Course | Columbia Law School

This course offers a introductory survey of core concepts and canonical cases in U.S. constitutional law. By the end of the semester, students will have acquired a working level of literacy in the professional grammar of American constitutionalism. The course will engage issues such as the location of the Constitution in U.S. political culture; the theory and practice of judicial review, together with its justification, development and continuing significance; the nature of the U.S. federal system, the expansion of national power and its limitations on state authority; the continuing significance of state authority in the U.S. national system; the separation of powers and the condominia of structural checks and balances that animate and constrain executive, legislative and judicial authority at the national level; and the theory and content of individual rights under the federal Constitution. Although this is not a course in comparative constitutional law, students should expect some discussion throughout the semester of similarities and differences between U.S. constitutional law and politics and constitutionalism in other national systems. At the conclusion of the course, students will be prepared for more specialized courses in the constitutional law curriculum in particular, and, more generally, for offerings in U.S. and comparative public law.