Self-study
P1
The United States Supreme Court’s 1948 ruling in . ███████ ██ ███████
Shelley v. Kraemer ·
Ended enforcement of racial covenants
Racial covenants perpetuated segregation in housing. The SCOTUS ruling in Shelley ended its enforcement.
Main Conclusion ·
The legal rationale for Shelley is problematic
P2
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Shelley Rationale ·
Relied on Fourteenth Amendment
Specifically, equal protection under the law for all U.S. citizens. But that only applied to state actors, not individuals. And racial covenants were private contracts.
Shelley Rationale ·
"Attribution" to the state
The Shelly decision argues that while the contracts are between private actors, the enforcement of them is state action and therefore unconstitutional.
P3
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Premise ·
Critiques attribution logic
Dissolves the distinction between state and private action. Every private contract assumes state enforcement. According to Shelley, every private contract must conform to constitutional standards.
PREMISE ·
Critiques attribution logic
SCOTUS and lower courts recognize this flaw and they don't even apply Shelley’s rationale. The do the opposite: they enforce private agreements that would violate constitutional rights, e.g., the right to free speech.
P4
█████████████ █████ ██ █ ████████████
Premise ·
Critiques Shelley
The actual problem were the racially restrictive covenants themselves, which Shelley somehow concluded were legal.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
1.
The primary purpose of the ███████ ██ ██
a
question the reasoning ██████ █ ██████████ ████████ ████████
This best captures the purpose, which is to criticize the legal rationale of Shelley v. Kraemer.
b
draw a distinction ███████ ███████ ██████ ███ █████ ██████
The issue of a distinction between private and state action is brought up as part of a broader criticism of Shelley v. Kraemer. It’s not the purpose of the whole passage.
c
defend the way ██ █████ ████████ ███ ██████ ████ █████████████ █████████ █ ██████████ ████████ ████████
The author doesn’t defend any traditional explanation of Shelley v. Kraemer; the author criticizes the decision.
d
highlight the shortcomings ██ ███ ████ ████████████
The purpose isn’t to criticize the U.S. Constitution. The purpose concerns a specific judicial decision, Shelley v. Kraemer.
e
extend the rationale ███████ ██ █ ██████████ ████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ █████
The author doesn’t try to extend the rationale of Shelley v. Kraemer to other cases. The author mentions the idea of extending the rationale as part of an argument that the failure of courts to extend the rationale to other cases is evidence Shelley v. Kraemer is flawed.