POLS 346 Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

This course is a critical analysis of civil liberties and civil rights in the United States. The course will consider topics such as privacy marriage speech capital punishment reproductive autonomy voting property and freedom of expression. The goal of the course is to provide students with a framework for understanding how the law has deemed certain rights and liberties as fundamental to society. Throughout the course students will consider the role of the law in creating political boundaries within society. The course challenges students to understand the changing nature of constitutional rights and constitutional meaning in American history. In particular this course approaches Supreme Court decisions as reflections of a larger social narrative of rights and justice.