and the Trump administration each approach the issue?
Net Neutrality:
The idea that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must treat all web traffic equally, and therefore may not be allowed to charge different rates or discriminate against different websites in any way. Net neutrality has been the default rule of the internet, and an attempt was made to fortify net neutrality rules in 2015 by the Obama administration. However, early in the Trump Administration, the FCC reversed that course by ending net neutrality.
*
The full effects of this repeal of net neutrality are not yet known, and there is reason to believe it will be reconsidered by the Biden administration
Section 230 as Special Protection for Free Expression on the Internet
●
What is Section 230? (032) Why is it controversial in today’s social media environment?
Section 230:
A part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that establishes that online
platforms may not be sued for content posted by users on their sites even if the platforms act like publishers by, for example, moderating posts, establishing community standards, and distributing commercial advertisements.This means Craigslist cannot be held liable for false advertisements posted by users, bloggers cannot be liable for libelous statements made in the comments section under their posts, and Facebook cannot be liable for defamatory advertisements Facebook sells and promotes to their users. Proponents of Section 230 contend that much of what makes the internet beneficial—as a place for free expression and innovation—was made possible because Section 230 immunized internet platforms from the liability that publishers need to contend with. Critics contend that the liabilities publishers contend with lead them to take responsibility for the content they promote and to thereby protect society from misinformation and propaganda. Whether and how to amend Section 230 is an increasingly heated topic of debate, and it seems likely the law will be reformed in the coming years. It remains to be seen whether the downsides of the law can be mitigated without undermining the benefits provided by the willingness of platforms to facilitate diverse expression and the free exchange of ideas.
5. Media Effects on Consumers
●
Be sure to know and understand each of the following types of media effects (and how they differ from each other):
○
Agenda setting:
The power of the media to influence what the public thinks about (or
does not think about) through its decisions to cover some events and issues more than others. (Contrast with Framing and Priming)
○
Priming:
Process by which media influences how we think about an issue by leading us to unconsciously bring certain considerations to the top of our head when we evaluate the issue. (Compare and contrast with Agenda Setting and Framing)
○
Framing (Matching 001): Process by which media influences how we think about an issue by highlighting particular considerations or aspects of the issue. (Compare and
contrast with Agenda Setting and Priming)
●
How does social media agenda setting differ from the traditional agenda setting of television news, newspapers, etc.?
-
Traditionally, the term media
has referred to the means of mass communication—
e.g., newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the internet—and the journalists, editors, news organization, etc. who use these channels of communication to inform the general public. -Before the rise of social media, media agenda setting resulted from decisions made by editors, publishers, and producers. A story or issue would receive attention if they
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decided it was newsworthy and published it. This still occurs today, but agenda setting is now also influenced by social media amplification.Content on social media gets spread through a combination of (1) engagement by users and (2) automated decisions by computer algorithms about which content to recommend to users and the order in which content is presented to users on their feeds. When you engage with a social media post by
liking it, sharing it, or commenting on it, the social media site’s algorithm gains data about you and the post. Over time, accumulated data allow algorithms to predict which posts you will engage with. Algorithms also consider the rate at which new posts are being liked and shared—which is an indicator of how interesting and important users believe them to be. A social media post explodes and goes viral when people rapidly share and engage with it, which leads algorithms to push it to more users (through recommendations and feed placements), which leads to even more sharing and engagement, which leads to even more algorithmic pushing, and so on. When a story, video, or statement goes viral like this on social media, it can be a powerful form of agenda setting if it leads social media users to think about some issues and events more than they would have otherwise. And a viral social media post’s agenda setting power can reach beyond social media audiences as well. If a viral post gains the attention of traditional news media editors, publishers, and/or producers, and if they decide it is newsworthy, they can run their own story about it and thereby reach a broader audience.
What are the main characteristics of thematic and episodic framing? Be sure to be able compare each type of frame. (Matching 002)
Episodic Frame:
The portrayal of an event as a stand-alone occurrence and that leads the news consumer
to react in a visceral and emotional way
Thematic Frame
: Coverage of an event that places it in a broader context and leads news consumers to understand the causes of the event and how it relates to broader longer-term trends and patterns.
6. Media Bias
Ideological Bias
●
What is meant by “ideological bias”? Systematic slanting of media coverage in favor of one or more ideological or partisan orientation(s) and against others.
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●
Which ideological group (liberals or conservatives) more often claims the mainstream media to be ideologically biased against them? (033) Conservatives
●
The textbook recommends exposing oneself to an ideologically diverse set of information sources. What does it claim are advantages of doing that? If, on the other hand, citizens expose
themselves to sources representing a diversity of ideological perspectives (including perspectives different from their own), they can develop a richer understanding of issues, make sounder judgments, and become better equipped to engage in constructive and respectful discussions and debates across partisan and ideological lines.
●
The textbook also recommends relying only on sources that have earned reputations for factual accuracy, credibility, and trustworthiness. This is how you can avoid both misinformation
and disinformation
. Make sure to know the definitions of those two terms. Misinformation sharing false information unintentional Disinformation: A form of propaganda involving the dissemination of false information (misinformation) with the deliberate intent to deceive or mislead.
Market Bias
●
What is market bias? Phenomenon in which competitive market pressures lead news media organizations to produce content that is less relevant and useful than citizens need for making wise and just decisions.
●
Competitive market pressures lead news organizations to seek to both reduce the cost of producing news stories and (in order to raise advertising revenue) produce news stories that attract a large audience. How do these two factors (cost pressures and the need to attract revenue) explain why news organizations can fall short of the aspiration of providing relevant and useful information that helps citizens make wise and just decisions?
Cost pressures: -
Thus, for media outlets to support investigative journalism, they need to be willing to support journalists who poke around looking for scandals or other wrongdoing while going for significant periods without finding anything noteworthy to report. From a business standpoint, news outlets will likely find it more cost effective to instead pay a journalist who frequently produce different kinds of news stories -- like celebrity Twitter feuds -- that more reliably attract consumers. This logic has contributed to
the slashing of budgets for investigative journalists at newspapers and television news stations around the country. The trend in cutting the number of journalists at newspapers even predated the rise of the internet, which, as we have seen, has placed additional strains on newspapers’ profitability.
*
-
Another example of high-quality news reporting that is relatively expensive to produce is that which seeks to contextualize events for the
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audience so that they better understand their causes and broader significance. Local news programs tend to report on every local murder, but they rarely report on long-term trends in murder rates or on what criminologists know about the causes of violent crime. Part of the reason they do not report in this way is that it is cheaper to pay a single journalist
to simply report what happened in a particular murder case than it is to pay researchers to put in the time required for producing a richer contextualized account of the problem of murder and other violent crimes.
Revenue: Indeed, if a local news organization would expect a mass influx of consumers if
they reported on crime through a thematic rather than episodic frame, they might find it profitable to incur the cost of doing so. However, media consumers
often reveal a preference for news content that appeals to fear, anger, disgust, sexual desire, greed, and envy. We get inundated by news about celebrity gossip, sex scandals, and salacious crimes in part because we reliably click on links to those kinds of stories. Media organizations focus on ratings and social media attention. To raise advertising revenue, they need to produce news stories
that attract a large audience. Thus, to get more high-quality news, either consumers need to demonstrate they will give it attention when it is produced, or concerned citizens need to find ways to subsidize and reward new organizations that produce high quality news even when large numbers of consumers do not demand it.
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