Study Questions for Public and Private in American Politics
Note: Some of these questions concern matters of fact; others are designed to elicit informed opinions.
What is privacy?
Describe some of the technological developments that led to growing concerns about privacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Describe some of the economic developments that led to growing concerns about privacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Describe some of the political developments that led to growing concerns about privacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Whose right to privacy did Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren defend in "The Right to Privacy?"
Describe the inconsistency between Lochner v. New York (1905) and Muller v. Oregon (1908).
Describe the consistency between Bradwell v. Illinois (1873) and Muller v. Oregon (1908).
Upon what grounds did the Supreme Court justify government wiretaps in Olmstead v. United States?
What was Louis Brandeis' main objection to government wiretaps in Olmstead v. United States?
Why would women be less inclined to defend the sanctity of the private sphere than men would be?
Describe some of the tensions between individual privacy and democratic government.
How did Prohibition shape prevailing views of privacy?
How did the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment shape debates about privacy?
How did ideas about privacy change during the Great Depression?
How did ideas about privacy change during World War Two?
Describe some of the ways in which industrial development both defined and undermined the separation between the public and private spheres.
Describe some of the ways in which the Cold War undermined rights to privacy.
Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Place Betty Friedan's sense of entrapment within the context of 1950's culture and society.
From what and where did women's liberationists hope to escape?
Do you think that women's liberation movement of the 1970's can be better described as a search for personal freedom than as a struggle for social transformation?
Whose right to privacy did the Supreme Court defend in Griswold v. Connecticut?
What was the slogan of radical feminists during the 1970's?
Why does it make sense that the Supreme Court would legalize abortion by citing rights to privacy?
How has the logic used in Roe v. Wade helped to limit access to abortion?
What is confusing about the logic used in Roe v. Wade?
What is protected within the "zone of privacy" defined by the Supreme Court?
Summarize the majority opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick.
Summarize the Supreme Court's ruling in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson.
Summarize Bill Clinton's comments on sexual harassment in his testimony before the Starr Grand Jury.
Do you believe that employers should have a right to subject employees to drug testing for jobs that have nothing to do with public safety?
Do you believe that employers should have a right to subject employees to psychological tests?
Do you have any expectation of privacy in your workplace?
Should employers have a right to monitor their employees' e-mail?
Are you worried about the privacy of your medical records?
Are you worried about the privacy of your electronic communications?
Do you have a supermarket discount card?
Describe situations in which you have given up your privacy in order to earn or save money.
Describe situations in which your right to privacy has been violated.
What is ironic about the previous question?