Glossary

  • Lottery

    A means of raising money by selling tickets and giving prizes to the holders of numbers drawn at random.

  • Louis D. Brandeis

    the first Jewish-American lawyer appointed as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court in 1916.

  • Lucrative

    extremely profitable

  • Lynch Mob

    a group of people set on killing an alleged criminal outside the justice system, usually in a public manner, meant to punish and intimidate

  • Madeira

    A fortified wine made in Portugal.

  • Magna cum laude

    denotes a college degree earned with great distinction

  • Majority Opinion

    An opinion joined by a majority of the justices explaining the legal basis for the Court’s decision and regarded as binding precedent in future decisions.

  • Marginalized

    treated as insignificant or peripheral.

  • Martial Law

    temporary substitution of military authority for civilian rule and is usually invoked in time of war, rebellion, or natural disaster

  • Massive resistance

    the widespread opposition of many white Southerners to the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In 1956, two years after Brown, the overwhelming majority of Southern congressmen and senators signed the “Southern Manifesto,” a document that condemned the decision.