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
5.
In the fourth sentence of ███ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ █████████
a
demonstrate the conceptual ███████████ ██ █ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ █████
Not supported, because the author never suggests that a distinction used by the Shelley court is conceptually incoherent. Although the author does criticize the attribution rationale used by the Court, the author doesn’t criticize the distinction between state action and individual action. Rather, the author criticizes the use of attribution logic to label enforcement of a contract as state action. To the author, this shouldn’t be considered state action. But this doesn’t mean the author thinks a difference between state action and individual action is incoherent. In fact, the author actually thinks the distinction IS coherent, and that the Court should have kept that distinction clear.
b
highlight a potentially █████████ █████ ███████ ██ █████████████ ███ ███████ █████████ ████████
This best captures the purpose of the question. A potentially confusing issue is how the 14th Amendment could apply to racially restrictive covenants, even though it seems only private parties are involved in making the covenants. The author raises this issue and explains how the Court handled it.
c
suggest that the ███████ █████ ███ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████████
The author never suggests the Court didn’t properly consider the facts of the case. The issue is with the Court’s application of the attribution rationale; to the author, it stretches what is a reasonable understanding of state action. But the author never accuses the Court of failing to realize that the contract was made by private individuals or of failing to consider other facts.
d
cast suspicion on ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ █████
The author never criticizes the motivations of individual judges on the Court. So this can’t be the purpose of the question.
e
challenge the presuppositions ████ █████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ████████████ ██ █████
The author never questions the basis of the 14th Amendment.