Overview
In both your textbook and supplemental materials you have learned about how cases make it to the Supreme Court. In this discussion you will have a chance to choose a recent (preferably within the past 15 years) Supreme Court case, summarize it, think more deeply about its possible impact on politics/your own life and discuss this impact with others. Not all of these cases have been decided yet, so you may also need to find out the status of the case.
Step 1: Choose Your Case
Choose a case (preferably within the last 15 years):
You can go to OYEZ.ORG for a list of all Supreme Court cases or OYEZ.org 2022 for a list of more current cases. If you decide to research some of the cases that have gotten a lot of press recently, you are welcome to choose one of these to research:
McDonald v. Chicago
• Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
• Arizona v. United States
• National Federation of Independent Businsess v. Sebelius
• Shelby County v. Holder
• U.S. v. Windsor
• United States v. Tsarnaev
• United States v. Zubaydah
• United States v. Texas
• Hemphill v. New York
• Houston Community College System v. Wilson
• Wooden v. United States
• Ramirez v. Collier
• Biden v. Missouri and Biden v. Texas
• Brown v. Davenport
• Carson v. Makin
• 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis
• Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College
• American Medical Association v. Cochran
• Arizona v. City and County of San Francisco
• Badgerow v. Walters
• Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP
• Town of Greece v. Galloway
• Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby
• Fernandez v. California
• Riley v. California
• McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission
Step 2: Research Your Case
Find out the following information about your case:
• Has a decision been made in your case? If yes, what was that decision? How many Justices voted for/against the decision? (The page for the case you are researching on OYEZ.ORG will have this information – at the bottom of the page you can also see who voted for/against this as well as sort by ideology).
• What is the issue being discussed? Summarize the main points.
• What are the two sides of argument? Summarize those.
• Why do you think this issue this issue is important? What impact could this have?
• Do you think ideology impacted this case? If so, how?
Some places to go to research more about your issue:
• Ovez.org
• SCOTUS Blog (the Supreme Court Blog – the search feature will pull up information about your case)
• PCC Shatford Library Databases. Try Opposing Viewpoints in Context or National Newspapers Core. If accessing off campus, you will need to enter your LancerPoint ID and password.
• PCC Shatford Library POLSC 1 LibGuide
• National Review
• The Hill.com (hover over News and you will be able to choose House or Senate)
• The American Spectator G»
• New York Times
• The New American
• Politico (check out the Congress tab)
• The Cvbercast News Service E»
• Roll Call
• Human Events ?»
• The LA Times (check out US tab and then Politics)
The Washington Times
Step: 3 Create Your Summary + Thought Questions
Combine the information you have found and create a 300-400 word summary and analysis of this issue for your initial post in your own words based on your research. If you are having difficulty with your writing, you can get help from PCC’s online tutoring service. Please do so before your initial post due date!
Directions
For your Initial Post due by Thursday 11:59 PM:
1. Post your summary of your arricie and the websites you got your information from. Make certain to include a citation. For help with citations you can check out this PCC Citation page:Citations.
2. Create 1 or 2 thought questions about the article. These should be questions that help your classmates’ think more deeply about the topic and their own perspective. Such as:
1. If decision is made what do you think would happen?
2. How should the public respond to…?
3. Why do you think…?
4. How do you feel about…?