Supreme Court Cases through pictures

Marbury vs. Madison 1803

Marbury vs. Madison

• Established the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review

• The Court has the power of judicial review – the ability to review laws at the federal, state, and local levels and determine if the laws are constitutional.

• Therefore, it is not the Constitution that gives them the power – “the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is” ~ Former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes

Plessy v. Ferguson 1896

Plessy vs. Fergussen

• Louisiana. Homer Plessy, an African American, decides to sit in a section of a train marked “For whites only!” When he refused to move, he was arrested and convicted for violating Louisiana’s segregation law.

• Taken to the Supreme Court, and upheld as Constitutional under the 14th Amendment equal protection clause.

• Said African Americans could be provided “separate but equal” public facilities; began nation-wide segregation.

Separate but equal

Brown vs. Board of Education1954

Brown vs. Board of Education

• Justices ruled that racially separate schools are unequal because they are separate. Court finds unanimously that segregation is a violation of 14th Amendment equal protection clause.

• Overturned Plessy vs. Fergussen (1896); which said African Americans could be provided “separate but equal” public facilities; began school integration

Engel vs. Vitale 1962

Engel vs. Vitale

• Held that a public school district’s practice of starting the day with prayer violates the establishment clause

• What is the establishment clause?

Tinker vs. Des Moines 1969Freedom of Speech/ Students Rights

Tinker vs. Des Moines

• Des Moines, Iowa: In protest of the Vietnam War, students wore black armbands to school. The principal feared that their symbolic gesture might cause commotion, so the principal forced students to take either take off the armbands or face suspension.

• The Supreme Court ruled the following, according to the Oyez Project: “The wearing of armbands was "closely akin to 'pure speech'" and protected by the First Amendment. School environments imply limitations on free expression, but here the principals lacked justification for imposing any such limits.”

Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier

• Hazelwood East High near St. Louis, MO, sponsored a student newspaper as part of its journalism classes. Before it could be printed, had to be viewed by Principal Reynolds.

• He objected to 2 articles because spoke of students, and so he cancelled the pages.

• Newspaper students sued the school, claiming 1st Amendment rights had been denied.

• Local court upheld decision that 1st Amendment rights denied.

• Brought to the Supreme Court, and denied: “[a school] may refuse to disseminate student speech that does not meet [its] standards.”

Roe v. Wade 1973Abortion Rights

Right of Privacy/ State Rights/ Reserved

Roe vs. Wade

• Legalized a woman’s right to an abortion under certain circumstances.

University of California vs. Bakke 1978

Affirmative Action/ Equal Protection

University of California vs. Bakke 1978

• Ruled in favor of affirmative action, and established the rights of students to appeal college admission policies.

• This particular case ruled against the admission process of the Medical School which set aside 16 of 100 seats for non-white students.

• Could not set aside a certain amount of seats for a certain race because would exclude other races, but could consider race as a “plus” factor in admissions program.

Texas vs. Johnson 1989Flag Burning/ Free Speech

New Jersey vs. T.L.O 1985• Search and Seizure/ Students Due Process

Skokie vs. Illinois (1977)

Skokie vs. Illinois (1977)• Skokie is a town in Cook County, Illinois, near

Chicago. It was settled by German farmers, but had a substantial Jewish population.

• In the mid-1970s, Skokie was at the center of a case concerning the First Amendment right to assemble and the National Socialist Party of America, a neo-Nazi group. Skokie ultimately lost that case.

• The Illinois lower court ruled that the Nazi party could not march down Main Street or wear the Swastika in demonstration in Skokie against the Jewish population there.

• Supreme Court ruled that the members of the Nazi Party in Skokie could march down Main Street and that their First Amendment rights had been violated by the Illinois lower court.

Phillips vs. Martin Marietta (1971)

Phillips vs. Martin Marietta (1971)

• Under Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employer may not refuse to hire women with pre-school children while hiring men with such children.

• Ida Phillips, a mother, applied for a job at the company and was denied because of her circumstance as a mother. Phillips sued under Title VII claiming that the policy was discriminatory. The Supreme Court unanimously held that the Marietta Corp. policy did discriminate on the basis of sex and overturned the lower courts finding then sent the case back to the lower court for trial.

Schenck vs. United States (1919)

Schenk vs. United States (1919)

• Charles Schenck, of the Socialist Party of America, was responsible for printing, distributing, and mailing leaflets that advocated opposition to the draft to prospective military draftees during World War I. These leaflets contained statements such as; "Do not submit to intimidation", "Assert your rights”.

• For these acts, Schenck was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. Schenck appealed to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the court decision violated his First Amendment rights.

• The Court, unaminously held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional. The First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging insubordination, since the circumstances of wartime permit greater restrictions on free speech than would be allowable during peacetime.

Schenck vs. United States (1919)

• In this, the Supreme Court invented the “Clear and present danger test” to determine when a state could constitutionally limit an individual's free speech rights under the First Amendment. In reviewing the conviction of a man charged with distributing provocative flyers to draftees of World War I, the Court asserted that, in certain contexts, words can create a "clear and present danger" that Congress may constitutionally prohibit. While the ruling has since been overturned, Schenck is still significant for creating the context-based balancing tests used in reviewing freedom of speech challenges