Reading comp PrepTest 151 · Section 1 · Question 5

Topic: Legal

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Author: Although Shelley is famous and celebrated, the legal rationale in the decision is problematic
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Definition of "racially restrictive covenant":
    • Property agreements that specify that only members of a certain race can occupy that property (second sentence)
  • Cause-and-effect relationship:
    • The Court's decision in Shelley disallowed a key instrument of housing discrimination (third sentence)
  • Author attitude: "famously disallowed" (first sentence); "justly celebrated" (third sentence); "problematic" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • The Court's "attribution" rationale in Shelley
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Definition of "Fourteenth Amendment":
    • Grants equal protection to all citizens (first sentence)
  • Comparison:
    • Fourteenth Amendment applies to state actions, but not private, individual actions (second sentence)
  • Definition of "attribution rationale":
    • The Fourteenth Amendment applies to private housing agreements because the Court might have to eventually enforce these agreements, and the Court is an instrument of the state (fifth sentence)
    • The Court can, therefore, only enforce agreements that could have been passed into law under the Constitution (sixth sentence)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Author: The "attribution" rationale could dissolve the distinction between state and private action
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Comparison:
    • Fourteenth Amendment limitations apply to state action, but not private activities (first sentence)
  • Example of courts not following Shelley's "attribution" rationale:
    • Settlement agreements can prevent parties from speaking publicly, even though this would be an unconstitutional violation of free speech (last sentence)
  • Author attitude: "threatened to dissolve the distinction" (first sentence); "Primarily for this reason" (third sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Author: The most troubling part of Shelley was it concluded that racially restrictive covenants were legal
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's view:
    • The real issue with racially restrictive covenants is their discriminatory content, not the courts' enforcement of them (last sentence)
  • Author attitude: "particularly noxious" (first sentence); "failed to target the genuine problem" (last sentence); "troubling" (last sentence)

Main Point: Although Shelley's ruling on racially restrictive covenants was momentous, the Court's stated legal rationale doesn't withstand scrutiny or address the real problem with such agreements.

Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 (P1, S3) - The Court's decision

P1, S4 - The author's main point

P2, S5 - The Court's "attribution" rationale

P3, S1 - The author's main issue with the "attribution" rationale

P4, S2 - The author's other issue with the rationale

Criticizing a Viewpoint: We think this passage applies the Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure*. The author dedicates much of this passage to lambasting the Supreme Court's legal rationale in Shelley v. Kraemer. Even though the author approves of the outcome of the Court's decision, the author does not believe the "attribution" rationale the Court employed can withstand scrutiny (P3, S2-3). Moreover, the author chides the Court for not addressing the actual problem Shelley invoked (P4, S2).

In a Criticizing a Viewpoint passage, the main point is generally the author's main criticism or a summary of the criticisms. Unfortunately, the author did not summarize the main point in one tidy sentence. So, we took the liberty to condense their objections: "Although Shelley's ruling on racially restrictive covenants was momentous, the Court's stated legal rationale doesn't withstand scrutiny or address the real problem with such agreements." 

*Some may argue that this is a Correcting the Record or Rebutting Critics, Meta-Structure — understandably so, since there's considerable overlap between these Meta-Structures and the Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure. If you went with either of these, that's OK! You'd wind up with the same main point and big-picture understanding of the passage described above. Some may even see this as a Paradox/Resolution passage — how could the author both celebrate Shelley for overturning an instrument of racism in housing contracts while criticizing the legal rationale in the case as problematic? Again, using this framework would help you come to the same understanding of the passage we did. Let's remember that the Meta-Structures are here to help us think about the overarching structure and ideas in a passage. We don't have to agree on which Meta-Structure a passage has to realize the benefits of the Meta-Structures.

Legal passages don't require us to have background legal knowledge. After all, you'll go to law school after taking the LSAT. However, if you don't have background legal knowledge, it's imperative that you pause and absorb any legal term or concept that the passage defines. We recommend highlighting these legal terms to ensure that you give these terms adequate attention and to help you refer back to the definitions when necessary.

In this passage, absorbing the definitions of three legal concepts is paramount to understanding the logic of the Shelley case and its problems. First, the author defines "racially restrictive covenants" in the first paragraph. Knowing the self-evidently racist nature of such covenants can help us understand why the author can praise Shelley's outcome while still finding fault in the Court's legal rationale. In the second paragraph, we are told that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which the Court relied upon in making its problematic decision, grants equal protection to all citizens but only applies to government actions. Finally, the author defines the "attribution" rationale in the third paragraph, which the Court used to apply the Fourteenth Amendment to contracts made between private citizens.

If you had trouble following this passage, consider whether you didn't gain an adequate understanding of any one of these legal terms.