(= R POS 295) The Supreme Court and American Constitutional History

Catalog description

This course treats the history of the Constitution through an examination of many of the major arguments made about it before the Supreme Court of the United States. This course allows us to understand the critical role counsel has made in shaping arguments before the Court, the way in which litigants representing competing social demands have pushed the envelope of American constitutionalism, and the means by which the Court's agenda (and American constitutional history) has changed in response to those arguments and the underlying social circumstances that have informed them during the previous two centuries. Only one version of A HIS 295 may be taken for credit.