Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: Any-Day Take-Home

The approach of this con law course is advanced. It addresses the Freedom of Speech, the Free Exercise of Religion and the Establishment Clause.

Because constitutional law is always (at least potentially) in motion, this class will feature its development through time, structured and animated by internal tensions and by momentous shifts in politics and society.  Interweaving issues of free speech and religion, and concentrating on the last fifty years, we’ll go on to speculate about future developments amid crises set off by the internet, political polarization and  reimagination of our democracy and its institutions.

The aim will be to explore constitutional argument, its variety of modes and moves, and to equip students to make it from any point of view.  Specifically, the aim will be to empower you to “win” any constitutional argument you join.  I’ll make my own viewpoint clear, but not so as to indoctrinate or even convince, but to provoke your self-education. 

In class, there will be occasional anonymous  polling and cold calling with a pass option, but mostly voluntary discussion.  If there are under 50 students, a few grades may be raised in cases of excellent participation in class discussions.