Constitutional Law PSCI 4241

University of Colorado-Boulder

Professor Vanessa A. Baird

Please come to my office hours: Tuesdays 2-3:00; Wednesdays 11-noon; 1:30-3:30

(also by appointment)

 

I often will keep office hours open for other students to listen; if you would like to speak to me privately, please let me know.

Course description: pedagogical goals

This class is an introduction to constitutional methods. We will be very careful in our thinking and how different kinds of arguments require different kinds of evidence. We are not memorizing a ton of Supreme Court cases, all of which you would forget anyway, by the time you get to law school, if that is your goal.

We will learn how to think causally.  There are two kinds of causal thinking in legal thought. One is causal process thinking.  For example, someone spilled oil on the grocery floor, which caused someone to fall. We will not be working with that kind of argument.  Instead, we will be thinking about casual thinking in a way that leads to hypothesis tests that give us some general sense of how certain attributes of time, places, and people lead to other attributes of time, places, and people and how this tells us something general about principles of how the politics of courts work.  Specifically, we will look into the mechanisms by which courts protect minorities from the overreaches of government power.

We will learn how to make an argument based on interpreting the meaning of the words in the text (in this case, we are talking about "case law" or previous decisions of the Supreme Court). The most important part of legal thinking involves interpretation: making arguments about what the specific words in Supreme Court cases mean; sometimes the most important word in a Supreme Court case is “and.” Your job is to determine what the law is, from the meaning of the words. So, your job here is not to be a judge, but instead, a lawyer, working from past Supreme Court cases to come to a conclusion, specifically, about whether the Blaine Amendments are constitutional, given exercise protections. We will read a professional article written by a law professor and your job is to use his analysis to come to some conclusion about whether you buy his argument. There is no right answer to this question, as is usually the case with legal interpretations.  But some interpretations are more wrong than others.

We will also learn how to make normative arguments (also called ethical or philosophical arguments).  You will learn how to make careful normative arguments from first principles. So, your final project will be a paper in which you take a specific proposition and argue that it can be defended with a nonobvious first principle from philosophy.  There may be legal interpretation and causal thinking in this paper.

Learning goals in four parts

Week 1-3        Think logically, learn appropriate use evidence for different types of arguments, be able to identify logical fallacies, learn the basic facts of our constitutional and judicial system.

Week 4-7        Think like a political scientist: explain the causal factors for Supreme Court decisions and other judicial outcomes to reach a descriptive inference: can the Supreme Court protect minorities?

Week 8-12      Think like a lawyer: interpret case law, and prepare to argue a case before the Supreme Court: are the Blaine Amendments constitutional?

Week 13-15    Think like a Supreme Court justice: make normative legal judgments, and prepare to write a philosophical defense of a particular legal standard.

Grades and assignments

 

Grading scale

Points	Grade
18,200	A
17,600	A-
17,000	B+
16,200	B
15,600	B-
15,000	C+
14,000	C
12,000	D

 

To receive an A in the class, you must get an A on everything, OR do some extra credit assignments.

Required assignments

Assignments	Total points possible
Two exams, 3000 points each	6,000
Four quizzes, 1000 points each	4,000
Six critical thinking assignments, 500 points eacht	3,000
Final paper	3,000
Presentation of final paper, during final exam period	1,000
Participation†	3,000
Total	20,000

 

Extra credit

Assignments	Total points possible
Additional critical thinking assignmentst	3,000
Out of class study groups*	3,000
Participation in mock oral argument	2,000
Total	8,000

 

Notes

^tThere are eleven very short (1-5 sentences) “Critical thinking” assignments; 6 required (others are for extra credit). Particularly thoughtful ones can get up to 1000 points. No credit if late or not a good faith effort.  

 

*15 weeks of group work, for 125 points per week, which is 1875 points, but this also includes a bonus of 1125 points for participation in at least 12 weeks, for a total of 3000 points extra credit.

 

^†Participation may include in-class individual or group work that is handed in at the end of class.

Assignment schedule

Quizzes and exams are all on Canvas

Quiz 1 due Sep 9, at 5 pm

Quiz 2 due Sep 30, at 5 pm

Quiz 3 due Nov 2, at 5 pm

Quiz 4 due Dec 2, at 5 pm

 

Exams have two parts: a multiple-choice portion and an “essay” (I write the essay-you critique my logic) portion

Exam 1 (both portions) due Oct 7, at 5 pm

Exam 2 (both portions) due Nov 11, at 5 pm

 

Mock oral argument Nov 4

We will be having a mock oral argument on Nov 3. You can be a lawyer or a Supreme Court justice. (Supreme Court Justices are nominated by each group).

 

Final exam period: Final paper presentations

For weeks when they are available, critical thinking assignments are due Thursdays at 11am

You must document the previous weeks’ group work in Canvas by Sunday night

Course outline

Details, readings, PowerPoint slides and some past Zoom lectures are on Canvas in Modules

 

Part I The logic of constitutionalism

Logic, week 1: (August 23-25) Arguments, evidence: “Wait, what?”

Logic, week 2 (Aug 30-Sept 1): The logic of constitutional thinking: privacy

Logic, week 3 (Sept 6-8): Review and quiz

 

Part II Causal reasoning and judicial power

Causal, week 4 (Sept 13-15): Establishing judicial review, the power to declare laws unconstitutional

Causal, week 5 (Sept 20-22): Testing judicial power: independence and compliance

Causal, week 6 (Sept 27-29): The judicial agenda and hierarchy

Causal, week 7 (Oct 4-6): Review and assessment

 

Part III Interpretation and the underlying logic of case law

Interpretation of case law, week 8 (Oct 11-13): Religious Exercise

Interpretation of case law, week 9 (Oct 18-20): Establishment

Interpretation of case law, week 10 (Oct 25-27): The Blaine Amendments and the non-persecution principle, mock oral argument

Interpretation of case law, week 11 (Nov 1-3): Mock oral argument

Interpretation of case law, week 12 (Nov 8-10): Review and exam

 

Part IV Normative (i.e. moral and ethical) reasoning

Normative, week 13 (Nov 15-17): Freedom of speech

Normative, week 14 (Nov 29-Dec 1): Campaign finance and quiz

Normative, week 15 (Dec 6-8): Paper writing workshops