Homework due March 11

In the 1940s, the Ewing Township school district (in New Jersey) used district funds to reimburse parents for the cost of sending their children to school using public transportation. The district would reimburse parents for transportation whether their children went to public or private school, including to the many Catholic schools in the area. A resident named Arch Everson objected to having his tax dollars spent on this, and he sued the school district, claiming that by paying the bus fare of kids going to Catholic schools, they were supporting religion and therefore in violation of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”) The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

Does the Ewing Township policy violate the First Amendment? If you were a SCOTUS justice, how would you decide? Explain your reasoning.

HW for 2/26

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) encountered bitter opposition in the South for challenging racial discrimination in the courts. Hostility to the organization mounted following its victory in Brown v. Board of Education. As the NAACP worked on forcing school districts to comply with Brown, southern hostility led states to try to figure out ways to stop the NAACP from doing its work.

In 1956, Alabama’s state attorney general tried to stop the NAACP from doing business in Alabama by enforcing a law that required out-of-state corporations to register and satisfy certain reporting requirements before doing business in the state. (Though you may think of a “corporation” as something different, the NAACP counts as a non-profit corporation.) The NAACP was incorporated in New York and considered itself exempt from Alabama’s law requiring, among other things, filing with the state certain records and membership lists, including the names and addresses of all members living in Alabama.

The NAACP filed its registration with the state, but refused to turn over the list of its members. For refusing to obey the state law, the NAACP was declared to be in contempt of court and fined $100,000. On appeal, the case reached the US Supreme Court.

Present (in the comments) your argument for what, if anything, in the Constitution justifies the NAACP in ignoring the Alabama law. Also indicate how you would rule in the case if you were on the court, and why.

Feb 12 HW: Campaign Finance Reform

The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended in 1974, did several things to attempt to control the effect of money on political races. Four of them were:

1. It placed limits on the amount an individual could donate to a political campaign -- $1000 per election.
2. It placed limits on the amount an individual could donate to his/her own campaign. The limits varied with the office sought.
3. It placed limits on the amount a campaign could spend. Again, the limits varied according to the office sought.
4. It required campaigns to keep detailed records of donors, and make publicly available the names, addresses, occupation, employer, and donation amount of any donor giving more than $100.

In class, you outlined some initial arguments for why this law may or may not be constitutional. Some of the arguments in favor of the law:

• Chloe suggested that the 14th amendment protects equal opportunity, and that this law creates an equal opportunity in elections.
• Murren argued that the spirit of the 22nd amendment is to keep any one person from having too much power, and that this law does the same thing.
• Andrew argued that this law protects fairness, and I suggested that fairness as a principle is present in many places in the Constitution.

On the other side, against the law:

• Kienan argued that this law deprives people of the liberty to do what they want with their money, violating the part of the 14thamendment that protects against loss of liberty.
• Kienan also argued that money is connected to speech, so this could also be a violation of the 1st amendment.

Your job, for homework, is to choose one argument on each side – for and against the law – and flesh it out into a complete, persuasive argument. You may either use the arguments already listed above, or come up with others of your own.

Be specific about which portion of the law you’re supporting or arguing against, and make explicit the connection you’re making to the Constitution. Be aware of whether you’re making a historical, textual, structural, doctrinal, ethical, or prudential argument.