This course looks at the place of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitution in a rapidly-changing American political climate through a study of American constitutional development. Students will develop tools for understanding how the Constitution is interpreted, the history of the Supreme Court, major constitutional debates, and the relationship between law and politics. We will read key cases analyzing the relationship between law and political institutions with an aim at answering fundamental questions about US politics. What jurisdiction does the Supreme Court have? What role does the separation of powers play in American democracy, and how should the concept be interpreted? What is the relationship between the state and federal government? How do justices make decisions? In asking these questions, students will develop an understanding of how the American legal system works and what role law plays in today’s constitutional republic.

This course considers the hotly contested politics of public health. Health is often taken for granted as a value in liberal democratic societies. For example, despite many attempts to overturn the bill, the Affordable Care Act still tends to poll favorably among Americans. Politicians often extol the virtues of a healthy citizenry, especially in the wake of COVID-19. Many people think that the government is obligated to provide health care to citizens. However, many argue that health is a value-laden concept. Who decides what is “healthy,” and how do ideas about what is healthy/unhealthy affect the lived experiences of American citizens? It seems easy to talk about COVID-19 as a pandemic/epidemic, but what about obesity or drug use? Moreover, once society has categorized something as a public health concern, how should the government decide what policies to implement? By combining insights from American political history, health policy, and political theory, this course explores difficult questions regarding how the concept of health is constructed and how societies do/should distribute resources in response to public health concerns. Special attention will be given to how health has been defined throughout American political development, medical vs. social models of disability, the idea of “cure,” the history of eugenics, mental health, health policy, America’s “exceptionalism” in terms of public health policy, and how/whether the government should be involved in providing health care to citizens.

When drafting the Constitution, the founders thought that the courts would be the “least dangerous” branch of government. Yet, traditional wisdom suggests that courts have played a significant role in creating and enforcing civil rights. Moreover, recent developments on the Supreme Court suggest that the Court is exercising power in a relatively unconstrained way, departing from traditional principles like stare decisis. This course considers the ways in which case law and judicial politics have shaped civil rights in the United States. Specific topics of consideration include: levels of Constitutional scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, reproductive rights & substantive due process, the effects of the commerce clause on civil rights law, and statutory reforms like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (including Title VII, the Fair Housing Act and Title IX) and the Americans with Disabilities Act. We will also discuss the ways that courts can curtail civil rights reforms through procedural rules and judicial norms like standing. This course does not presuppose prior legal knowledge; however, a basic understanding of the US federal government and federal powers will be useful.

This course considers the ways in which gender has shaped American politics from the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the present. What is “gender” and what are its implications for U.S. politics? How and why did women gain the right to vote but lose the battle for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)? What would it mean for women if a woman was elected President of the United States? This course considers these questions and more from the perspective of the growing body of literature concerning gender and politics. This course will be divided into four units, aiming to answer different questions. First, we will discuss what it means to talk about gender. Second, we will consider watershed moments in the movements for women’s rights, such as battles for women’s suffrage, the non-passage of the ERA, and contemporary judicial retrenchment of reproductive rights. Third, we will consider whether it makes sense to talk about women having distinct political preferences, as some scholars have argued. In this portion of the course, we will focus in detail on how political preferences emerge and how/why gender shapes women’s experiences of the political world across partisan divides. Finally, we will consider the concept of representation and the stakes of having diverse gender representation in various governing institutions and levels of government.

How do American institutions and political processes work? To what extent do they produce democratic, egalitarian, or rational outcomes? The course examines the exercise and distribution of political power. Topics include presidential leadership and elections; legislative politics; the role of the Supreme Court; federalism; parties, interest groups, and movements; public policy; the politics of class, race, and gender; voting; mass media; and public discontent with government.