POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political Science 225

Constitutional Law in the United States
Beloit College
Spring 2008

Course Objectives

This course addresses the U.S. Supreme Court’s approach to the powers of government and the civil rights and liberties of Americans under the U.S. Constitution. Specific topics include the scope of federal power, intergovernmental relations, First Amendment rights of speech and religion, criminal due process, and equal protection of the law for minorities and women.

From our exploration of these areas of the law, I hope you come away from the class with a grasp of some of the potential merits and foibles of constitutional democracy in the U.S, the complexities of constitutional interpretation, and the subtle interplay between freedom and political order.

Requirements

Class preparation, attendance and participation

Class sessions will involve critical analysis and discussion of the assigned texts, so attendance, preparation and participation are ESSENTIAL. Class preparation involves completing each assigned reading before class and having a good grasp of its content as well as your own perspective toward it (e.g., questions, critiques, further insight into the broader themes to which it points). Legal reasoning can be dense, complex, obfuscatory and at times non-existent, so you will need to take time to read these cases carefully and to think about them.

Consistency in attendance is important for your own learning, as well as for maintaining continuity in class discussions and for building trust and rapport among your peers. For this reason, I expect you to attend class unless you are ill or must deal with a personal or family emergency, and I expect that if you are dealing with such a situation, you will contact me in person or by phone before class. Excessive unexcused absences (i.e., more than three) will result in a substantial grade penalty.

Because we will rely on close textual analysis in our discussions, you should ALWAYS bring the assigned book to class. Some readings will be available online, either through a Web link or on Moodle. Others may be on reserve at the library. THESE READINGS ARE NOT OPTIONAL. In the case of reserve or Moodle readings, you should either take extensive notes or print out the assigned reading.

Your assigned reading for each day is outlined in the schedule that follows. If you ever encounter difficulty in accessing any of these readings, please contact me as soon as possible to alert me to that fact. Problems encountered due to a typo in the syllabus or glitches at the library or with Moodle do not amount to an automatic “bye” for that day’s assignments.

Class participation involves both answering my questions about the facts of the cases and engaging in discussions about the substance involved. I will not collect your case briefs (see handout on briefing cases), but they will be a useful resource for you in relation to class discussion and studying for exams. I am likely to call on you in class to explain a case – and this involves more than just reading the overview provided in the text -- so you should stay current with the reading and with your briefs.

Please listen well to your classmates and engage them. Remember that you share a common mission: to understand the texts and the themes that underlie them and to evaluate them. You will learn much from others, and others will learn much from you, but only if you speak and listen well. These are not mutually exclusive activities.

Your meaningful and constructive contributions to class discussion will constitute 10% of your final grade.

Moot Court Exercise

This semester we will conduct a moot court session on a case that will be determined by you as a class. Early in the semester, you will be assigned a role within that proceeding, either as an attorney representing the appellants or appellees or as a justice hearing the appeal. In whatever role you have, you will be expected to conduct research and to interact with your colleagues in such a way that will produce the strongest case or court opinion possible. This will involve scheduling and attending meetings throughout the semester with members of your group, conducting quality research throughout the semester, writing and revising drafts of legal briefs and opinions, and engaging in constructive discussion with your colleagues.

Early in the semester, we will discuss tools and tactics for legal research. You will then be responsible for uncovering, reading, disseminating and organizing as much material as possible related to the facts and rulings associated with the case, court precedents related to it, and the arguments for and against its constitutionality. Justices, as well as attorneys, need to engage in such research throughout the semester. Otherwise, it will be difficult for them to weigh the merits of the briefs presented to them and to write their own opinions.

For further information on the moot court exercise, see the handout entitled, “Moot Court Exercise.”

Midterm

The midterm will be an hour-long, in-class exam, consisting of short-answer identifications and one essay. It will take place on February 22

Final Exam

Your final for the course will largely follow the same format at as the midterm. Short-answer identifications will be drawn from the second half of the semester. However, there will be two essays, at least one of which will require you to consider cases or issues addressed during the first half of the semester.

The final exam will be held on Monday, May 7 from 9 to 11 a.m.. Please make your travel plans accordingly. I do not accept departure from campus as an adequate rationale for the rescheduling of exams.

Teaching Assistants

Alec Chiquoine, Holly Franson, and Ruth Hamilton are the teaching assistants for constitutional law this semester. Each of them received among the highest grades in this class in previous semesters and excelled in the moot court exercise. They will be available to assist you in learning how to brief cases and how to conduct solid legal research. One of them will be assigned to each of the teams for the moot court exercise to aid in deciding on and pursuing the best course of action for the group. You should attempt to include them in your meetings, and they will occasionally report to me on the progress of the group

Expectations Regarding Writing

I expect you to be prepared for class on the day that you hand in written assignments.

Late papers will be penalized one grade increment per day. If you need to seek an extension, you enhance the likelihood that I will grant one if you plan ahead and request such an extension at least two days prior to the due date of the assignment. You may have only one extension for the semester. No extensions will be granted for the legal briefs or court opinions.

Without prior arrangement, papers will not be accepted later than two weeks after they are due. Papers which exceed this deadline or are not submitted will receive a zero. You must complete all assigned work in this course in order to receive a passing grade.

Special note: Make back-ups of your work. Do not expect that you will receive automatic — or lengthy — extensions because you experience computer problems.

I expect papers to be neatly typed with realistic margins and fonts (e.g., 1" margins on all sides and 12-point Times New Roman font). If you have questions, ask me. Memos, briefs and court opinions should be single-spaced. Citations should consistently follow the recognized format for legal citation. (For further information, see http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/.)

I also expect your papers to exhibit a working knowledge of grammar and spelling. You should proofread your work even if you have spelling and grammar checks on your computer. Papers with egregious spelling or grammatical errors will receive a grade penalty.

Please remember to number the pages of your papers. Completing this simple task facilitates my reading of, and commenting upon, your work. Consequently, it improves my mood tremendously as I grade, and your interests are served accordingly.

Papers that are not stapled will be returned. As a college student, you should now own a stapler. Win friends and influence people by refraining from stopping by professors’ offices and asking to borrow their staplers.

Academic Honesty

Submitting original work is central to your life as a student and to our collaborative work as a community of learners. If you submit the work of others as your own, you have lost sight of what it means to be a student and have destroyed the relationship of trust and respect that should exist in a classroom. Rather than learning, you seem only interested in pretending to complete assignments, and that serves no one’s purposes well.

For these reasons, I take academic honesty very seriously and expect you to understand, and to follow, Beloit’s policy on academic honesty printed in the Student Handbook.

Simply put, you must give credit where credit is due. This includes not only acknowledging direct quotes with quotation marks and proper citation but also correctly citing any sources – including online ones – from which you have drawn insight or information in each instance where you have benefited from such sources. This includes when you paraphrase that material.

If you choose not to follow these guidelines, you will receive an F on the assignment in which the offense occurred, and I will notify the Dean of Students office regarding your plagiarism. If others have reported you for similar offenses, you are likely to be suspended or expelled.

Students with Disabilities

If you have a disability and would like to speak to someone about possible accommodations, please visit the LSSC (Learning Support Services Center) located on the first floor of 635 College St. You will need to provide appropriate documentation of your disability to Diane Arnzen, Director of the LSSC. If you wish to receive accommodations in my class, please provide me the LSSC Accommodation Verification Letter dated for this semester as soon as possible so your learning needs may be appropriately met.

Grading

Class Participation 10%

Moot Court (total) 55%

Components:

2 update memos (@ 10 each) 20

Briefs/Opinions 15

Final Paper 15

Working and Playing Well with Others 5

Midterm 15%

Final 20%

Book to Buy

Louis Fisher. American Constitutional Law, Sixth Edition (Carolina Academic Press, 2005). Court cases cited in syllabus can be found in this volume unless otherwise noted.

Important Dates to Remember

February 13 First Memo due

February 22 Midterm Examination

March 15 Second Memo due

March 30 Legal Briefs due

April 5 Oral Arguments

April 13 Court Opinion issued

April 20 Final Essays and Evaluations due

May 7 Final Examination

Class Schedule and assigned readings (subject to revision)

I have done my best to lay out a realistic schedule for reading and discussing landmark cases of the Supreme Court in some of the central areas of constitutional law. Some are easier to cover in a concise manner than others, and some will ignite more and/or less class discussion than I anticipated. To me, the ebb and flow of student discussion is an integral part of the learning experience, but it does demand flexibility on all of our parts. We may sometimes fall behind in the due to focusing on a particular case for an extended period of time. This means that other cases will not be covered in as great a depth or may be discussed on a day other than the one for which the reading was assigned. Unless otherwise stated, I nonetheless expect you to adhere to the schedule outlined in this syllabus. While I understand the challenges involved in discussing a case that you read three days before, you will find it easier to do so if you adequately brief those cases so that you have notes to which you can refer during class.

My advice: DO NOT FALL BEHIND IN THE READINGS FOR THIS CLASS.

January

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

15
16
Introduction

17

18
Syllabus
Moot court info
Constitution (1061-1074)
Constitutional Interpretation
Fisher, 3-7, 17-24, 61-72

19

22

23
Judicial Review
Marbury (43-50)
Eakin (59-61)
Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (50-2)

24:
Weissberg Lecture:
Justice Richard Goldstone, 8 p.m.

25
Richard Goldstone
Sep. of Powers
Schechter (201-4)
Curtiss-Wright (250-2)
Iran-Contra, 253-4
Moot Court Vote

26

29

30
Presidential War Powers
Prize Cases (261-3)
Milligan (263-5)
Korematsu (265-8)
Youngstown(268-272)
Hamdi (290-4)
Moot Court Prefs.

31

February

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

1
Federalism
McCulloch v. MD (311-5)
Carter v. Carter Coal (339-341)
NLRB v. J&L (341-4)
Wickard v. Filburn (344-6)

2

5

6
Heart of Atlanta, (796-8)
U.S. v. Lopez (359-362)
U.S. v. Morrison (363-6)
Fisher, 384-7, 390-2
Discussion of Legal Research

7

8
Substantive Due Process
Fisher, 430-4
Lochner (434-7) Adkins (437-9)
West Coast Hotel (439-441)

9

12

13
Privacy Rights
Griswold (894-6)
Bowers (936-8)
Lawrence(939-42)

First Memo due

14

15
Abortion
Fisher, 896-905
Roe (905-8)
Webster (915-8)
Casey (918-921)
Stenberg (970-73)

16

19

20
Right to Die
Cruzan (926-929)
Vacco (929-31)
Glucksberg (Moodle)
First Memo due

21

22
Midterm

23

26

27
Civil Rights and Equal Protection
Dred Scott (757-760)
Civil Rights Cases (764-6)
Plessy (766-9)

28

March

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

1
Civil Rights and Equal Protection
Brown I (778-781)
Bolling (781-2)
Brown II (782-3)
Cooper (783-5)

2

5
SPRING BREAK

6

7
BREAK

8

9
BREAK

12

13
Civil Rights and Equal Protection
Swann (785-6)
Milliken (787-8)
Frontiero (840-2)
Rostker (851-2)
U.S. v. VA (854-7)

14

15
Bakke (808-11)
Gratz v. Bollinger (Moodle)
Grutter v. Bollinger (Moodle)

Second Memo due

16

19

20
Freedom of Press and Speech Schenck (449-450)
Abrams (450-3)
Gitlow (453-5)
Dennis (457-460)
Yates (460-2)
Brandenburg
(476-8)

21

22
Near v. MN (512-5)
NYT v. U.S. (272-4)
Branzburg (515-7)
Nebraska Press (520-2)

23

26

27
Symbolic Speech
Tinker (864-5)
Johnson (487-9)
RAV v. St. Paul
(481-3)
VA v. Black (Moodle)

28

29
Religion:
Free Exercise
Minersville (572-3)
Barnette (574-6)
Employment Div. v. Smith (593-5)
Boerne v. Flores (597-600)

30
Legal Briefs due,
4 pm.

April

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

2
3
Establishment Clause
Everson (608-610)
Lemon (610-2)
Zelman (612-5)

4

5
Oral arguments

6

9

10
Establishment Clause
Van Orden v. Perry
(Moodle)
McCreary v. ACLU
(Moodle)

11

12
Symposium Day
Attend Symposia

13
Court opinion due, 4 p.m.

16

17
School Prayer
Engel v. Vitale (620-2)
Wallace v. Jaffree
(624-6)
Lee v. Weisman (626-8)
Santa Fe(628-631)

18

19
Rights of Accused
Powell (635-7)
Gideon (666-8)
Miranda (671-3)
Dickerson (673-5)

20
Moot court Essays and Evaluations due, 4 p.m.

23

24
Search and seizure
Terry (724-7)
Wardlow (Reserve)
Fisher, 729-33
Olmstead (733-5)
Katz (736-8)

25

26
Exclusionary Rule
Mapp (744-7)
Capital
Punishment
Furman (686-8)
Gregg (688-690)
McCleskey
(691-3)

27

May

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

1 Wrap-up and Review

2

3

4