Unit 5 Test Short Answer
Questions:
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Question 2 Document: Use this document to assist you in answering the short answer questions.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), now acknowledged as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the
20th century, unanimously held that the racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the decision did not succeed in fully desegregating
public education in the United States, it put the Constitution on the side of racial equality and galvanized the
nascent civil rights movement into a full revolution.
In 1954, large portions of the United States had racially segregated schools, made legal by Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896), which held that segregated public facilities were constitutional so long as the black and white facilities
were equal to each other. However, by the mid-twentieth century, civil rights groups set up legal and political,
challenges to racial segregation. In the early 1950s, NAACP lawyers brought class action lawsuits on behalf of
black schoolchildren and their families in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware, seeking court orders
to compel school districts to let black students attend white public schools.
One of these class actions, Brown v. Board of Education was filed against the Topeka, Kansas school board by
representative-plaintiff Oliver Brown, parent of one of the children denied access to Topeka's white schools.
Brown claimed that Topeka's racial segregation violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause because the
city's black and white schools were not equal to each other and never could be. The federal district court
dismissed his claim, ruling that the segregated public schools were "substantially" equal enough to be
constitutional under the Plessy doctrine. Brown appealed to the Supreme Court, which consolidated and then
reviewed all the school segregation actions together.
The Supreme Court reviewed psychological studies showing black girls in segregated schools had low racial
self-esteem, the Court concluded that separating children on the basis of race creates dangerous inferiority
complexes that may adversely affect black children's ability to learn. Brown claimed that even if the school
buildings were equal between the black and white schools, racial segregation in schools is "inherently unequal"
and is thus always unconstitutional. The Board of Education argued that the de-segregation of schools would
cause children to be bused away from their neighborhood school, in some areas over an hour. Also, the
integration of schools could put black children in danger from angry community members.
Plessy v. Ferguson was overruled. The Court ordered the states to integrate their schools "with all deliberate
speed." The Supreme Court unanimously voted that racial segregation of children in public schools violated the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that "no state shall make or enforce any
law which shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal education today. Public education in the
20th century, said the Court, had become an essential component of a citizen's public life, forming the basis of
democratic citizenship, normal socialization, and professional training. In this context, any child denied a good
education would be unlikely to succeed in life. Where a state, therefore, has undertaken to provide universal
education, such education becomes a right that must be afforded equally to both blacks and whites.
Source: PBS Website
Question 3 Document: Use this document to assist you in answering the short answer questions.
Source: USA Today
Question 4 Document: Use this document to assist you in answering the short answer questions.
Finland
The United States
Population
5,259,250
316,438,601
Area (in km)
338,145 sq km, which is slightly smaller than
the state of Montana
9,631,418 sq km
Shared Borders
Norway, Sweden, and Russia
Canada and Mexico
Structure of
Government
Constitution -based Republic: This means
that the Finland has a Constitutionally
based government that is only one level.
It is based on Parliamentary procedure
which has two executive officers and a
unicameral (one house) legislature. The
members of government are elected into
office by the people.
Constitution -based Federal Republic: This
means that the United States has a
Constitutionally based government that is
divided into three levels: national, state, and
local. The members of government are elected
into office by the people.
Median Age
40.97 years
37.2 years
Ethnic Groups
Finn 93.4%, Swede 5.7%, Russian 0.4%,
Estonian 0.2%, Roma 0.2%, Sami 0.1%
white 64.8%, Hispanic 15.1%, black 12.9%, Asian
4.4%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1%, native
Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.2%
Religions
Lutheran National Church 84.2%, Greek
Orthodox in Finland 1.1%, other Christian
1.1%, other 0.1%, none 13.5%
Protestant 52%, Roman Catholic 24%, Mormon
2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 1%, other 10%, none 10%
Official
language(s)
Finnish and Swedish
English
Languages
Spoken
Finnish 92% (official), Swedish 5.6% (official),
other 2.4%
English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other IndoEuropean 3.8%, Asian, Pacific island 2.7%
Value of Goods
Made by the
Nation
purchasing power $186 billion (2010 est.)
purchasing power $14.66 trillion (2010 est.)
Unemployment 8.4% (2010 est.)
Budget
9.6% (2010 est.)
Revenues (How much the government
earned): $122.1 billion
Revenues (how much the government
earned): $2.162 trillion
Expenditures (how much the
government spent): $128.1 billion
Expenditures (how much the government
spent): $3.456 trillion (2010 est.)
(2010
est.)
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