Supreme Court meme

[jmc_bks]

From The Biochemist:

As was demonstrated in an interview with Katie Couric, Sarah Palin is unable to name any Supreme Court Case other than Roe v. Wade.

(Even in secondary schools, US history classes teach about landmark Supreme Court cases. This appalls me more than I can express.)

So. The meme: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historic, to your LJ to spread the fun. Any decision, as long as it's not Roe v. Wade. Or comment with one.

My response to her: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court said that there was no inherent executive authority in the event of national emergencies; the only powers held by the executive are those enumerated in the Constitution or delegated by Congress.

Griswold v. Connecticut, in which the court established the privacy right, despite the absence of the word in the Constitution, via the penumbra of other constitutional rights.

Afterthoughts: the embarrassing cases, like Korematsu (internment camps and racial discrimination are okay!), Plessy (separate but equal), Bowers v. Hardwick (consensual sodomy is bad!), and Dred Scott.

And then: Miller v. Albright, which addresses equal protection against gender discrimination in the immigration context.  (The statute treating the natural-born children of citizen-mothers and citizen-fathers differently did not violate the Fifth Amendment because of the parental relationship and heavier burden carried by the unmarried citizen-mother.)  I disagree with the reasoning of the majority, because I think it is based on an outdated gender stereotype.  But this was the first case I ever saw argued before the Court and I remember it fondly.

Comments

[eackerman.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I posted the meme at my LJ with two off the top of my head: Marbury v. Madison, Times v. Sullivan.

Didn't Gov. Palin get a broadcasting degree in college? I got mine 30 years ago, and I still remember the pivotal Supreme Court cases we studied, and Times was one of them.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember studying Bakke vs University of California as it was the first affirmative action case. Then there's all the cigarette company cases - I'm sure one guy won a $2billion suit. That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure she could name some but she was letting the hamster spin too long as to which one would come out as most in her favour and in the end decided to blag it.