Rights in America

Catalog description

This course is an introduction to the emergence and enforcement of rights in the United States. The course provides an overview of how rights have been codified into law and interpreted by the courts. The primary focus is how and why the conception of rights has changed over time. Emphasis is placed on the rights of groups that were denied equal citizenship when the Constitution was ratified. We will examine how these marginalized groups have engaged in a continual struggle for basic rights since the American founding. The course begins with an overview of different types of rights and the role of the legal system in articulating and enforcing them. Students are introduced to debates about the sources of rights, including the implications of conceptions of rights as grounded in natural law and as arising from positive law. They look specifically at the role of rights in the founding documents of United States and how civil rights are interpreted through pivotal Supreme Court cases as ascribing - or denying - particular powers and responsibilities to individuals and groups. The second section of the course focuses on the rights of African Americans and women. It progresses chronologically from slavery to the modern civil rights movement, from coverture to women's rights. Particular attention is given to the NAACP's campaign against racial discrimination in housing, education, and in the criminal justice system. The final part of the course emphasizes campaigns for rights recognition in modern times, including LGBTQ rights and disability rights. The course concludes with a discussion of how context impacts rights, including students' rights and rights during wartime, and examination of the potential and limitations of rights as a basis for political protection. Throughout the course students are introduced to the interdependent political, legal and philosophical dimension of rights and how rights in the United States have come to be recognized and enforced through political action, legal codification, and judicial interpretation.