A comprehesive course on the Constitution?

Mon Feb 18 12:07:11 PST 2008

I was responding to Professor Jamar's comment about preparation for the 
bar exam. I certainly do not expect our curricular innovation to have an 
adverse effect on our bar pass rates, and I'm sure that if it does our 
faculty will take appropriate rather than inappropriate corrective steps.

Nelson Lund
George Mason

Sanford Levinson wrote:

> I regret that we would, with regard to structure our constitutional 
> law syllabus, take into account bar pass rates at all.  Or, perhaps, 
> we could differentiate between "constitutional law as preparation for 
> the bar exam" and "constitutional inquiry as preparation for a life of 
> citizenship."
>
>  
>
> sandy
>
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu 
> [mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Nelson Lund
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 12:22 PM
> To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu law professors
> Subject: Re: A comprehesive course on the Constitution?
>
>  
>
> A couple of facts that may or may not be considered relevant:
>
> (1) Here is the course description for our require Con Law course:
>
> Analysis of the structure of American government, as defined through 
> the text of the Constitution and its interpretation. The course 
> focuses on the allocation of powers and responsibilities among 
> governmental institutions, including the separation and coordination 
> of the legislative, executive, and judicial functions at the federal 
> level, and the relation between the state and federal governments 
> (including an introductory treatment of the Fourteenth Amendment).
>
> (2) At the most recent sitting, George Mason had the highest bar pass 
> rate in the state. If the faculty finds that the new Founders' 
> Constitution course causes this rate to plummet, I'm confident that 
> appropriate curricular changes will be made.
>
> Nelson Lund
> George Mason
>
> Steven Jamar wrote:
>
> Well, it may be ideologically or politically driven (it is George 
> Mason, after all), but it could also be crafted in recognition that it 
> is useful to understand historical aspects and underpinnings in order 
> to have a deeper understanding of what came later.  George Mason does 
> have a second required Con Law course, which, if I recall correctly, 
> deals with the Civil War amendments and more "modern" stuff.
>
>  
>
> While I would vote against the course as described (and I think the 
> description is inaccurate and misleading after reviewing the syllabus 
> -- but hey! it's PR by a dean!), I think it would be a very 
> interesting course of study as part of a bigger whole.
>
>  
>
> I would much prefer a comparative course that starts with modern 
> constitutions from around the world, like South Africa's, and 
> Venezuela's Constitution (with 5, not 3 branches), and others, 
> and with IHR documents and then measures the US constitution by them. 
>  This would be, I think, more instructive as to constitutionalism and 
> would provide perspective for the original U.S. Constitution as well 
> as the current U.S. Constitution.
>
>  
>
> But, these are all just interesting curricular choices.
>
>  
>
> George Mason's approach is interesting and provocative and, from my 
> lights, wrong-headed. But, I suspect it will be an interesting course 
> for some students.  I would worry about the extent to which it 
> prepares them for the bar subjects, but I'm sure GM has considered 
> that as well.
>
>  
>
> For those who may not have looked at it in awhile, here is a link to 
> the MBE subjects tested in Con Law.
>
>  
>
> http://www.ncbex.org/multistate-tests/mbe/subjects/conlaw/
>
>  
>
> Steve
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> On Feb 18, 2008, at 12:23 PM, Sean Wilson wrote:
>
>> After having reviewed the syllabus myself, here is what I don't 
>> understand.
>>
>> There seems to be no reason other than ideology to believe that one 
>> should teach law students about the federalist/anti-federalist 
>> political culture in which the 1787 constitution emerged.  That is, 
>> it seems that it would only be a proper subject for students of 
>> history or art. Students of law, philosophy and political science, 
>> however, should seem to want to know something not about the 
>> instrumental rhetoric of a forgotten, dead, and stale political 
>> culture, but rather about what history and the past has to offer the 
>> FUTURE. Only in art and history does one revere the ancients and 
>> their lives for its own sake. That is, it is a much better idea 
>> to show students an historical context and its trajectory -- to show 
>> them, if you will, a story rather than a museum. What I am trying to 
>> say is that law students should know more about American 
>> constitutionalism (note the stress on ism) and its journey through 
>> time, rather than learning about the instrumental rhetoric of a 
>> culture whose epistemology, beliefs, attitudes, rhetoric, politics, 
>> and social practices are dead and gone. The past has to be 
>> translated, not re-experienced. Wouldn't you get much more by 
>> assigning students Gordon Wood than anti-federalist writings?
>>
>>  
>>
>> I teach con law I to undergrads. I spend over a month taking kids 
>> from English history, the Glorious Revolution, radical Whig political 
>> thinking, etc., up through the Revolution, the 1787 document and 
>> ending with Marbury. That's part I of the course. Then the 
>> course goes into the present, showing how as the 1787 culture 
>> changed, so did the legality that it produced. The idea here is to 
>> raid history for the purpose of setting forth a context that is 
>> relevant for today. Learning about American constitutionalism as both 
>> a philosophic and political construct that developed from a past (and 
>> now inapplicable) political context is far more helpful to kids who 
>> want to learn about "the constitution."  Who cares about the 
>> anti-federalists anyway?           
>>  
>>
>> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq. 
>> Penn State University
>>
>> Website: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/home/
>>
>> SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
>> Conference papers: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/research-agenda/
>>
>  
>
> --
>
> Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the 
> certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.
> -- Vaclav Havel.
>
>  
>
> Steven Jamar
>
> stevenjamar at gmail.com <mailto:stevenjamar at gmail.com>
>
>  
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