Fifteenth Amendment

noun

1. an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1870, prohibiting the restriction of voting rights “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Example Sentences

The question before the Court is whether Louisiana’s intentional drawing of a second majority-minority district—as required by a lower court to satisfy Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the Fifteenth Amendment’s ban on abridging the right to vote.

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They will also take up the question of whether the intentional creation of majority-minority districts violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition against abridging a citizen’s right to vote based on race.

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In April, the Alliance for Justice warned that “if the court strikes down Louisiana’s congressional maps,” it would gut Section 2, “effectively dismantling one of the last remaining tools to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment’s promise of racial equality at the ballot box.”

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Leaning on past precedent, Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion holds that Congress can prohibit voting policies and practices that result in discriminatory effects as “‘an appropriate method of promoting the purposes of the Fifteenth Amendment.’”

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These voting rights were solidified in 1870, with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which said no man could be turned away from the polls because of his "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Read more on Salon