Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Medium

PT115 S1 P2 Q9 Explanation

Thurgood Marshall

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsNon-Author OpinionLaw

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Passage

Thurgood Marshall’s litigation of Brown v. Board of Education in 1952—the landmark case, decided in 1954, that made segregation illegal in United States public schools—was not his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Some legal scholars claim that the cases he presented to the court in the sixteen years before his foundations of discrimination against African Americans that paved the way for success in Brown.

When Marshall joined the legal staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1936, the organization was divided on how to proceed against the legal doctrine that for forty years had promoted “separate but equal” facilities for African Americans in educational institutions, in public transportation, and various real equality and thus to prepare the courts to recognize the validity of the theoretical argument.

While Marshall enjoyed several successes arguing for the equalization of facilities and opportunities in such areas as voting practices and accommodations for graduate students at public universities, it would be twelve years before he evolved a strategy for arguing against pervasive discriminatory practices that enabled him to make the leap from individual to accept such data as convincing evidence for finding “separate but equal” insupportable on its face.

What this question is testing

Non-Author Opinion

Anticipate

This is a Non-Author Opinion question — what would the scholars referred to in the passage believe? The scholars' view is right there in P3: Shelley "prepared the court to accept" the kind of data Marshall used in Brown. So the scholars are saying Shelley was a necessary stepping stone to Brown.

If Shelley hadn't happened, the court wouldn't have been ready to accept that data in Brown, and the ruling probably would have gone the other way.

Goal

Look for an answer that ties not having Shelley to losing Brown. Common traps:

Answers that say the court would have decided differently without Shelley — overturning on other grounds, or using political reasoning

Answers about the court "never" using sociological data again — too sweeping

Answers that confuse the housing-discrimination doctrine of P3 with the broader claim about Brown

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The question
9.

The passage suggests that the scholars referred to in the passage would be most likely to believe which one

Answer choices

  1. Out of Scope1% picked this

    Without Marshall’s argument in Shelley v. Kraemer, the court would probably have overturned “separate but

    The scholars' view is that Shelley prepared the court for Brown. The passage doesn't connect Shelley to political reasons or suggest the court would have ruled differently for political reasons in its absence. Political motivation isn't in the scholars' picture.

  2. Correct77% picked this

    Without Marshall’s argument in Shelley v. Kraemer, the court would probably not have ruled in his favor on

    Why this is right

    The scholars credit Shelley with preparing the court to accept the sociological-data strategy that worked in Brown. So the scholars would naturally believe that, without Shelley, the court probably wouldn't have ruled in Marshall's favor in Brown. The end of P3 makes this connection explicit.

    Skill tested: Non-Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  3. Term Shift5% picked this

    Without Marshall’s argument in Shelley v. Kraemer, the court would probably not have excused private dealings from the legal requirement for equal

    This answer mixes up doctrines. The "private dealings excused from the equal-protection requirement" doctrine is what Shelley itself overturned — not what scholars are saying about Brown. The scholars' point is about Brown's outcome, not about whether the private-dealings doctrine would have been overturned.

  4. Too Strong15% picked this

    Without Marshall’s argument in Shelley v. Kraemer, the court would probably never have relied on sociological data

    The scholars say Shelley prepared the court for Brown. They don't make the much stronger claim that without Shelley, the court would never use sociological data in any future case. That's an absolute claim about all future cases that the passage doesn't support.

  5. Out of Scope1% picked this

    Without Marshall’s argument in Shelley v. Kraemer, the court would probably have overturned discriminatory housing

    The scholars' claim is about Brown, not about whether discriminatory housing transactions could have been overturned on other grounds. (E) imagines a counterfactual outcome about housing discrimination that the scholars don't address.

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