Constitutional Rights (Second Edition)

This is the second edition of Constitutional Rights, designed for a one-semester survey course on federal constitutional rights. In a time of significant doctrinal fluidity, the casebook aims to provide students with historical and conceptual tools to critically evaluate how and why the Supreme Court has shaped the landscape of rights jurisprudence. The casebook begins with a chronologically organized exploration of older ways of thinking about fundamental rights, and it then turns to discrete doctrinal areas—focusing on the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Speech and Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, along with additional material on the Second Amendment and the Takings Clause. In doing so, the casebook puts less emphasis on doctrinal minutiae and more on key themes and concepts—and particularly ones that reappear across multiple doctrinal areas.