Supreme Court Cases- AP GOV (2025)

Maubury v. Madison

established the Supreme Court's power of judicial review

Wisconsin v. Yoder

Amish do not have to attend school after 8th grade - right to freedom of religion

Schenck v. United States

A 1919 decision upholding the conviction of a socialist who had urged young men to resist the draft during World War I. Justice Holmes declared that government can limit speech if the speech provokes a "clear and present danger" of substantive evils.

Tinker v. Des Moines School District (1969)

Public school students retain 1st amendment freedom of speech/expression while on campus, as long as it doesn't "disrupt the learning environment"

- Involved symbolic Speech (black armbands)

Engel v. Vitale (1962)

Prohibited state-sponsored recitation of prayer in public schools by virtue of 1st Amendment's establishment clause and the 14th Amendment's due process clause; Warren Court's judicial activism.

-Freedom of Religion

-Violated Establishment clause (prohibits government from establishing a state religion)

New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)

Bolstered the freedom of the press, establishing a "heavy presumption against prior restraint" even in cases involving national security

- Involves Free press

- Prior restraint (restraining press because it could be harmful)

(New York Times won)

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

Extends to the defendant the right of counsel in all state and federal criminal trials regardless of their ability to pay.

- Selective incorporation

- 6th amendment right to counsel

(Gideon won the case)

McDonald v. Chicago (2010)

The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self-defense is applicable to the states

- McDonald sued Chicago for making guns harder to get

- Right to bear arms

- Selective incorporation

Brown v. Board of Education I (1954)

Racial discrimination in public schools is unconstitutional; segregation psychologically damaging to black children; overturned "separate but equal" because it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment (Warren Court)

- 14th amendment

- Separate but equal

Brown v. Board of Education II (1955)

School districts and federal courts must implement the Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, I (1954) "with all deliberate speed." (Warren Court)

Baker v. Carr (1961)

Opened the door to equal protection challenges to redistricting and the development of the "one person, one vote" doctrine by ruling that challenges to redistricting did not raise "political questions" that would keep federal courts from reviewing such challenges

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Shaw v. Reno (1993)

NO racial gerrymandering; race cannot be the sole or predominant factor in redrawing legislative boundaries; majority-minority districts.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819, Marshall)

Maryland was trying to tax the national bank and the Supreme Court ruled that federal law was stronger than state law

- SUPREMACY CLAUSE the Constitution and federal laws (of the types listed in the first part of the Clause) take priority over any conflicting rules of state law

United States v. Lopez (1995)

Commerce clause of Constitution does not give Congress the power to regulate guns near state-operated schools

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

A 2010 landmark Supreme Court case that ruled that individuals, corporations, and unions could donate unlimited amounts of money to groups that make independent political expenditures.