Constitutional Law: Understanding the Foundations of American Democracy

Overview

Course No. 2017
Americans wage many of today’s fiercest policy debates and culture wars as battles over constitutional meaning. It’s because constitutional law is so fundamental to our democracy that law schools across the country teach the subject. It’s the area of law that determines what federal and state governments are permitted to do, and what rights you have as an individual citizen of the United States.

In these 12 lectures, you’ll get the same accessible, well-rounded introduction to constitutional law as a typical law student—but with the added benefit of noted constitutional scholar Eric Berger’s brilliant insights. Taking you through all three branches of the federal government, Professor Berger uses some of the most important legal cases in the United States to probe the open-ended nature of the Constitution’s language and illustrate how legal reasoning has defined the power relationships that the Constitution governs.

You’ll examine pivotal Supreme Court cases to learn how interpreting the Constitution has radically affected American society. You’ll consider the Supreme Court’s role in deciding—and sometimes avoiding—questions of constitutionality. And you’ll investigate how changes in public opinion can influence how the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution.

While the open-ended nature of the Constitution’s language makes constitutional law often uncertain, these lectures offer you a better understanding of its many nuances, as well as its profound importance for the future of the United States.

Course Structure

01: Origins and Functions of the Constitution

While the U.S. Constitution left many important issues unresolved, it was clearly designed to serve several primary purposes (regardless of disagreements over how it serves those purposes). Travel back to the 18th century and investigate the origins of the founding document of the American experiment—a story of crisis, rebellion, and compromise.
Duration: 33 min

02: The Marshall Court and the Constitution

At the core of most issues in constitutional law is one question: Who decides? So why is it that the U.S. Supreme Court became the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions? Explore this question by examining a pair of Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous opinions—Marbury v. Madison and McCulloch v. Maryland.
Duration: 32 min

03: The Scope of the Executive Power

Using the 1952 opinion of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer, probe the slippery issue of how much power the U.S. president wields under the Constitution. One nuanced perspective comes from Justice Robert H. Jackson and his theory of executive power that views presidential power primarily through the lens of Congressional action.
Duration: 29 min

04: Congress and the New Deal Commerce Clause

Learn how Congress’s power—as we understand it today—was shaped significantly by constitutional transformations that occurred during the 1930s. See how the Court ultimately vindicated robust Congressional powers under the Commerce Clause, and how President Franklin D. Roosevelt packed the courts with judges sympathetic to his transformative New Deal policies.
Duration: 33 min

05: Congress and the Commerce Clause Today

Turn now to the ways the Commerce Clause has been interpreted in the decades since the New Deal era. Discover how the Court expanded Congress’s power still further in Wickard v. Filburn, and how the Court revisited the Commerce Clause in cases addressing a variety of pressing social issues, including racial segregation and affordable health care.
Duration: 31 min

06: Individual Liberty: Contracts and Privacy

According to Professor Berger, individual liberty is one of the most doctrinally and culturally controversial topics in constitutional law. Find out how crucial a role the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause has played when it comes to individual rights with a look at famous cases, including Lochner v. New York and West Coast Hotel v. Parrish.
Duration: 32 min

07: Liberty Disputed: Abortion and Gay Rights

Court decisions on some of America’s most controversial issues have relied on substantive due process. Take a closer look at how the Court confronted two of these issues: abortion (in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey) and LGBT rights (in Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges).
Duration: 33 min

08: Equal Protection and Civil Rights

Explore the history of the Court’s civil rights decisions—including Korematsu v. United States and Brown v. Board of Education—as a way to better understand the complex relationship between law and culture. Just how did changed attitudes about race help shape seismic changes in constitutional law?
Duration: 33 min

09: The Affirmative Action Conundrum

Here, Professor Berger walks you through the constitutionality of affirmative action, in which public institutions give preferences on the basis of race. Key to this insightful lecture is a look at strict scrutiny, in which the Court reviews policies extremely carefully—and ostensibly without giving the government the benefit of the doubt.
Duration: 33 min

10: Sex Discrimination and Women’s Rights

Of all the constitutions in the West, the U.S. Constitution is the only one without a provision that explicitly declares equal rights for the sexes under the law. From Minor v. Happersett in 1875 to United States v. Virginia in 1996, discover how the courts have ruled on sex-based classifications.
Duration: 33 min

11: The Nature of the Judicial Power

Sometimes, the courts don’t decide important issues before them. In this lecture, take a closer look at why courts quite often choose not to decide a particular case on its merits. Topics here include justiciability doctrines (court-made decisions under which courts impose limitations on their power), sovereign immunity, and official immunity.
Duration: 33 min

12: The Politics of Constitutional Law

While judges are not (as some people assume) politicians in robes, they are certainly not immune from political influences. Explore the role of politics in constitutional law through the high-stakes confirmation battles over judicial nominees (including the battle over the seat of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia).
Duration: 35 min