DE Bar Constitutional Law 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A state law requires all public school teachers to be U.S. citizens. A lawful permanent resident denied a teaching job challenges the law. The law is most likely:
- Valid under the public function exception to strict scrutiny for alienage classifications (Correct answer)
- Invalid because alienage classifications always receive strict scrutiny
- Invalid under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
- Valid only if Congress has approved it
Correct answer: Valid under the public function exception to strict scrutiny for alienage classifications
Under Ambach v. Norwick, teaching is a governmental function tied to democratic self-governance, so citizenship requirements receive only rational basis review.
Question 2: A city ordinance prohibits sleeping overnight in all public parks. Protesters camping to dramatize homelessness challenge it. The ordinance is likely:
- Valid as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation (Correct answer)
- Invalid because camping is expressive conduct receiving strict scrutiny
- Invalid as a prior restraint
- Valid only in nonpublic forums
Correct answer: Valid as a content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation
Under Clark v. CCNV, a content-neutral ban on overnight sleeping is a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction serving park maintenance interests.
Question 3: A state supreme court strikes down a state search statute, resting its decision on both the Fourth Amendment and an adequate, independent state constitutional ground. The U.S. Supreme Court should:
- Decline review because the state ground independently supports the judgment (Correct answer)
- Grant review because a federal question was decided
- Grant review and decide only the federal issue
- Remand for clarification in all such cases
Correct answer: Decline review because the state ground independently supports the judgment
The Supreme Court will not review a state judgment resting on an adequate and independent state ground, since reversal on the federal issue would not change the outcome.
Question 4: Congress conditions 5% of federal highway funds on states raising the drinking age to 21. A state objects that this coerces state policy. The condition is:
- Valid because it is related to highway safety and not unduly coercive (Correct answer)
- Invalid as commandeering of state legislatures
- Invalid because Congress lacks power over alcohol after the Twenty-First Amendment
- Valid only if the state actually accepts the funds first
Correct answer: Valid because it is related to highway safety and not unduly coercive
South Dakota v. Dole upheld this condition as unambiguous, germane to the spending purpose, and a mild inducement rather than coercion.
Question 5: A public university expels a student for a semester without any hearing after accusing him of cheating. His strongest constitutional argument is:
- Procedural due process requires notice and an opportunity to be heard before deprivation of his education interest (Correct answer)
- Substantive due process protects a fundamental right to education
- The expulsion is a bill of attainder
- Equal protection requires strict scrutiny of academic discipline
Correct answer: Procedural due process requires notice and an opportunity to be heard before deprivation of his education interest
Continued enrollment at a public institution is a protected interest, and disciplinary deprivations require at least notice and some opportunity to respond.
Question 6: A state grants a tax exemption for religious publications only, not secular ones. The exemption most likely violates:
- The Establishment Clause, because it favors religious over nonreligious publications (Correct answer)
- The Free Exercise Clause
- The Free Press Clause only
- Nothing, because tax exemptions are legislative grace
Correct answer: The Establishment Clause, because it favors religious over nonreligious publications
In Texas Monthly v. Bullock, an exemption available solely to religious publications was held to impermissibly advance religion.
Question 7: A newspaper publishes truthful information about a confidential judicial disciplinary proceeding, obtained lawfully. The state prosecutes the paper. The prosecution is:
- Unconstitutional absent a state interest of the highest order (Correct answer)
- Constitutional because the proceeding was confidential by law
- Constitutional because the information concerned the judiciary
- Unconstitutional only if the paper is a traditional media outlet
Correct answer: Unconstitutional absent a state interest of the highest order
Under Smith v. Daily Mail, the state may not punish publication of lawfully obtained truthful information about a matter of public significance absent a need of the highest order.
DE Bar Constitutional Law 3
A state law requires all public school teachers to be U.S. citizens.
A lawful permanent resident denied a teaching job challenges the law.
The law is most likely: