AP U.S. Government and Politics · Summary

Unit 3 summary

1. The Bill of Rights first limited only the national government; the Court used the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause to apply most of it to the states, one right at a time.
2. The establishment clause bars government from sponsoring religion, as in Engel v. Vitale; the free exercise clause protects religious practice, as in Wisconsin v. Yoder.
3. Speech is strongly protected but not absolute: symbolic speech counts (Tinker), dangerous speech can be punished (Schenck, later narrowed), and prior restraint of the press is almost never allowed.
4. Heller found an individual right to keep a gun, McDonald applied it to the states, and the right is not unlimited.
5. Mapp, Gideon and Miranda applied the rights of the accused to the states: excluded evidence, a lawyer for poor felony defendants and warnings before custodial questioning.
6. The right to privacy is implied, not written, as in Griswold; Dobbs overruled Roe and returned abortion to elected officials.
7. The equal protection clause, Brown, and laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 expanded civil rights, and courts can protect minorities even against majorities.