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affirmative action government policies or programs that seek to redress past injustices against specified groups by making special efforts to provide members of these groups with access to educational and employment opportunities Brown v. Board of Education the 1954 Supreme Court decision that struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine as fundamentally unequal. This case eliminated state power to use race as a criterion of discrimination in law and provided the national government with the power to intervene by exercising strict regulatory policies against discriminatory actions civil rights obligation imposed on government to take positive action to protect citizens from any illegal action of government agencies as well as of other private citizens de facto literally, "by fact"; practices that occur even when there is no legal enforcement, such as school segregation in much of the United States today de jure literally, "by law"; legally enforced practices, such as school segregation in the South before the 1960s discrimination use of any unreasonable and unjust criterion of exclusion equal protection clause provision of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing citizens "the equal protection of the laws." This clause has been the basis for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and other groups Fifteenth Amendment one of three Civil War amendments; guaranteed voting rights for African American men Fourteenth Amendment one of three Civil War amendments; guaranteed equal protection and due process gerrymandering apportionment of voters in districts in such a way as to give unfair advantage to one racial or ethnic group or political party intermediate scrutiny test used by the Supreme Court in gender discrimination cases, which places the burden of proof partially on the government and partially on the challengers to show that the law in question is unconstitutional "Jim Crow" laws laws enacted by southern states following Reconstruction that discriminated against African Americans redlining a practice in which banks refuse to make loans to people living in certain geographic locations "separate but equal" rule rule doctrine that public accommodations could be segregated by race but still be equal strict scrutiny test used by the Supreme Court in racial discrimination cases and other cases involving civil liberties and civil rights, which places the burden of proof on the government rather than on the challengers to show that the law in question is constitutional Thirteenth Amendment one of three Civil War amendments; abolished slavery