In ____________, the Supreme Court ruled that the Privileges or Immunities Clause did
not prohibit a state from denying a woman a license to practice law.
a. Twining v. New Jersey (1908)
b. Minor v. Happersett (1875)
c. Bradwell v. Illinois (1873)
d. none of the above
The Fifth Amendment requires the federal government to obtain a (an)
______________ from a _______________ before trying someone for a felony.
a. indictment; grand jury
b. conviction; petit jury
c. warrant; judge or magistrate
d. subpoena; judge or magistrate
As stated by Justice Brennan, the standard in defamation cases “prohibits a public
official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official
conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with ___________; that is, with
knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
a. ill will
b. hatred of the public official
c. actual malice
d. actual discontent
_____________ of the Constitution provides that “The Trial of all Crimes, except in
Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where
the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State,
the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.”
a. Article III, Section 1
b. Article III, Section 2
c. Article III, Section 3
d. None of the above is true.
In ____________, the Supreme Court held that the government’s effort to block
publication of excerpts from a classified study titled “History of U.S. Decision-Making
Process on Viet Nam Policy” amounted to an unconstitutional prior restraint.
a. Near v. Minnesota (1931)
b. New York Times Company v. United States (1971)
c. United States v. Progressive (1979)
d. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988)
In ________________, the Court invalidated a law that prohibited members of the
Communist Party from serving as officers in trade unions, saying that Congress had
inflicted punishment on “easily ascertainable members of a group.”
a. United States v. Brown (1965)
b. American Communications Association v. Douds (1950)
c. United States v. Lovett (1946)
d. Nixon v. Administrator of General Services (1977)
In_____________, the Court struck down an ordinance that limited the occupancy of
residences to members of single families.
a. Belle Terre v. Boraas (1974)
b. Doe v. Commonwealth’s Attorney (1976)
c. Moore v. City of East Cleveland (1977)
d. None of the above is true.
Which of the following cases is an example of the Equal Protection Clause being
employed as a basis for invalidating discriminatory business regulation?
a. Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886)
b.Strauder v. West Virginia (1879)
c. Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan and Trust Co. (1895)
d. U.S. v. E.C. Knight Co. (1890)
Boling v. Sharpe (1954) involved a constitutional challenge to segregated public schools
in ________________.
a. Washington, D.C.
b. Virginia
c. Mississippi
d. Tennessee
In 1848, a delegation of women, including the famous suffragist ________, met at
Seneca Falls, New York to address the “social, civil, and religious conditions and rights
of woman.”
a. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
b. Sarah Miles Standish
c. Elizabeth Jane Parker
d. Sarah Baker Worthington
The Bill of Rights were collectively ratified and added to the Constitution in _____.
a. 1776
b. 1789
c. 1791
d. 1803
The Warren Court adopted the ___________test in determining whether to issue search
warrants involving the use of confidential or anonymous informants, whereas the
Burger Court adopted the ______________ test.
a. Aguilar-Spinelli; congruence and proportionality
b. congruence and proportionality; Aguilar-Spinelli
c. Aguilar-Spinelli; totality of circumstance
d. totality of circumstance; Aguilar-Spinelli
In Zorach v. Clauson (1952), Justice ________________ wrote: “We are a people
whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”
a. William O. Douglas
b. Robert Jackson
c. Felix Frankfurter
d. Hugo Black
In a dramatic effort to resist the Supreme Court’s desegregation decisions, Arkansas
governor ___________ called out the National Guard in 1957 to prevent nine black
students from entering Little Rock Central High School.
a. Lester Maddox
b. Charles Nelson Reilly
c. Orval Faubus
d. Ross Barnett
In a famous dissenting opinion in 1896, Justice _________ asserted that “our
Constitution is color blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”
a. John Marshall
b. John M. Harlan (the elder)
c. Thurgood Marshall
d. John M. Harlan (the younger).
In County of Riverside v. McLaughlin (1991), the Rehnquist Court held that an
individual could be detained for as long as ________ hours prior to a probable cause
hearing without necessarily violating the Fourth Amendment.
a. 12
b. 24
c. 48
d. 60
The failure of the Equal Rights Amendment to win ratification left the adjudication of
sex discrimination claims largely in the domain of the
a. Thirteenth Amendment.
b. Fourteenth Amendment.
c. Nineteenth Amendment.
d. Twentieth Amendment.
The intentional redrawing of legislative district lines for political purposes is referred to
as ____________.
a. logrolling
b. ticket-splitting
c. gerrymandering
d. interdiction
In its most generic sense, __________ refers to the exercise of governmental power
under the rule of law with due regard for the rights and interests of individuals.
a. eminent domain
b. sovereignty
c. civil liberty
d. due process
When Congress passed the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, it had to rely primarily on its broad powers under
a. Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment.
b. the Supremacy Clause.
c. the Necessary and Proper Clause.
d. the Commerce Clause.
In The Civil Rights Cases (1883), the Supreme Court ______________ the key
provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment
limited congressional action to the prohibition of official state-sponsored discrimination
as distinct from discrimination practiced by privately owned places of public
accommodation.
a. upheld
b. invalidated
c. denied certiorari
d. None of the above is true.
The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that, under ________________, a warrantless
search may be “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment.
a. the “good-faith” exception
b. exigent circumstances
c. the doctrine of stare decisis
d. the totality of circumstances test
According to the test delineated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), to survive an
Establishment Clause challenge, a law or practice must
a. have a secular purpose.
b. not have the principal effect of inhibiting or advancing religion.
c. avoid excessive government entanglement with religion.
d. All of the above are true.
Prior to 1937 the Supreme Court’s application of “substantive due process” was most
often confined to
a. the protection of free enterprise from governmental regulation.
b. protection of the rights of women and children.
c. preservation of the states against expanding federal power.
d. safeguarding the rights of African Americans.
The Contracts Clause of the Constitution is found in
a. Article I, Section 9.
b. Article I, Section 10.
c. Article II, Section 9.
d. None of the above is true.
InSanta Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. (1886), the Supreme Court held
that the word “person” in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
included _______________.
a. blacks
b. women
c. corporations
d. the unborn
The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in federal civil suits “at
common law” where the amount at issue exceeds
a. twenty dollars.
b. one hundred dollars.
c. one thousand dollars.
d. one million dollars.
In__________, the Court ruled that “religious test for public office unconstitutionally
invades the appellant’s freedom of belief and religion and therefore cannot be enforced
against him.”
a.Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940)
b. Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)
c.McDaniel v. Paty (1978)
d. Ex Parte Milligan (1866)
Under ______________, a policy that is racially neutral on its face, is rationally related
to a legitimate governmental objective, but has a disparate impact on people of different
races will be upheld unless plaintiffs can show that it was adopted to serve a racially
discriminatory purpose.
a. Buchanan v. Warley (1917)
b. The Civil Rights Cases (1883)
c. Washington v. Davis (1976)
d. None of the above is true.
In Trop v. Dulles (1958), Chief Justice Warren said that the Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment must draw its meaning from
a. the intentions of the Framers of the Bill of Rights.
b. historical practice.
c. the common law.
d. evolving standards of decency.
In_____________, the Court rejected the First Amendment claim of a Vietnam War
protester that publicly burning his draft card was a form of constitutionally protected
symbolic speech.
a. United States v. O”Brien (1968)
b. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
c. Cohen v. California (1971)
d. None of the above is true.
In____________, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas white primary based not on
legislative enactment but exclusively on a resolution adopted by the state Democratic
Party.
a. Nixon v. Condon (1932)
b. Grovey v. Townsend (1935)
c. United States v. Classic (1941)
d. Smith v. Allwright (1944)
In _____________, the Supreme Court said that the Seventh Amendment does not
provide the right to a jury trial where Congress “has created a “private” right that is so
closely integrated into a public regulatory scheme as to be a matter appropriate for
agency resolution with limited involvement by the Article III judiciary.”
a. Colgrove v. Battin (1973)
b. Curtis v. Loether (1974)
c. Stack v. Boyle (1951)
d. Thomas v. Union Carbide (1985)