Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: No Exam

For decades, the Supreme Court enforced constitutional rights through a common-law method that relied substantially on precedents imbued with interest-balancing. More recently, an increasingly originalist-identified Court has attempted to rely instead on “history and tradition” to enforce, for example, the Free Speech and Establishment Clauses, the Second Amendment, substantive due process, and various procedural rights. This reading group will explore and assess the history-and-tradition method’s contours, rationales, workability, relationship to originalism, and ultimate merits. It will do so through a close reading of recent Supreme Court cases and related secondary literature.

Note: This reading group will meet on the following dates: TBD.