Facts—The Law School of the University of Missouri refused Lloyd Gaines, an African American, admittance because of his race. He had completed his undergraduate training at Lincoln University, an all-black school. Missouri had separated the white students from the black…
Facts—In 1892, Plessy, a citizen of Louisiana, having seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood, boarded a train from New Orleans to Covington in the same state. The conductor ordered him to sit in the car for black passengers. When Plessy…
Facts—Various hotels, theaters, and railway companies had denied to African Americans the full enjoyment of the accommodations thereof, contrary to the act of Congress requiring no discrimination. Those proprietors had been indicted or sued for the penalty prescribed by the…
Facts—In 1834, Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the U.S. Army, took Dred Scott, a black slave, to Rock Island, Illinois, where slavery was prohibited by statute. In 1836, Emerson took Scott to Fort Snelling, in the territory of Louisiana, which…
Facts—After the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), Congress held hearings and adopted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1995 (RFRA). The law mandated that governments should not adopt laws of general applicability that…
Facts—Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to combat systematic discrimination against African American voters in a number of states. In certain areas, where voting had been suppressed, the law provided for the suspension of literacy tests, for the…
Facts—Section 4(E) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided that individuals who had successfully completed six or more grades in Puerto Rican schools where a language of instruction other than English was used could not be denied the right…
Facts: After the Court invalidated Nebraska’s regulation of “partial birth abortions,” in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000), Congress adopted the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which sought to limit dilation and extraction (D&X) abortion procedures, in which…
Facts—Responding to a report of a weapons disturbance, Houston police legally entered Lawrence’s apartment and discovered another man and him engaged in an intimate sexual act. Both were arrested and convicted by a justice of the peace under a Texas…
Facts—The state of Washington prohibited individuals from aiding suicides (the law does not prohibit the withholding of “life-sustaining treatment”). Physicians who sometimes treated terminally ill individuals challenged the law as an undue burden on the “liberty interest” protected by the…