JLST 401
The Unwritten Constitution Spring 2019
Division II
This is not the current course catalog

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“The eight thousand words of America’s written constitution only begin to map out the basic ground rules that actually govern our land.” So begins Akhil Amar’s book America’s Unwritten Constitution. Amar recasts the debate over whether America has a “living Constitution,” a debate usually revolving around whether change in constitutional meaning requires resort to the formal amendment process or can be achieved through judicial interpretation. Amar supports the latter view, but proposes something far-reaching: history itself effectively amends the Constitution. Thus, for example, he argues that speeches by Martin Luther King and precedents set by George Washington, as well as the daily activities and assumptions of ordinary Americans, have become constitutional subtext requiring consideration when we interpret the Constitution. Is that notion convincing? Preposterous? A healthy way of understanding the inevitable intersection of law, history, and politics? A transparent excuse to read one’s own views into the Constitution? Through a careful reading of Amar, and other important constitutional theorists (including Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork, Laurence Tribe, Ronald Dworkin, and Richard Posner), we will probe different ways of thinking about the Supreme Law of the Land.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3165
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: two papers, a final exam, and class participation
Prerequisites: PSCI 216 or PSCI 217 (or consent of the instructor)
Enrollment Preferences: Justice and Law Studies concentrators
Distributions: Division II

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