Supreme Court Cases

Question 1

Youngstown sheet and tube co V. sawyer

Answer 1

1952(Korean War); President Truman issued an executive order to seize most of the nation’s steel mills; Ruled President Truman did not have the authority to do this

Question 2

Mcculloch V. Maryland

Answer 2

1818; Maryland imposed taxes on the bank and the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the bank refused to pay the tax; held that Maryland could not tax instruments of the national government employed in the execution of constitutional powers.

Question 3

Tinker V. Demoines

Answer 3

Student wore a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam war and was suspended by the school for violating the schools rules; Can’t limit speech at school because of discomfort but can limit speech because of “material substantial interference” with the operation of the school

Question 4

Mahanoy Area School District V. B.L.

Answer 4

B.L. didn’t make it into varsity cheer leading, and posted a snapchat with the caption “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything” to which they were suspended from junior varsity for a year; 1st amendment limits but doesn’t prohibit the regulation of off-campus speech and they violated her 1st amendment rights

Question 5

US V. Wong Kim Ark

Answer 5

Wong Kim Ark goes to china to visit family and isn’t allowed back into the US despite being born in San Francisco; Under the 14th amendment it doesn’t matter who your parents are, if your born in american soil you’re a citizen

Question 6

Plessy V. Ferguson

Answer 6

Plessy appeared white and was born free but was mixed race and therefore still “black” under Louisiana law and had to sit separately; Ruled he was wrong and that separate but equal laws held up

Question 7

Brown V. Board of Education

Answer 7

African American students denied admittance to certain public schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race; Overturned plessy and said that “separate but equal” will never be equal

Question 8

Reed V. reed

Answer 8

The Idaho Probate Code said “males must be preferred to females” in appointing administrators of estates, and after parents Sally and Cecil Reed fought to be named the administrator of their son’s estate, Sally challenged the law after losing; In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the law’s dissimilar treatment of men and women was unconstitutional

Question 9

Craig V. boren

Answer 9

1976; Oklahoma law prohibited the sale of 3.2 percent beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18; held that the statute made unconstitutional gender classifications

Question 10

South Carolina V. Katzenbach

Answer 10

1966; The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prevented states from using a “test or device” (such as literacy tests) to deny citizens the right to vote; the enforcement clause(15 Amendment) gave Congress “full remedial powers” to prevent racial discrimination in voting, the Act was a “legitimate response” to the “insidious and pervasive evil” which had denied blacks the right to vote since the Fifteenth Amendment’s adoption in 1870

Question 11

Shelby County v. Holder

Answer 11

2013; Claims congress is using an outdated formula/law structure; held that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act imposes current burdens that are no longer responsive to the current conditions in the voting districts in question