For many years, the protections against government actions in the bill of rights were applied only to actions of the federal government. is the supreme court case that marked the application of these rights to state governments.

affirmative action refers to the policies that take gender, race, or ethnicity into account in order to promote equal opportunity.

employers subject to title vii are prohibited from taking race or sex into account in any employment decisions. aa is a penalty for having any job group substantially statistically "underutilized" in any race or either sex. the employer must take steps to eliminate the underutilization, then stop, ending its aa efforts