The term minority rights embodies two separate concepts: first, normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class or religious minorities, and second, collective rights accorded to minority groups. A right is the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. ... The term collective rights refers to the putative rights of peoples to be protected from attacks on their group identity and group interests. ...
Civil rights movements often seek to ensure that individual rights are not denied on the basis of membership in a minority group. Civil Rights Movement in the United States, political, legal, and social struggle to gain full citizenship rights for African American and to achieve racial equality. ...
There are many political bodies which also feature minority group rights. This might be seen in affirmative action quotas, or in guaranteed minority representation in a consociational state. Affirmative action (U.S. English), or positive discrimination (British English), is a policy or a program providing advantages for people of a minority group who are seen to have traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a more egalitarian society. ... Political scientists define a consociational state as a state which has major internal divisions along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines, yet nonetheless manages to remain remarkably stable, due to consultation between the elites of each of its major social groups. ...
Civil rights movements often seek to ensure that individual rights are not denied on the basis of membership in a minority group.
Like children's rights, women's rights and refugee rights, minorityrights are a legal framework designed to ensure that a specific group which is in a vulnerable, disadvantaged or marginalised position in society, is able to achieve equality and is protected from persecution.
Minorityrights cover protection from discrimination and persecution, protection and promotion of identity, and participation in political life.
Minority voting power may also be diluted by encompassing an extremely large minority group into one district, rather than allowing that group to have an influence over several districts.
These included allegations that minority voters faced a significantly greater risk that their votes would not be counted accurately because of the disproportionate use of outdated and inaccurate equipment in minority neighborhoods.
The result was that minorities elected to certain positions could have their power limited by local governments after elected.