Formative Civil Rights Essay

CHAPTER 5: CIVIL RIGHTS AND PUBLIC POLICY

CHAPTER EXAM

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In which amendment does the phrase “equal protection of the laws” appear?
a. Thirteenth
b. Fourteenth
c. Fifteenth
d. Sixteenth
e. Seventeenth
Answer: b

2. What are the three levels of scrutiny used by the Supreme Court to discover whether discrimination is permissible?
a. Reasonableness, inherently suspect, and the intermediate standard
b. Reasonableness, inherently suspect, and grossly discriminatory
c. Arguably discriminatory, reasonable analysis, and negligent
d. Negligent, arguably discriminatory, and reasonable
e. Suspect, inherently suspect, and the intermediate standard
Answer: a

3. The courts have recently ruled that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, racial and ethnic classifications by states in regard to any matter are
a. reasonable.
b. unconstitutional.
c. inherently suspect.
d. not the proper business of the federal courts to consider but are up to the states individually.
e. arbitrary but usually reasonable.
Answer: c

4. Equal protection of the laws
a. means that laws cannot establish different standards for the treatment of different groups.
b. is guaranteed in the original Constitution.
c. means that states have to make their laws promote equality among persons.
d. provides a rigid standard for constitutional interpretation.
e. does not deny states treating classes of citizens differently if the classification is reasonable.
Answer: e

5. Classifications based on gender have been ruled to be ________ by the decisions of the Court in the past several years.
a. reasonable
b. strictly unconstitutional
c. sexist
d. inherently suspect
e. somewhere between inherently suspect and reasonable
Answer: e

6. State laws that restrict the right to vote to people over the age of 18 are an example of
a. a permissible basis for discrimination under the Supreme Court’s standards of classification.
b. an arbitrary classification under the Supreme Court’s standards of classification.
c. an inherently suspect classification under the Supreme Court’s standards of classification.
d. an intermediate classification under the Supreme Court’s standards of classification.
e. None of these is true.
Answer: a

7. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Taney declared that
a. the importation of slaves into the United States was illegal, but slavery itself was not.
b. Congress had no authority to ban slavery.
c. a slave who had escaped to a free state became a free man.
d. slavery is inherently unconstitutional.
e. slavery can be practiced in the so-called free states.
Answer: b

8. The ________ Amendment outlawed slavery in the United States.
a. Tenth
b. Eleventh
c. Twelfth
d. Thirteenth
e. Fourteenth
Answer: d

9. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson,
a. housing discrimination was forbidden.
b. the principle of “separate but equal” was overturned.
c. school busing was allowed to remedy racial segregation.
d. United States citizenship and all rights that go with it were granted to former slaves.
e. the principle of “separate but equal” was used to justify segregation.
Answer: e
10. Jim Crow laws were those that
a. were enacted by Southern Whites in the late nineteenth century to segregate African Americans from Whites.
b. the North enforced in the South in the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, granting rights to former slaves.
c. sought to end segregation and bring the races into closer contact with one another.
d. justified slavery and set codes for slaves’ behavior.
e. established slavery and contract law regulating the slave trade.
Answer: a

11. Legal segregation of the races was declared unconstitutional in public schools in the 1954 landmark ruling known as
a. King v. University of Kansas.
b. Plessy v. Ferguson.
c. Dred Scott v. Sandford.
d. Craig v. Boren.
e. Brown v. Board of Education.
Answer: e

12. The Brown v. Board of Education decision overturned the Supreme Court’s 1896 ruling in
a. Craig v. Boren.
b. Dred

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