Civil Rights Quiz

According to the quote, what is the likely effect of the Court's ruling in the Bakke case?

Colleges can consider race but cannot use strict racial quotas in admission practices.

Which of the following statements presents the most important limitation of the data in the graph?

There is no information about the total number of state legislators.

Which of the following pieces of legislation was most likely a result of the passage?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Which of the following applications of affirmative action would the United States Supreme Court likely consider unconstitutional?

A state university refuses acceptance of any new applicants from a specific race.

In which case did the Supreme Court rule that "the doctrine of separate but equal has no place" in the Constitution?

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954

In the case Guey Heung Lee v. Johnson (1971), the parents of Chinese American students who attended a primarily Asian American school challenged San Francisco's effort to desegregate the public schools, arguing that their culture and language would be diluted if their children were dispersed from their local school. The Supreme Court denied the challenge from the parents basing their decision on the Fourteenth Amendment. Which of the following cases was most likely used in the decision as a precedent?

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the Supreme Court ruling limited state action in segregating public school students based on their race, stating "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." The Court pointed to which of the following amendments to the United States Constitution to achieve this ruling?

The Fourteenth Amendment

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the Supreme Court stated that the plaintiffs "seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a non-segregated basis. In each instance, they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race." The Supreme Court ruled "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Which of the following provisions of the United States Constitution did the Supreme Court use to strike down racial segregation in state public schools?

The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

In the case Boynton v. Virginia (1960), the Supreme Court ruled that segregation at a bus stop restaurant was illegal based on the Interstate Commerce Act. Which of the following explains how this case is similar to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) ?

Both cases struck down local ordinances that prescribed segregation.

A school district in Seattle used the race of students as a tie-breaking factor to determine which students would be admitted to the more popular schools in an attempt to maintain racial diversity. In the case Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), the Supreme Court ruled this plan unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. Which of the following statements offers the most accurate comparison between this case and the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) ?

Both cases ruled against the school district based on the equal protection clause.

The issues identified in the passage reflect a failure to uphold which of the following constitutional principles?

Equal protection

The Supreme Court addressed the admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the court, "in the context of its individualized inquiry into the possible diversity contributions of all applicants, the Law School's race-conscious admissions program does not unduly harm nonminority applicants." The primary issue of controversy in the Grutter v. Bollinger decision involves

affirmative action

Which of the following expresses the most significant political concern in the passage?

Increased awareness of citizen inequalities that need to be addressed

Which of the following is most likely responsible for the increase in the number of southern African American state legislators between 1960 and 1992 as shown in the graph?

The Voting Rights Act of 1965