GOVT 2305: Chapters 4,5

The individual right that is widely regarded as the most basic of individual rights is

freedom of expression

The Fourteenth Amendment applies to discriminatory action by

government only.

In the case of McNabb v. United States, Justice Felix Frankfurter defined the "history of liberty" primarily in terms of whether

governments had observed procedural guarantees

Today, women currently hold about ________ of the seats in the House of Representatives.

1

Women in America obtained the right to vote in national elections in ________.

1920

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 addressed

housing.

Any law that includes a gender classification is subject to the

intermediate scrutiny test.

The policy of affirmative action arose when

it became apparent that disadvantaged Americans would not attain equal employment opportunities through lawsuits that benefited single individuals only.

One reason that affirmative action is so controversial is that

it is viewed as giving preferential treatment, which is unpopular, instead of simply ensuring equal treatment.

Culminating in a historic victory in 1954, black activists in the early twentieth century generally pursued civil rights through

legal action.

With regard to affirmative action, the Supreme Court in recent years has

moved to narrow its application.

How many states ratified the Equal Rights Amendment?

nearly three-fourths

The conviction of members of the U.S. Communist Party in the early 1950s was initially upheld as a lawful restriction of the right

of free speech.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

prohibits discrimination in voting and voter registration.

According to Gunnar Myrdal, what is America's curse?

racial discrimination

Gideon v. Wainwright is to the Sixth Amendment as Mapp v. Ohio is to the

Fourth Amendment.

In applying the reasonable basis test, courts tend to

require government only to show that a particular law is reasonable.

The Supreme Court's ruling in the Swann case on busing differed from the Brown decision in that Swann

sanctioned the use of busing in desegregation., dealt specifically with the issue of busing., applied to many northern communities in addition to communities in the South., addressed the problem of de facto discrimination., ALL ARE CORRECT

The inclusion of certain provisions of the Bill of Rights through the Fourteenth Amendment, so that these rights are protected from infringements by the state governments, is called

selective incorporation.

Which of the following statements is true of age discrimination in the United States?

Mandatory retirement ages for most jobs have been eliminated by law.

Since the height of the busing era, the trend in public schools has been

toward greater segregation.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

was conducted by African Americans seeking equality of rights.

Which of the following groups is LEAST likely to identify with the Democratic Party?

white southerners

Libel applies to defamation of an individual's reputation through the

written word.

Regarding same-sex marriage, it is true that

younger people are more likely to approve of it than older people are.

Public support for same-sex marriage has

increased significantly since the 1990s.

Spoken words that are known to be false and harmful to a person's reputation are an example of

slander

Which of the following, relative to the others, is typically more protective of individual rights?

the judiciary

De jure discrimination and de facto discrimination are two ways in which some Americans are treated as less equal than others. Examples of public policies designed to address each of these forms of discrimination are

the Brown decision (de jure), and affirmative action (de facto).

All of the following statements about Asian American rights are true EXCEPT that

Asian Americans have the second highest median family income of any group.

In 2010, the greatest percentage of immigrants to America came from

Latin America.

The inevitable discovery exception

allows the use of evidence that would have been discovered by other means or through other forms of evidence.

The freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and petition are found in

the First Amendment.

According to the Supreme Court, prayer in public schools violates

the establishment clause.

Which of the following had the GREATEST impact on increasing voting rates by African Americans?

the Voting Rights Act of 1965

The movement for women's rights was initially aligned with

the abolition movement.

In deciding two 2014 cases involving the legality of searching a suspect's cell phone, the Supreme Court ruled that

the cell phone cannot be searched, unless police believe that doing so could prevent a serious imminent crime, such as a terrorist attack.

Today, women currently hold about ________ of the seats in the House of Representatives.

19 percent

Asian Americans account for about ________ percent of professionals and technicians in the United States.

5

The average pay for full-time female employees is about ________ percent of that for full-time male employees. Group of answer choices

80

The Supreme Court halted the general use of quotas in the granting of federal contracts in the 1995 case of

Adarand v. Pena.

Which of the following groups is MOST likely to identify with the Democratic Party?

African Americans

The USA Patriot Act

All these answers are correct.

The fight to give Hispanic farm laborers better working conditions and wages was conducted primarily in

California.

Politically, the fight for civil rights in Congress in the 1960s was led primarily by

Democrats.

In 1960, the greatest percentage of immigrants to America came from

Europe

Which constitutional amendment protects the individual against self-incrimination?

Fifth

Which of the following amendments contains a due process clause?

Fourteenth

Discuss the racial problems addressed by the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. What provisions of the Constitution provided the basis for each of these policy decisions?

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), the Supreme Court justices overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal, and thus they violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court further stated that the maintenance of separate school systems generates feelings of social inferiority on the part of minority students. Because the Fourteenth Amendment applies only to acts of government, private firms are not affected by it. In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress used its commerce power to entitle all persons equal access to establishments serving the general public, and to forbid discrimination in hiring, promotion, and payment of employees in medium and large firms. Congress's commerce power was utilized to restrict discrimination in public places and employment.

Which state has the highest incarceration rate?

Louisiana.

Which of the following is true? ALL CORRECT

Many urban public school districts have ended the use of busing for desegregation purposes., The Supreme Court, after ordering cutbacks in busing, said that communities were free to use alternatives, such as increased spending on schools in poor neighborhoods., Public schools are becoming more segregated nationally., White flight to suburban schools has made it more difficult to desegregate urban schools.

In 2004, by order of the state's Supreme Court, ________ instituted same-sex marriage.

Massachusetts

"You have the right to remain silent....Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law....You have the right to an attorney." This is called the

Miranda warning.

The first woman ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court was appointed by

President Reagan.

Explain the concept of prior restraint of the press. Include one example of how the Supreme Court has ruled on this issue.

Prior restraint is government prohibition of speech or publication before the fact. The Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional, except in extreme circumstances of national security or public safety, as an illegal restraint on free expression. The burden of proof in such instances is on the government: it must clearly show that a grave danger would result from the publication. The doctrine of prior restraint was detailed in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971).

According to the Supreme Court, which is true regarding freedom of assembly?

Public officials can regulate the time, place, and conditions of public assembly, provided the regulations are reasonable.

Disadvantaged Americans have generally gained their rights

through struggle against entrenched interests.

Which of the following countries comes closest to the United States in terms of the percentage of its citizens who are behind bars?

Russia

What is meant by selective incorporation? Discuss the history of this process and its importance to the protection of individual rights.

Selective incorporation refers to the absorption of certain provisions of the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech and press, into the Fourteenth Amendment. These rights are thereby protected from infringement by the states. After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was debated in Congress. There was no indication its framers intended it to protect First Amendment rights, such as freedom of speech and press, from state action. Seventy years later, the Supreme Court invoked the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause in a free speech case, which was followed by a series of cases that established the process of selective incorporation. In doing so, the Court declared certain rights to be a fundamental part of democratic society and, therefore, to be protected from state intervention. At first, the Court included only free expression rights in its interpretation. In the 1960s, selective incorporation was also used to protect fair trial rights.

The first large and well-organized attempt to promote women's rights came in 1848 in

Seneca Falls, New York.

What was politically significant about Geraldine Ferraro in 1984?

She became the first woman to run on the national ticket of a major political party.

The right to counsel is guaranteed by the ________ Amendment.

Sixth

Describe the provisions and impact of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act entitles all persons to equal access to restaurants, bars, theatres, hotels, gasoline stations, and similar establishments serving the general public. It also bars discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in the hiring, promotion, and wages of employees of medium-size and large firms. However, this legislation did not immediately result in equality of opportunity of hiring practices. The Act did not require employers to prove that their employment practices were not discriminatory, and many continued to give preferential treatment to white males. The concentration of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was equality in housing. To prevent discrimination in housing, this act prevented building owners from refusing to sell or rent housing because of a person's race, religion, ethnicity, or sex. An exception is allowed for owners of small multifamily dwellings who reside on the premises.

Which of the following is true about the Sedition Act of 1798?

The Act prohibited malicious newspaper stories about the president.

Which of the following is true of the appeal process?

The Constitution does not guarantee an appeal after conviction, but the federal government and all states permit at least one appeal.

How did the Supreme Court's position on the rights of the accused in state courts change in the 1960s?

The Supreme Court began to protect the rights of the accused from action by the states.

How has the Supreme Court interpreted the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in recent years? Explain.

The Supreme Court has typically let Congress and the state legislatures determine the appropriate penalties for crime. It has upheld some challenged state punishments in high profile cases, and some states continue to have extremely high incarceration and execution rates. With regard to the death penalty, however, the Court has placed some limits on states' ability to execute prisoners, particularly mentally retarded and juvenile ones.

What is the equal protection clause? What three tests are associated with discrimination in law?

The equal protection clause is part of the Fourteenth Amendment, which reads in part that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This clause has been used by the courts to protect minorities from discrimination. The tests associated with legal discrimination are the reasonable-basis test and the strict-scrutiny test. The first test stipulates that some inequalities (such as unequal tax rates for people of different income levels) are acceptable as long as they are related to legitimate government interests. The second test is premised on the belief that racial and ethnic-based classifications are unconstitutional almost by definition. There is a third form of judgment - an "intermediate" category, which has been used with regard to sex classifications, and is less rigid than the strict-scrutiny test but more rigid than the reasonable-basis test. For example, the exclusion of women from the military draft has been judged by the courts to be constitutional, whereas most other forms of gender discrimination in law have been judged unconstitutional.

According to Freedom House, which of the following countries has the highest degree of freedom?

United States

The individual freedoms in the Bill of Rights were extended by the Fourteenth Amendment to include protection from deprivation of due process rights by

actions of state and local governments.

What Illinois policy did the Supreme Court invalidate with its decision in Witherspoon v. Illinois (1968)?

allowing the prosecution an unlimited number of challenges in capital cases

The 2013 Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder interpreting the Voting Rights Act

argued that Congress had set standards for ensuring voting rights that were no longer relevant.

If a person yells "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, and people are hurt in the ensuing panic, that individual abused his/her freedom of speech according to the doctrine of

clear and present danger.

In the 2014 case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the Supreme Court ruled that

companies with only a few owners can refuse, on religious grounds, to include contraceptives in employees' health coverage.

In Mapp v. Ohio, the selective incorporation process was extended to include

criminal proceedings in the states.

Equality of result policies are primarily directed at ________ discriminatory effects.

de facto

In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the pursuit of racial integration in public schools through busing

deprived students of their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection.

In a 2004 case involving the issue of whether a U.S. citizen accused of terrorist acts is entitled to constitutional protections, the Supreme Court held that such citizens

do have the right to a judicial hearing.

The establishment clause prohibits government from

favoring one religion over another or supporting religion over no religion.

In the Johnson flag-burning case, the Supreme Court ruled that

flag burning, although offensive, cannot be prohibited.