AP Government / Civics / FSOT Questions - Question List

Teresia is a small country that has been invaded by its neighbor Corollia. The king of Teresia is a long-standing United States ally who has been living in exile since the Corollian invasion. Teresia is an important exporter of uranium; it sends most of its supply to members of the European Community. The king appeals to the United States and the United Nations for military help in driving Corollia from his country.

What official argument would members of the United Nations be most likely to make for supporting military efforts against Corollia?

America is . . . the great Melting Pot! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers . . . Into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.

- Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot, 1908

Which of the following phenomena does the passage celebrate?

School years are the time when the physical, psychological, and addictive effects of drugs are most severe . . . . Deterring drug use by our nation's schoolchildren is at least as important as enhancing efficient enforcement of the nation's laws against the importation of drugs.

- Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton (1995)

By the reasoning of today's decision, the millions of these students who participate in interscholastic sports, an overwhelming majority of whom have given school officials no reason whatsoever to suspect they use drugs at school, are open to an intrusive bodily harm . . . . Many schools, like many parents, prefer to trust their children unless given reason to do otherwise.

- Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing in dissent

Justice Scalia would most likely agree with the idea that drug testing in schools:

The Supreme Court today upheld the validity of the 1990 census, ruling unanimously that the federal government had no constitutional obligation to adjust the results to correct an acknowledged undercount in big cities and among minorities . . . . At the core of the legal challenge to the 1990 census was the racially disparate undercount, the existence of which no one disputed. The census missed about 2 percent of the population as a whole, some four million people. But it missed 4.8 percent of the Black population and 5.2 percent of the Hispanic population.

- The New York Times, 3/21/1996

The situation described is important because census data are used to:

We admit that in . . . ordinary times the defendants . . . would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. . . . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

 - Justice Holmes, delivering the majority opinion of the Court

The decision reflects the tension between: