Constitutional Law
This course will introduce students to the national constitutional law of the United States using the text of the U.S. Constitution and nine landmark constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Half of the course will explore the text of the Constitution and the "structural" aspect of U.S. national constitutional law, that is, the separate powers of the national legislative, judicial, and executive branches in the context of American federalism, where governance is shared between the national government and fifty subnational state governments. The other half of the course will introduce students to the American constitutional law of individual rights. The specific rights to be examined will be the freedom of speech, the rights to racial and gender equality, the right to privacy, and the right against cruel and unusual punishment in criminal cases.
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