Day 1, 1^st session.

Introduction: Course overview and "American Society and Law"

Lecture: Law, the Constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court in American Society

[Recommended reading: Preface to the 2^nd edition, Stuart Scheingold, The Politics of Rights]

Day 1, 2^nd session.

The Nexus Between Legal Rights and Social Values: equality of persons

Lecture: Race, Gender and Citizenship, and how social movements shape (and do not shape) rights

[Reading: the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (entire opinion); selection from Kristin A. Goss, The Paradox of Equality: How American Women’s Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice, pp. 3-23]

Additional Sources, for research/reference or further consultation:

Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (Oxford, 2004)

S. Laurel Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups (Michigan, 2011)

Day 2, 1^st & 2^nd session.

The Nexus Between Legal Rights and Social Values: dignity of persons

Lecture: The Same-Sex Marriage Debate in the U.S.-and a parallel note on women’s dignity, in the on-going contraceptive rights debate

[Reading: selection from Michael Klarman, From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage, pp. 203-19; excerpt from Notorious RBG, pp. 131-5; Recommended reading: Jill Lepore, "To Have and to Hold: Reproduction, marriage, and the Constitution," The New Yorker (May 25,2015)]

Additional Sources, for research/reference or further consultation:

Edward J. Eberle, Dignity and Liberty: Constitutional Visions in German and the United States (Praeger, 2002)

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision, especially Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the majority)

Day 3, 1^st & 2^nd session.

The Nexus Between Legal Rights and Social Values: fairness and the death penalty

Lecture 1: Capital punishment, "cruel and unusual punishment," and the "Framers’ intent" vs. a national/international consensus of "evolving values of decency"

Lecture 2: Punishment, fairness, and race in the American criminal justice system

[Reading for both sessions: Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion in the 2002 Supreme Court case of Adkins v. Virginia; selection from Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, pp. 109-114]

Additional Sources, for research/reference or further consultation:

"Twelve Angry Men," 1957 American film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Henry Fonda

Day 4, 1^st session.

The Nexus Between Legal Rights and Social Values: gun ownership and personal safety

Lecture: The right to "keep and bear arms" in modern American society, and the successful legal lobbying campaign of the National Rifle Association

[Reading: Excerpts from the campaign literature of Clinton/Sanders and GOP; Recommended reading: the amicus curie (i.e. friend of the court, or interest group) brief filed by the NRA in the Supreme Court case of D.C. v. Heller, decided 2008]

Day 4, 2^nd session.

FINAL EXAMINATION

DAY 5 Individual Student Meetings, final grades discussions (optional)

COURSE APPENDIX - OPTIONAL

Additional Topics for Study:

The Nexus Between Legal Rights and Social Values: privacy and (national) security

(The privacy of electronic communication, and reasonable and unreasonable invasions of personal privacy in the internet and digital age-a good introductory reading here is John Gilliom and Torin Monahan, Supervision: an Introduction to the Surveillance Society (Chicago, 2013))

Additional General Sources-provocative readings on American political culture, law and society:

Erwin Chererinsky, The Case Against the Supreme Court (Viking, 2014)

Charles R. Epp, The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective (Chicago, 1998)

Stephen Holmes, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Harvard, 1993)