Strict Scrutiny
Strict scrutiny is a legal term used in conjunction with the determination that the purpose of a law adheres to the specific means used to achieve that goal. This is not necessarily always the case. Simple imagery is utilized to make the concept clear:
“This form of means-end scrutiny is designed to identify, or smoke out, an improper legislative objective—for example, laws that are motivated by unconstitutional animus towards a particular persons or group.
Study Guides
Throughout the text are sections labeled Study Guide which urges readers to expand upon the presented information to think critically. Rhetorical questions are commonly engaged in these sections as a means of pushing such critical engagement, but every so often imagery is also effectively engaged to stimulate the nature of debate:
“Can you see how Justice Kennedy’s conclusion creates something of a chicken-and-egg problem? A corporation would not be at risk of harassment until its expenditures are disclosed. However, once its expenditures are disclosed, the corporation may already have been harassed. At that point, it would be too late to challenge the constitutionality of the disclosure requirements.”
Freedom from Religion
Although it is one of the most common phrases associated with constitutional law, the actual words “separation of church and state” not appear in the Constitution. Contrary to what one might have heard, those words in that order also do not stem from the writing of Thomas Jefferson. They are close enough, however, and certainly the idea is now established as constitutional doctrine. The actual phrase is imagery found in a letter written by Jefferson:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Racism
The single most prevalent imagery attached to the decisions which are covered in this book is that of racist discrimination. Although cases such as Prigg v. Pennsylvania which focused on the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law predate it, everything really traces back to what is universally recognized as the most egregious decision in the history of the Supreme Court: Dred Scott v. Sandford, which ruled that persons of African descent could never be considered a citizen of the U.S. From that point forward, racism becomes an underlying motivation working within an enormous number of landmark Supreme Court rulings.
