In Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), the Supreme Court ruled that the Air Force violated
the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment in requiring women, but not
men, to demonstrate that their spouses were in fact dependents for the purpose of
receiving medical and dental benefits.
a.Frontiero v. Richardson (1973)
b. Reed v. Reed (1971)
c. Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986)
d. None of the above is true.
The Supreme Court declared the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional in
which of these cases?
a. Reynolds v. United States (1879)
b. Employment Division v. Smith (1990)
c. City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)
d. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita (2006)
The judicial extension of the Fourth Amendment and other protections of the Bill of
Rights to limit the actions of the state and local governments is referred to as the
doctrine of ___________.
a. res judicata
b. incorporation
c. extension
d. absorption
Writing for the Supreme Court in Roth v. United States (1957), Justice Brennan
expressed the view that obscenity
a. was utterly without redeeming social importance.
b. was protected by the First Amendment.
c. was not a crime under federal law.
d. None of the above is true.
For a brief period during the administration of President John Adams, the national
government sought to suppress public criticism through enforcement of the
__________, passed by Congress in 1798.
a. Seditious Libel Act
b. Northwest Ordinance
c. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
d. Sedition Act
In ______________, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a state statute that increases the
severity of punishment if a crime victim is chosen on the basis of race or other
designated characteristics.
a. R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992)
b. Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993)
c. Virginia v. Black (2003)
d. None of the above is true.
Which justice authored a sharp dissent in Poe v. Ullman that anticipated the Court’s
decision in Griswold four years later?
a. Douglas
b. Frankfurter
c. Black
d. None of the above is true.
In ruling on the constitutionality of state regulations of abortion, the Supreme Court
today is most likely to apply the
a. “trimester” framework.
b. “undue burden” test.
c. “compelling state interest.”
d. “bad tendency” test.
To protect citizens against unwarranted prosecution for treason, the Constitution
specifies that “No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two
Witnesses to the same Overt act, or on _______ in open Court.”
a. Indictment
b. Conviction
c. Confession
d. None of the above is true.
In Feiner v. New York (1951), the Supreme Court upheld a conviction for _______
arising from a street corner speech that produced unrest.
a. seditious libel
b. disorderly conduct
c. lewd and lascivious conduct
d. incitement to riot
The doctrine of _____________ prohibits laws that do not aim specifically at evils the
government has a right to prevent but sweep within their ambit activities that are
protected by the First Amendment.
a. overbreadth
b. vagueness
c. imminent lawless action
d. desuetude
In Doe v. Commonwealth’s Attorney (1976), the Supreme Court ________ a federal
district court decision keeping Virginia’s law proscribing _________.
a. upheld; sodomy
b. struck down; euthanasia
c. refused to review; abortion
d. struck down; contraception
In ______________, the Court upheld a state policy under which public school students
who received parental permission left campus to attend religious services while other
students attended study hall.
a. Everson v. Board of Education (1947)
b. Board of Education v. Allen (1968)
c. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)
d. Zorach v. Clauson (1952)
For some jurisprudential thinkers, such as ______________, the primary utility of and
justification for judicial review is to maintain the integrity of the democratic process.
a. Robert Bork
b. Michael Perry
c. John Hart Ely
d. Raoul Berger
In 1761, ___________ reviled the _______________ as “the worst instrument of
arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles
of law, that was ever found in an English law book.”
a. John Adams; writ of habeas corpus
b. John Hancock; Stamp Act
c. James Monroe; general warrant
d. James Otis; Writs of Assistance
In _____________, the Court unanimously struck down a Maryland constitutional
provision requiring persons seeking public office to take an oath declaring their belief
in God.
a. McDaniel v. Paty (1978)
b. Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)
c. Brown v. Pena (1977)
d. Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940)
In Buck v. Bell (1927), Justice __________________ wrote that “three generations of
imbeciles are enough.”
a. George Sutherland
b. William Howard Taft
c. Charles Evans Hughes
d. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Shortly before the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, Congress passed the Civil
Rights Act of 1866 which, among other things, protected the right of African Americans
to
a. inherit, own, and convey property.
b. utilize privately owned places of public accommodation.
c. vote in state elections.
d. All of the above are true.
The _______________ provided that citizens of all races have the same rights to make
and enforce contracts, to sue and give evidence in the courts, and to own, purchase, sell,
rent, and inherit real and personal property.
a. Civil Rights Act of 1871
b. Civil Rights Act of 1870
c. Civil Rights Act of 1875
d. Civil Rights Act of 1866
In Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960), Justice ______________ stated, “that if the plaintiffs’
allegations were proven” [regarding racial gerrymandering, it would be “difficult to
appreciate what stands in the way of adjudging [the redistricting measure] invalid.”
a. Felix Frankfurter
b. William O. Douglas
c. Tom Clark
d. John M. Harlan, II
In Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), the Supreme Court _________ asearch based on
consent even though the police failed to advise the individual that he was not obligated
to consent to the police request.
a. upheld
b. invalidated
c. denied certiorari
d. None of the above is true.
In __________, the Supreme Court would invalidate a state law on First Amendment
freedom of speech grounds for the first time.
a. Prudential Insurance Company v. Cheek (1922)
b. Meyer v. Nebraska (1923)
c. Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925)
d. Fiske v. Kansas (1927).
The ratification of the __________ Amendment in ____ provided an opportunity for the
Supreme Court to reconsider the relationship between the Bill of Rights and state and
local governments.
a. Eleventh; 1798
b. Twelfth; 1804
c. Fourteenth; 1868
d. Sixteenth; 1913
The narrow view of the Equal Protection Clause adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson was
repudiated by the Supreme Court in _______________, where the Court invalidated
compulsory racial segregation in public schools, and in a series of subsequent decisions
in which the Court struck down other types of Jim Crow laws.
a. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
b. Everson v. Board of Education (1947)
c. The Civil Rights Cases (1883)
d. Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)
In________, the Supreme Court upheld an state law that prohibited women from
practicing law.
a.Bradwell v. Illinois (1873)
b. Minor v. Happersett (1875)
c. Goesaert v. Cleary (1948)
d. None of the above is true.
In _______________, the Court decided unanimously that the Fourth Amendment
requires police, absent a threat of physical violence or other exigent circumstances, to
knock and announce when serving a search warrant at a home.
a. Richards v. Wisconsin (1997)
b. Wilson v. Arkansas (1995)
c. Hudson v. Michigan (2006)
d. Chimel v. California (1969)
In Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) the Supreme Court
a. struck down a state law making it a crime to engage in homosexual sodomy.
b. upheld a state law restricting heterosexual sodomy.
c. upheld a state law as applied to consensual homosexual sodomy.
d. struck down a state law prohibiting single-sex marriages.
In _____________, the Supreme Court held that police could not prohibit members of
the Jehovah’s Witnesses from peaceable and orderly proselytizing on Sundays merely
because other citizens complained.
a. Douglas v. City of Jeanette (1943)
b. Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)
c. Brown v. Pena (1977)
d. Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940)
In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988), the Supreme Court _________ a
public school principal’s decision to excise certain controversial material from the
school newspaper.
a. refused to review
b. upheld
c. reversed
d. enjoined
First enacted by ____________in 1890, the grandfather clause soon spread throughout
southern and border states and typically required literacy tests for all voters whose
ancestors had not been entitled to vote prior to 1866.
a. Georgia
b. Alabama
c. Mississippi
d. Tennessee
Which Justice authored the Court’s opinion in R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992)?
a. William Rehnquist
b. Sandra Day O”Connor
c. John Paul Stevens
d. Antonin Scalia
The rule against prior restraint is MOST associated with which First Amendment
freedom?
a. Freedom of speech
b. Freedom of assembly
c. Freedom of association
d. Freedom of the press