Course Section | Columbia Law School

Section Description Provided by Instructor

This is the basic course in Constitutional law, a foundation for more specialized courses on the Constitution and for public law courses generally. The course explores: the major justifications for establishing political structures and individual rights by means of a written Constitution; alternative methods and strategies of Constitutional interpretation; judicial review, and its legal and political significance; the federal system, the growth of national power and of limitations on state authority, and the resurgence in judicial protection of state power; the separation of powers and checks and balances among major branches of the federal government; and the theory and content of individual rights under the Constitution, including the development of several principal rights by Constitutional amendment and judicial interpretation.