Rights and Liberties

Hiya folks, and welcome to episode 6 of our podcast on Rights and Liberties! In this episode, we continue our investigation of the boundaries of the First Amendment with a focus on speech and press rights . I'll talk us through foundational cases in both areas but in particular you'll want to hone in on concepts like imminent lawless action , fighting words , symbolic speech , true threats , libel...

Hi everyone and my apologies for the late posting of this episode! For this first episode covering the main content of this course, we are going to delve into the First Amendment and in particular the religious components known as the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause . Our discussion will center on key cases for each clause: Everson, Abington, and Lemon v. Kurtzman (as well as Zel...

Hello Rights and Liberties Course Members! It's week 3 and so we have now moved into discussing the operating methods of the Supreme Court--the processes for justice selection , the processes for case selection , the processes for decision-making , and all the steps in between. Some critical concepts for this week: standing , ripeness , mootness , and justiciability . We're going to read through a...

Welcome back listeners to the third episode in our series on Rights and Liberties! In this episode, we will cover the 8 methods of interpretation presented in our textbook: textual analysis, precedent, Constitutional doctrine, logical reasoning, "living Constitution", foreign law and courts, consequentialism (aka pragmatism), and originalism . We'll also get a brief 'practice' session with these m...

Hi all, and welcome to our second episode on Rights and Liberties! In this podcast, we're going to set up a bit of the history that leads into the creation of our rights, particularly the events just prior to the creation of the Constitution and eventually the Bill of Rights . Our history involves a lot of debate about those rights, from the perspectives of the Anti-Federalists and the Federalists...

Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast on Rights and Liberties! In this first episode, we will get an introduction to this course and in particular to the course Canvas site. Some of the most critical tools you will need to navigate this class are the Weekly Roadmap Pages which are discussed early on. We will spend about 15-20 minutes on that as well as the other parts of the Canvas site such a...