Court Case Test
Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier
1988 case in which the Supreme Court decided that public high school newspapers that are not considered sentiments of student expression are subject to lower levels of First Amendment rights than independent student expression or newspapers established as forums of student expression.
Schenck v. US
A 1919 Supreme Court decision upholding the conviction of a socialist who had urged resistance to the draft during World War I. Justice Holmes declared that government can limit speech if the speech provokes a "clear and present danger" of substantive evils.
Korematsu v. US
A 1944 Supreme Court decision that upheld as constitutional the internment of more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent in the encampments during World War II.
Baker v. Carr
A 1962 landmark United States Supreme Court case that retreated from the Court's political question doctrine, deciding that redistricting (attempts to change the way voting districts are delineated) issues present justiciable questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide redistricting cases. The defendants unsuccessfully argued that redistricting of legislative districts is a "political question", and hence not a question that may be resolved by federal courts.
NY Times v. Sullivan
A 1964 Supreme Court decision establishing that, to win damage suits for libel, public figures must prove that the defamatory statements were made with "actual malice" and reckless disregard for the truth.
Reynolds v. Sims
A 1964 United States Supreme Court case that ruled that state legislature districts had to be roughly equal in population. The case was brought on behalf of voters in Alabama, but the decision affected both northern and southern states that had similarly failed to reapportion their legislatures in keeping with changes in state population after its application in five companion cases in Colorado, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware.
Wesberry v. Sanders
A 1964 case in which the Supreme Court decided that districts had to have approximately the same amount of people per district.
Tinker v. Des Moines (School District)
A 1965 case in which school authorities in Des Moines, Iowa, suspended Mary Beth Tinker and her brother John when they wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court held that the suspension violated the Tinkers' First Amendment rights. The right to freedom of speech, said the Court, went beyond the spoken word.
Katz v. US
A 1967 case that discussed the nature of the "right to privacy" and the legal definition of a "search." The Court's ruling refined previous interpretations of the unreasonable search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment to count immaterial intrusions with technology as a search, overruling Olmstead v. US and Goldman v. US. Katz has also extended Fourth Amendment protection to all areas where a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy.
Brandenburg v. Ohio
A 1969 case in which the Court found that it is permissible to advocate the violent overthrow of the government in the abstract but not actually to incite anyone to imminent lawless action.
NY Times v. US
A 1971 case in which the Supreme Court decided that the "no prior restraint" rule prohibited prosecution before the papers were published. The justices also made it clear that if the government brought prosecution for theft, the Court might be sympathetic. No such charges were flied.
Miller v. California
A 1973 Supreme Court decision holding that immunity standards be used to determine whether material is obscene in terms of appealing to a "prurient interest" and being "patently offensive" and lacking in value.
US v. Nixon
A 1974 landmark United States Supreme Court decision that resulted in a unanimous 8-0 ruling against President Richard Nixon and was important to the late stages of the Watergate scandal. It is considered a crucial precedent limiting the power of any US president.
Buckley v. Valeo
A 1976 case that upheld the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 which included limits on campaign contributions to candidates for the presidency and Congress, disclosure and reporting requirements, and public financing of presidential elections.
Regents of University of California v. Bakke
A 1978 Supreme Court decision holding that federal programs that classify people by race, even for an ostensibly benign purpose such as expanding opportunities for minorities, should be presumed to be unconstitutional.
Employment Division v. Smith
A 1988 decision upholding Oregon's prosecution of persons using the drug peyote as part of the their religious rituals. The Court decided that state laws interfering with religious practices but not specifically aimed at religion were constitutional. As long as a law did not single out religious practices because they were engaged in for religious reasons, it could apply to conduct even if the conduct were religiously inspired.
Texas v. Johnson
A 1989 case in which the Supreme Court struck down a law banning the burning of the American flag on the grounds that such action was symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment.
Shaw v. Reno
A 1993 Supreme Court case that significantly affected racial gerrymandering and redistricting. The court ruled that redistricting on the basis of race had to be done with strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.
Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah
A 1993 case that said that a law passed in Hialeah, Florida that outlawed the killing of animals for reasons other than consumption was unconstitutional because it was directed solely at the church which used animal sacrifice.
US v. Lopez
A 1995 case holding that the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, which forbade the possession of firearms in public schools, exceeded Congress's constitutional authority to regulate commerce. Guns in a school zone, the majority said, have nothing to do with commerce.
Printz v. US
A 1997 case in which the Supreme Court voided the congressional mandate in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that the chief law enforcement officer in each local community conduct background checks on prospective gun purchasers. According to the Court, "The federal government may neither issue directives requiring the states to address particular problems, nor command the states' officers, or those of their political subdivision, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program."
Clinton v. New York
A 1998 case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the line-item veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United States the power to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of statues that had been duly passed by the United States Congress. The decision of the Court, in a 6-3 majority, was delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens.
Alden v. Maine
A 1999 case holding that Congress may not use its Article I powers to abrogate the states' sovereign immunity. Both the terms and history of the Eleventh Amendment suggest that states are immune from suits in their own courts. And more generally, in the original understanding of the Constitution, states retained much of their sovereignty despite their agreeing that the national government would be supreme when exercising its enumerated powers.
Bush v. Gore
A 2000 case that resolved the dispute in the 2000 presidential election concerning whether or not to have certain counties in Florida recount the votes. However, using different methods of counting the votes was considered to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
Grutter v. Bollinger
A 2003 case upholding the University of Michigan law school's use of race as one of many factors in admission. The Court found that the law school's use of race as a plus in the admissions process was narrowly tailored and that the school made individualistic, holistic reviews of applicants in a non mechanical fashion.
Gratz v. Bollinger
A 2003 case where the Court struck down the University of Michigan's system of undergraduate admissions in which every applicant from an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority group was automatically awarded 20 pointers of the 100 needed to guarantee admission. The Court said that the system was tantamount to using a quota, which it outlawed in Bakke, because it made the factor of race decisive for virtually every minimally qualified underrepresented minority applicant. The 20 points awarded to minorities were more than the school awarded for some measures of academic excellence, writing ability, or leadership skills.
McDonald v. Chicago
A 2010 case in which the
Santa Fe School District v. Doe
A Supreme Court case decided in 2000 ruling that a policy permitting student-led, student-initiated prayer at high school football games violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Gibbons v. Ogden
A landmark case decided in 1824 in which the Supreme Court interpreted very broadly the clause in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution giving Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce as encompassing virtually every form of commercial activity.
Shelley v. Kraemer
A landmark case decided in 1948 in which the Supreme Court established that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate.
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. US
A landmark case decided in 1964 holding that the US Congress could use the power granted to it by the Constitution's Commerce Clause to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Smith v. Allwright
A landmark case that was decided in 1944 that said that allowing the Democratic Party to create its own rules including the use of white primaries was unconstitutional which in turn paved the road towards voting rights for African Americans as well as desegregation.
McCulloch v. Maryland
An 1819 Supreme Court decision that established the supremacy of the national government over state governments. The Court, led by Chief Justice John Marshall, held that Congress had certain implied powers in addition to the powers enumerated in the Constitution.
Plessy v. Ferguson
An 1896 Supreme Court decision that provided a constitutional justification for segregation by ruling that a Louisiana law requiring "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" was constitutional.
Marbury v. Madison
The 1803 case in which Chief Justice John Marshall and his associates first asserted the right of the Supreme Court to determine the meaning of the US Constitution. The decision established the Court's power of judicial review over acts of Congress.
Barron v. Baltimore
The 1833 Supreme Court decision holding that the Bill of Rights restrained only the national government, not the states and cities.
Scott v. Sandford
The 1857 Supreme Court decision ruling that a slave who had escaped to a free state enjoyed no rights as a citizen and that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories.
Gitlow v. New York
The 1925 Supreme Court decision holding that freedoms of press and speech are "fundamental personal rights and liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the states" as well as by the federal government.
Brown v. Board of Education
The 1954 Supreme Court decision holding that school segregation was inherently unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. This case marked the end of legal segregation.
Engel v. Vitale
The 1962 Supreme Court decision holding that state officials violated the First Amendment when they wrote a prayer to be recited by New York's schoolchildren.
Lemon v. Kurtzman
The 1971 Supreme Court decision that established that aid to church-related schools must (1) have a secular legislative purpose; (2) have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion; and (3) not foster excessive government entanglement with religion.
Craig v. Boren
The 1976 ruling in which the Supreme Court established the "intermediate scrutiny" standard for determining gender discrimination.
Reed v. Reed
The landmark case in 1971 in which the Supreme Court for the first time upheld a claim of gender discrimination.