Congress had the power to legislate beyond the initial dictates of the equal protection clause. especially in the area of suffrage. The issue in the Morgan case was the constitutionality of section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The section provides that. in effect. any person who has completed the 6th grade in a Puerto Rican school could not be denied the right to vote in any election because of his inability to pass a literacy test in English. The section obviously conflicted with New York States uniform English literacy test. The Supreme Court held that Congress has broad power to weigh the facts and make its own determination under the equal protection clause and that where there was a reasonable basis for legislation by Congress in this area. then the legislation will be sustained. As the court stated in Morgan: Thus our task in this case is not to determine whether the New York literacy requirement . . . violates the Equal Protection Clause . . .
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literacy test