Rights, Liberties and Justice for All: Constitutional Law for a Changing America
Highlights the centrality of law and legal discourse in American history and society with particular attention given to the role of the U.S. Supreme Court as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution. Situates landmark cases within their historical and political context, and builds the critical thinking skills necessary for students to reflect on the significance of the Court’s rulings for their own lives.
Subject Code: POS
Course Number: 108
Credits: 3
Lecture Hours 3
Course Learning Outcomes:
1. Identify the rights specified in the Bill of Rights and subsequent Amendments.
2. Trace the historical development of the U.S. Supreme Court.
3. Discuss the centrality of law and legal discourse in American history and society.
4. Develop a periodization of American history based around major constitutional issues, debates and cases.
5. Discuss Supreme Court cases in any of the major areas of constitutional law (economic rights and American
capitalism; freedom of speech; freedom from and of religion; rights of the criminally accused; privacy rights; equal protection rights).
6. Describe the ways in which the Constitution has shaped the nature of participation in American society.
7. Discuss the factors that contribute to the complexity of identities involving race, class and gender in American
society.
8. Analyze the role that social structures and systems, across a range of institutions, play in the creation and
perpetuation of power, privilege, oppression and opportunity.
9. Draw on a range of research materials (primary and secondary sources; Supreme Court cases) to construct an
argument on a social justice topic of interest.
Effective Term: Fall 2023
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