Short Essay Answers to 14 questions

1. What is the state action doctrine? The state action doctrine refers to a legal principle which stipulates that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to both local and state governments only and not to individual entities. Therefore, procedural or substantive due process is not necessary for private parties that fall outside government when complying with the doctrine (Arthur, 8). For instance, private schools are not subjected to the First Amendment since they do not belong to the local or state government. However, there are two exceptions to the state doctrine namely; during public functions and entanglement. An example is when a private entity is dealing with government functions like enforcement of the law in a small town hence being subjected to the Fourteenth Amendment.
In the case where the student wearing a headscarf was denied service by the restaurant, the State action doctrine should apply. Despite the restaurant being a private entity it has to subscribe itself to the Fourteenth Amendment because it got a space in one of the public libraries. Therefore, the student deserves to get her constitutional right of getting service in a public institution or any entity operating within the premises of a public institution (Edward, 13).
2. What is the current status of affirmative action at universities in U.S. constitutional law. Affirmative action was a new concept introduced in the government policy by the then President of United States of America John F Kennedy through an executive.

The main reason for the affirmative action was to deal with discrimination and ensure equal opportunities in education, employment and access to health care. However, the same principle of affirmative action is contradicting with the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.
Currently, affirmative action still applies in the United States but in controversy with some clauses of the Constitution (Friendly, 15). A good demonstration of this is the case of Fisher Versus the University of Texas at Austin. The University of Texas has a two-tier model upon which admission of students is done. However, in the year 2008 Abigail Fisher was denied admission on the basis of race since she was a Caucasian (Chemerinsky, 20). She moved to court to sue the University citing facts that her academic record was better than those who had been admitted to the same University. Her argument was based on a violation of equal protection clause enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S Constitution. The ruling of the Supreme Court was that the lower court had not done due diligence in scrutinizing the issue at hand.
3. What is the standard of review used in constitutional cases of alleged discrimination against persons with disabilities? The Americans with Disability Act is the standard review upon which constitutional cases to do with discrimination against people with disabilities is anchored on. The act stipulates that people with disability should be given equal opportunities and protected from any discrimination where necessary (Galera, 4). As long as one is able to perform a particular task, they should not be discriminated by their status but judged on capability. For instance, it is very wrong for the professor of theater at the State University of Nogo to deny the student on a wheelchair to audition for the role of Romeo in the play. Instead, the disabled student should be given an opportunity to participate in the auditions and only be assessed on his ability to perform and not based on his physical status (Arthur, 17).
Judicial review refers to a situation where the courts have powers to declare that some acts of the other branches of government are absolute and unconstitutional. For instance, if the Congress came up with a law to ban publishing information regarding political issues the courts have the mandate to rule against it as it violates the rules of First Amendment thus rendering it unconstitutional (Hyduk, 32). In some incidences based on the state or federal constitutional, the courts have powers to do away with their own State laws. Therefore, judicial review is very crucial and should be done in accordance and with the interest of the majority being considered.
4. What is the source of and justification for the power of judicial review? In the case of Schuette versus coalition to defend affirmative action the issue was if the state through allowing a ban on sex and race discrimination in admissions in public university was violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The courts ruled that the ban initiated by Michigan University was unconstitutional and the decision reversed. All this was done just to uphold the constitutional bill of rights enshrined in the constitution to protect individuals from being mistreated (Hanes & Sharon, 18).
5. What justifications exist for limitations on voting? The eligibility for one to vote in the United States is enshrined in the state law and the federal constitution. Voting rights cannot be abridged based on sex, color, race, or age as long as one is above 18 years as per the 15th, 19th and 26th constitutional amendments. If there is no specific federal law or constitutional provision, then each state has a chance to come up with rules and regulations to guide the voting process.
There are restrictions when it comes to registration of voters in the United States. Anyone willing to register must produce legal identification documents like valid national identification cards, passports and any other legal document to prove that one is a bonafide citizen of the United States. Failure to produce these documents makes one not eligible to register as a voter and thus cannot participate in voting. The voter registration process is conducted in most of the states except a few who gone automatic like Oregon (Raskin, 5).
To ensure greater legitimacy and credibility in the political system adoption of automatic voter registration would be ideal. For instance, Oregon State managed to register more than 225,000 citizens’s using the automated method. The registration was successful with the support of from the department of motor vehicles where details of individuals were captured when obtaining or renewing a driver’s license. About 43 percent of those registered voted during the recent concluded presidential election (Jody, 3).
6. Outline the standard of review U.S. Supreme Court employs in litigation concerning gender discrimination. The supreme court of the United States does not allow the use of gender stereotypes and thus identifying the discriminatory effect based on gender within public institutions. As a standard review, the Supreme Court has categorically stated the application of equal protection guarantees of the Constitution and subscribed to the nondiscriminatory policies of federal statutes (Neocleous, 6). Assessment from previous cases handled by the Supreme Court demonstrate that constitutional laws are working and thus need to be safeguarded at all costs.
7. What is the legacy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia? The late Justice Antonin Scalia had a legacy of believing in interpreting the Constitution and the laws based on the original public meaning and the actual text. The main reason for doing this is to minimize personal views or biasness on the law when a judge is handling a particular legal case (Perri & Lichtenwald, 42). With almost 30 years’ experience, the late judge managed to harmonize the religion clauses of the Court’s with text, clarify the criminal law and procedure, update history of the constitution, and advance constitution structural aspects like power separation to safeguard liberties of citizens.
Some of the cases the Late Justice played an influential role include; reviving parts of the Sixth Amendment like the confrontation clause a contentious issue between Crawford Versus Washington case, helped resolve the issue of judges having more powers when it came to sentencing by sticking to the constitution and not siding with the jury, and finally he was one of the ardent supporters towards the property rights that were included in the Fourth Amendment Schedule (Walker, 26). An example is the case of seizure in the case of the United States Versus Janes.
8. In constitutional law heightened scrutiny for protected classes usually, applies to members of groups sharing an immutable trait. There is strict scrutiny for protected groups in constitutional law to ensure that the people involved are real and deserve the stipulated services. Otherwise, some scrupulous individuals may hide under these protected class of people just to receive preferential treatment when requesting for services or opportunities from public institutions. At times it becomes difficult for the transgender persons since it not easy to know exactly where to categorize them.
9. How is socio-economic status treated by the U.S. Supreme Court? Socio-economic status is vital when it comes to the treatment by the Supreme Court. People with high social-economic status within the society are expected to conduct with a high sense of decorum as opposed to those with a low socio-economic status (Vanberg, 5). For instance, individuals in any public office are scrutinized keenly in the event that they are involved in any unbecoming behavior or breaching the law.
10. What was the reasoning in the Buckley Versus Valeo? During the hearing, Judges felt observed that the First Amendment was not violated because the FECA allowed representative democracy where citizens have a right to watch against any unscrupulous activity and report to the authority. Another reasoning was that any governmental restriction on independent expenditure during campaigns did not limit individuals to get support from family members and friends. Subsequently, people have had an opportunity to associate freely without being curtailed as long as they are not going against the First Amendment in the Constitution.
11. What are the major Human Rights Civil Rights Acts? Protecting of human life and a dignified life are some of the major human rights acts. The acts are tailored in a manner that all human beings are supposed to live a dignified and only die naturally (Jody, 8). No human being is supposed to live lavishly whereas others are suffering and even cannot the basic needs. It is the greed of man which makes some people suffer while living on earth.
12. President-elect Trump tweeted that he would support a policy to punish those who burn the American flag during protests The likely objection towards President-elect Trump policy of punishing those who the flag of the United States during protests would be anchored in the Bill of Rights under freedom of expression (Neocleous, 9). The argument would be that all citizens have a right to express themselves whenever aggrieved as long as they are doing it within the confines of the law. For the policy to be implemented, it has to go through a constitutional amendment for it to be operational.
13. In American legal history, Brown v. Board is considered one of the landmark decision. The case between Brown versus Board is regarded as a landmark decision since led to some constitutional amendments after the courts found some laws to be null and void. Some of the laws that the board was relying on to discipline were outdated and thus could not apply for the present position (Hyduk, 24). Therefore the judges were forced to rule using some of the new amendments had been included in the new constitution.
14. Trace the development of same-sex marriage in light of the interpretation of key constitutions principles. Same Sex marriage emerged in the United States due to the interpretation of key Constitution principles like freedom of association and freedom of expression enshrined in the bill of rights. Marriage simply refers to a union between people of the opposite sex who come together for purposes of love, mutual responsibility, sexual relations, friendship, and procreation. However, the activism for equal rights for the people of United States contributed a great deal towards distorting marriage when some people felt it was right for people of the same sex to intermarry (Raskin, 32). As a result, same-sex marriage has a thorn in the flesh of political issues within the country. For instance, in the year 2008, the state of California passed a law that was against same-sex marriage after going through a referendum. Initially, the courts had granted that right for same-sex marriage after a few people who were aggrieved had gone to court.
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