Politics, Religion, and First Amendment Rights

Catalog description

Religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. These rights are essential to American self-government both as a political and social reality. What are their historical and philosophical roots? What is their contemporary relevance? In this class we will study these five rights in-depth, beginning with religious liberty and continuing through speech, press, assembly, and the right to petition. For each right we will study first its textual, historical, and philosophical roots and then examine the Supreme Court?s treatment of the right as well as its contemporary political and social significance. As we move through each right we will double back to examine how a particular right reinforces?and is reinforced by?other rights. We will conclude the class with further discussion of how all these rights interrelate and reinforce a fundamental social and political pluralism.