Courses:

The Supreme Court, Civil Liberties, and Civil Rights >> Content Detail



Syllabus



Syllabus


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Course Description


This course introduces students to the work of the Supreme Court and to the main outlines of American constitutional law, with an emphasis on the development of American ideas about civil rights. The goal of the course is to provide students with a framework for understanding the major constitutional controversies of the present day through a reading of landmark Supreme Court cases and the public debates they have generated. The principal topics are civil liberties in wartime, race relations, privacy rights, and the law of criminal procedure.



Course Format


At least once during the course of the semester, students will have the opportunity to pair up in teams of two and provide an oral presentation of both sides of one particular case. In addition, I will make liberal use of the so-called "Socratic method" employed in law schools, which means that students should come prepared for each class session regardless of whether or not they have been asked to prepare oral argument for that particular class.



Prerequisites


There are no prerequisites for this course.



Required Texts


Amazon logo Fallon, Richard H., Jr. The Dynamic Constitution: An Introduction to American Constitutional Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780521600781.

Amazon logo Goldstein, Brand. Storming the Court: How A Band of Yale Law Students Sued the President – and Won. New York, NY: Scribner, 2005. ISBN: 9780743230018.

All Supreme Court cases and other required readings given by the instructor are available in the readings section. Students are required to print and bring their own copies of these Web site materials to the relevant class sessions.



Grading


ACTIVITIESPERCENTAGES
Midterm exam30%
Class participation and oral presentations30%
Final exam40%



Calendar


SES #TOPICS
1Introduction
2The Supreme Court in the 21st century
3The separation of powers and judicial review (the early Supreme Court)
4Federalism
5The wartime Constitution (I) – the post-9/11 era
6The wartime Constitution (II) – World War II and Korean War precedents
7The wartime Constitution (III) – freedom of speech and belief
8The wartime Constitution (IV) – the First Amendment
9Religion – the free exercise and establishment clauses
10Economic liberties and substantive due process
11Desegregation
12Freedom of association
13Affirmative action
14Gender discrimination
Midterm exam
15Criminal procedure
16The conflict between civil liberties and civil rights (guest lecture by Harvey Silverglate, Esq.)
17From the "war on crime" to the "war on terror"
18Fundamental rights (I)
19Fundamental rights (II)
20The Eighth Amendment
21Immigration and citizenship
22Welfare and poverty
23Sexual orientation
24Marriage
25Political participation

 








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