City’s ordinances make City’s building inspector responsible for enforcing building code standards and authorizes the inspector to refer for prosecution all known building code violations. The inspector took a newspaper reporter through a number of rundown buildings in a slum neighborhood. After using various slurs to describe the occupants of the buildings, the inspector said to the reporter: “I don’t even try to get these buildings up to code or to get their owners prosecuted because if these buildings ever were repaired, the people who live in them would just wreck them again.” The reporter published the inspector’s statement in a story in the local newspaper. The inspector admitted he made the statements. On the basis of the statements and on the authority of another ordinance that allows the inspector to be fired for “good cause,” City’s council discharged the inspector. Is the City council’s action constitutional?

Ames City is a racially diverse city in the State of Ames. Recently, the new superintendent of the Ames City School District announced a hiring initiative aimed at filling the ranks of Ames City teachers, which had been depleted by recent retirements. The superintendent announces that she expects that the new cadre of teachers will “look like Ames City,” will furnish role models for Ames City’s students and will be diverse enough to serve the needs of minority students in the Ames City school district. To that end, she announces a goal of 30 percent minority teachers in the new round of hiring. Which of the following would be most helpful in defending the constitutionality of the superintendent’s initiative?

The State of Factoria has a statute requiring that all police officers take an oral test to ensure that they can communicate adequately in English. Although the test appears racially neutral, a disproportionate percentage of African Americans fail it. The test is administered fairly, and the legislature did not intend to discriminate. Will the test be subject to strict scrutiny?

To reduce incidents of violence among male gang members at a youth center, a city passed an ordinance forbidding any male between the ages of 13 and 19 to enter the center unless accompanied by a female.An 18-year-old male who was refused admission at the center because he was not escorted by a female filed suit in federal court to strike down the ordinance as unconstitutional.Should the court find the city ordinance constitutional?

According to the article, “10 States with the Best and Worst Healthcare,” where does Texas rank?

Which of the following statements of constitutional jurisprudence is correct?

A state was suffering from a near-depression caused by layoffs in the tourist service industry. In an attempt to alleviate the problem, the state enacted a statute providing for the immediate hiring of 100,000 employees to repair, maintain, and otherwise work at the discretion of the state director of highways. The statute further stated that preference would be given to persons who had worked in the tourist service industry for five years and had been laid off. Which of the following constitutional provisions would be most relevant in determining the constitutionality of the preference for tourist service industry workers?

A public high school has had a very high rate of pregnancy among its students. In order to assist students who keep their babies to complete high school, the high school has established an infant day-care center for children of its students, and also offers classes in child care. Because the child-care classes are always overcrowded, the school limits admission to those classes solely to students at the high school who are the mothers of babies in the infant day-care center. A male student at the high school has legal custody of his infant son. The school provides care for his son in the infant day-care center, but will not allow the male student to enroll in the child-care classes. He brings suit against the school challenging, on Constitutional grounds, his exclusion from the child care classes. Which of the following best states the burden of persuasion in this case?

Chapter 12 emphasizes that a job analysis is important because:

The defense attorney in a pending criminal case decided to challenge a search warrant due to inaccuracies he found in the supporting affidavit. He contacted a deputy district attorney who determined the affidavit did in fact contain serious misrepresentations. The deputy district attorney submitted a memorandum of his findings to his superiors and recommended that the case be dismissed. However, the department decided to proceed with the prosecution. The deputy district attorney was called by the defense attorney to testify at a hearing to disclose his findings. The trial court upheld the validity of the warrant nonetheless. Following this incident, the deputy district attorney was reassigned to a different position, transferred to another courthouse, and denied a promotion. He filed an employment grievance in federal court, claiming the department’s retaliatory actions violated his First Amendment rights. The district court found the deputy district attorney had suffered no retaliation and that the changes in his job had been dictated by legitimate staffing and work-related concerns. This decision was reversed on appeal, based on a finding that the memorandum the deputy district attorney wrote dealt with a matter of public concern and his supervisors “failed even to suggest disruption or inefficiency in the workings of the district attorney’s office.” The government appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which has granted certiorari.  Should the Supreme Court uphold the Court of Appeals decision?