In introducing students to the overall themes of the course and the methods and materials that will be used, we begin by noting that there is no easy or single answer to the misleadingly simple question, "What are civil liberties?"
The first constitutional document produced by the Philadelphia Convention did not include a bill of rights. We explore the history of the Bill of Rights, beginning with whether and why it was necessary and why it took the form that it did.
This lecture focuses primarily on one Supreme Court case and what it teaches about two issues concerning the breadth and scope of the Bill of Rights: the "state action doctrine" and the nature of the rights included in the Constitution.
After a brief history of the Court's early years, we take up important institutional issues, including how justices are appointed; the nature and limits of judicial power; how the Court actually decides cases; and the question of when, if ever, the Court should refrain from deciding a case.
This lecture introduces students to the practice of judicial review—the authority of the Supreme Court and other federal courts to declare some governmental action unconstitutional—on some accounts, the cornerstone of American constitutional order.
One of the Constitution's central purposes, according to the Preamble, is to secure the "Blessings of Liberty." There is little doubt, as we shall see in this lecture, that chief among those liberties at the founding was the right to own private property.
The Court's protection for private property has waxed and waned. This lecture traces that process from its beginnings through the 20th century, and includes a close look at one of the Court's most infamous decisions.
Following the Court's rejection of economic due process, the right to property became substantially less important than it once was. However, a few cases arising under the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause suggest that the right to property may be more robust than it has seemed over the last few decades.
We continue our examination of the relationship between liberty and community, broadening our focus to include the development of the constitutional right to privacy. We continue our examination of the relationship between liberty and community, broadening our focus to include the development of the constitutional right to privacy.
Though there is no explicit provision in the Constitution that grants a comprehensive right to privacy, concern for privacy does appear in several places, including the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and other aspects of privacy intersect with the First Amendment's freedom of association.
Few topics in American law are as emotionally charged, and as doctrinally confused, as the discussion of abortion rights, encompassing not only the law, but also profound moral and political issues, and important questions about the role of the Supreme Court in American society.
We continue our examination of the consequences of /Roe/ by exploring subsequent litigation, including the most recent cases involving abortion and reproductive autonomy, which have highlighted the issues of judicial power and accountability.
As we have seen, the right to liberty is less a single right than a collection of diverse interests. The same is true of the right to privacy, an umbrella that covers a wide collection of more specific interests, including procreation, abortion, marriage, and sexuality.
Does the Constitution protect the choices we make about sexuality? Few areas of life, it might seem, are as private, but most societies also recognize a collective interest in regulating certain kinds of sexual conduct. We explore several cases that try to define that interest.
Does the Constitution protect same-sex marriages? No decision by the Supreme Court has addressed this question directly, but we look at several cases that might be relevant to the issue.
Few issues in civil liberties are as controversial as the question of whether the Constitution includes a right to die. We explore several cases that illustrate, in examining this question, how the most fundamental questions in civil liberties are not so much legal as moral.
The past few lectures have opened up questions that consider the relationship between self and society, between rights and responsibilities, and indeed about the meaning and definition of life itself. This lecture explores those issues in their most profound form: the death penalty.
From a few sparse words in the First Amendment, the Supreme Court has created a huge and complicated jurisprudence. In this lecture, we consider what the Founders may have meant when they sought to protect speech, as well as the equally important question of why they sought to protect speech.
The reasons we protect speech are complex. This lecture explores whether there are times when we might not want to protect it, examining the depth of our commitment and asking who should balance the competing demands of the First Amendment and national security.
We begin four lectures that take up thorny questions about the meaning of speech and expression, the scope of the First Amendment's protections, and what we might choose to leave unprotected because it is not "really" speech.
In several of our lectures we have wrestled with a problem of definition: What is speech? What isn't? In this lecture and the next we take up two different versions of this problem. In this lecture: Is pornography speech?
We examine the suppression of "hate speech" and the regulation of so-called "fighting words"—the debate over both highlights the tension between our commitment to freedom of expression and our collective interest in protecting values such as civility, social morality, and public order.
Does freedom of speech include the right not to speak? To refuse, for example, to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or to tape over the state motto on an automobile license plate? We consider several cases.
The relationship between matters of the soul and matters of state is a subject of intense controversy in the United States. In this lecture we begin an extended inquiry into freedom of religion.
This lecture considers several cases illustrating two drives once observed by Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge to be "constantly in motion to abridge, in the name of education, the complete division of religion and civil authority."
We examine another, perhaps larger, issue that has troubled the Court in recent years: Does the establishment clause require government neutrality toward all forms of religious belief and nonbelief, or does it simply prohibit the government from favoring one religion over another?
Holding to a particular religious belief is one thing. /Acting/ on that belief, however, can mean colliding with the rights of others or of the community. At what point should the community's interest in public order restrict an individual's right to free exercise?
This lecture examines whether a claim of free exercise can excuse some individuals—simply because they are acting in accordance with their religion—from the application of religiously "neutral" laws that would otherwise prohibit that action.
In a great many cases, the religion clauses work in tandem to secure religious freedom. In some cases, however, they appear to be at odds. We examine two illustrative cases.
Equality has always been one of the basic ideals of the American constitutional order. The original text of the Constitution, however, did not completely reflect this ideal. This lecture examines the Court's treatment of racial discrimination from the Founding to the important case of /Dred Scott v. Sandford/.
This lecture explores the NAACP's systematic campaign for school desegregation—led by lead attorney Thurgood Marshall—that culminated in one of the Court's most historic rulings.
Does the remedial or benign purpose of affirmative action policies suggest the need for a special judicial test under the equal protection clause? This lecture explores how the Court has answered this question several times and in several ways.
The ideal of equality is deeply rooted in our constitutional culture, even if we frequently fail to live up to it. In this lecture we take up one such area—that of discrimination on the basis of gender.
The Court has been unable to identify a clear standard of review that should govern gender classifications. We examine the decisions that have produced the Supreme Court's current test for the constitutionality of gender classification, which demands more than simple rationality but less than strict scrutiny.
We see the Court's continuing reluctance to use the strict scrutiny standard in a variety of equal protection cases. And we also observe a clear preference—except for cases involving race or gender—to defer to the democratic process.
What overall conception of liberties, rights, and governmental powers most nearly reflects and promotes our best understanding of the Constitution? The final lecture examines how successful we have been in discovering an answer.