Equal Protection
During the early and mid-1980s, many states raised their drinking age to 21 in response to federal prompting
and as a means of promoting traffic safety. To further address public health and safety concerns, many states
initiated sobriety checkpoints and introduced random drug testing for public employees and high school
students.
Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper in which you address the following:
• How would you analyze the effect of these policies? What approach might you take, and what types of
information might you seek and use?
• If your analysis discerned the policies had no effect on public health and safety, how do you think different
political groups would react?
• What due process and equal protection issues and standards do these public safety strategies raise?
• Apply the Supreme Court’s three-tiered scrutiny test to determine if equal protection or due process has been
violated in the implementation of these policies.
• Explain how managerial, political, and legal perspectives variously affect this policy change, implementation,
and evaluation
