2. Larry Arnn The Founder’s Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It Thomas Nelson, 2013 Paperback edition. The title tells you the argument by Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College and well known Winston Churchill scholar.
3. Nation of Victims, Vivek Ramaswamy Long before I knew Vivek was running for President, I came across this short book. I found many of the chapters provide interesting contexts to our course materials. Whether we agree with his positions or not, he gives us a lot to think about as we wrestle with the difficult problems related to civil liberties, rights and justice in America today. I am putting in Chapter titles and content because some chapters will be most relevant at different times during the semester.. And you can just read the entire book at one time.
Chapter 1 Underdogs v. victims
Chapter 2 The Civil War Interesting analysis of the Battle of Gettyburg and its impact on how the South then conceptualized the civil war.
Chapter 3 The Constitutional War An interesting analysis of the original and changing meaning of the 14th Amendment
Chapter 4 Race Theory CRT and a personal story that shows Vivek’s ability to look at his own biases and assumptions
Chapter 5 Conservative Victimhood Also legitimate grievances
Chapter 6 Empire In Decline Interesting history about rise and fall of Rome as well as a detailed comparison of our naval power versus the naval power of China.
Chapter 7 How Victimhood Leads To National Decline He also talks about how victimhood stiffles national dialogue
Chapter 8 The Need to Forgive An interesting take on on this age old suggestion
Chapter 9 A Theory of Duty An erudite discussion of the various political and philosophical issues of doing justice and creating a just society. It also expands on his earlier discussion of Kantian notions of
justice.
4. George Orwell 1984. I expect everyone has read this in high school or before. Please refresh your memory or skim info about it on the web. The book itself is not assigned for this course. Some knowledge of it is required.
Films
Much of what we learn today is from media. To expand our ability to analyze and interpret and learn from media I assign 6 feature films for this class. Films 1, 4, 5 and 6 are available on Neflicks, DVD, probably Amazon and other places as noted. 2 and 3 can be found on the PBS website and other places on the web. I have noted some of those places. I have had Lincoln, Expelled and Denial fact checked and satisfied with their historical accuracy as far as can be expected from a popular film Simple Justice and Freedom Riders do not need to be fact checked since they are documentaries. Though even documentaries can be distorted by lack of inclusion of relevant information or context. I am
confident in the accuracy of these documentaries.
1. Lincoln, the recent Steven Spielberg film on the passage of the 13th Amendment. Though Lincoln was gone, what it took to pass the 14th Amendment, which is a cornerstone of this course, was likely not that different. Recently I saw list of the top 10 historically accurate movies. This movie was on it. I did not know most of the other ones on the list.
2. Simple Justice, a PBS film based on Richard Kluger’s book of the same name, about the road from Plessy to Brown v. Board of Education. The story is told through the eyes of Justice Thurgood Marshall, from his entry into law school through the final decision in Brown. We will cover several of the cases mentioned in the movie. Production values could be improved. Still it is a wonderful engaging story.
3. Freedom Riders, a PBS documentary about the period from the decision in Brown through the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In particular it covers a Freedom Ride through the deep south from Tennessee to New Orleans. Some of the themes are similar to those in the recent film Selma. Best version for this
class https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-freedom-riders/.
As an undergraduate at Tufts University, 1958-1962 on a couple of occasions I joined by fraternity brothers in protests at the local Kresgees or 5 and Dime store. The protests were in support of the sit in protestors at segregated southern businesses. At Michigan Law school I helped organize the first Law Students Civil Rights Conference in 1963 or 64. During the Selma marches many of us paraded around the inside of the Michigan Law Quandrangle in support of the Selma marchers.
4. Expelled, a decade old Ben Stein documentary about political correctness in academia focusing on the biological sciences and academics who had the nerve to mention the term “Intelligent Design” in their work or bios.
5.Denial This is a film about a real libel trial in England, Irving v. Penguin Books While in colonial times and well into the 19th century we integrated much of the English legal system into our jurisprudence, we do not follow the English law of libel. In ours the burden of proof is on the person who claims to be injured by the words. The plaintiff must prove they are false and injurious. In the English system, the burden of proof is on the speaker, the defendant, to prove the veracity of their words. This difference in burden of proof is most interesting. We will be discussing burden of proof issues in general in relation to a number of Supreme Court doctrines. Both the acting and the “lawyering” in this case are wonderful. David Irving an English writer sues American historian, Deborah Lipstadt, for calling him a Holocaust denier in her books . Lipstadt’s lawyers must prove both he was a Holocaust denier and the Holocaust existed so they must prove is also a liar. While we may consider these claims to be quite factual to the point of being self evident, proof in a court room requires a much higher level of proof than we may use in our every day life. While this case is decided by a trial court, not an appellate court, it gives you a great sense of how everyday interactions among people might well end up in the Supreme Court. Also gives you a sense of what happens before a case even get to a Supreme Court. Lastly, it shows that many important civil liberties issues never get to a higher appellate court.
6. Blazing Saddles, a Mel Brooks film, also written by the late great comedian Richard Pryor. Despite its continuing popularity, is this a film that would not be made in today’s Hollywood culture and our culture of political correctness? If so why? In a recent Rolling Stone readers poll of best comedies, Blazing Saddles was rated the number 1. Mel Brooks has his own interpretation of what he was trying to do in this film. What is yours. Should this film and anyone who shows it be cancelled? OK, Mel intended the movie to be about racial justice.
The order for the films and supplementary books is as follows:
Larry Arnn’s book is applicable to many of the ideas and themes that come up throughout the semester.
A. Civil Rights (major emphasis in first ½ of course)
Books: Color Blind Constitution, Nation of Victims
Movies: Lincoln, Simple Justice, Freedom Riders,
B. Freedom Speech and Thought (major emphasis in 2nd ½ of course)
Movies: Expelled, Denial and Blazing Saddles
The Arnn book applies to several parts of the course as dpes the Ramaswamy book.
We may show the movies outside of class for those who cannot view them at home or with friends. Movie nights will be on Sundays.
In the past, one or two of the movies are shown consecutively. A short discussion will follow for those interested in such a discussion. Guests are welcome at the Sunday showings.
Each of these films can be directly related to some of the cases we read. There are also many other good films that give some context to the cases we cover. I love a little known 2009 film entitled Amazing Grace which is about William Wilberforce, an upper class English nobleman, who successfully campaigned to end Britain’s participation in the slave trade in the early 1800’s. It is also about the writing of the song which I know and will not publicly play on my fiddle.
The recent hit Selma is also very good about the 60’s-70’s civil rights era. I decided to keep Freedom Riders as the assigned film for this era after careful consideration of having Selma replace Freedom Riders. One of my high school friends walked across the bridge as part of the Dr. King entourage as shown in the film. I will touch on the events portrayed as we cover some cases from that era. I am sure most students have read or seen To Kill A Mockingbird. It relates to both issues of discrimination and criminal procedure. Some of the criminal procedure issues raised are taken up in my Judicial Process course next Spring. Lastly, The Butler, which is based on a real story, gives some glimpses of the the development of civil rights and presidential behavior from the perspective of a White House butler. And yes notice which President treats the butler the best. How surprising?
How to Brief a Case
Description of how to brief a case (click here)
Sample Briefs
Note: Some of these briefs may be more extensive than you will need for daily class preparation.
Click on the case for sample briefs of the following case which are assigned in the first few classes:
Barron v. Baltimore, The Slaughterhouse Cases, Walker v. Sauvinet and Yick Wo v. Hopkins.
Note: Stay up with the assignments even if the class discussion falls behind. The exams will cover everything up to the date of the exam whether we have covered it in class or not.
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