In response to Texas businesses and employers, the Texas State Legislature has strongly encouraged the state’s colleges and universities to ensure students learn not only knowledge related to their major/course of study, but also prove they have key marketable skills that will help them become valuable employees. To that end, the TJC Government and Economics Department has developed special assignments to assess student skills in the following areas:

Communication
Critical Thinking
Personal Responsibility
Social Responsibility
For this assessment you will read about a Supreme Court decision and answer a series of questions about what you’ve read. The questions will be used to assess how well you can:

communicate your thoughts in writing,
gather a variety of facts to objectively consider an issue (critical thinking),
recognize personal dilemmas, connect consequences to choices made/actions taken and which personal values influenced those actions, and
recognize whether the case indicates social responsibility was being demonstrated (or not).
First read the questions in the assessment below so you will have a general idea of what you will be looking for in the opinion. After reading the questions, then thoroughly read the opinion. You may find it helpful to print the opinion for highlighting or note-taking purposes, or if your computer has highlighting and note-taking features, you may do so without printing. Make sure that you first understand the issue (or problem) in the case and who is affected by the issue. Then make sure you understand the decision made by the majority of the Supreme Court justices and the constitutional basis for their decision.