Advanced Constitutional Law: A Legal History of the Civil Rights Movement

Catalog description

This course will explore how participants in social movements engage the Constitution and how these encounters shape constitutional doctrine, social institutions, public discourse, and movements themselves. We will investigate the processes of mobilization and counter-mobilization and reflect on how movements often spur constitutional change through means other than constitutionally specified procedures. We will also consider why movements fail and will analyze rights-based approaches to reform. The course will place particular emphasis on the involvement of social movement actors in the transformation of civil rights law.