The 14th Amendment and Its Uses

Professor Rosalind Rosenberg
420 Lehman Hall, x45046
rrosenberg@barnard.edu

HIS BC 4546 
Spring 2009
W 2:10-4:00PM

For more than a century the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has served as the principal touchstone for legal debates over the meaning of equality and freedom in the United States. In this seminar students will explore the origins of the 14th Amendment in the years immediately following the Civil War. They will then examine the evolution of that amendment’s meaning in the century that followed. Central themes in this course will include the changing meanings of racial and gender equality; the rise, fall, and rebirth of substantive due process; and the incorporation of the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment.

Requirements for this seminar are the following:

  • Active participation in weekly discussions of joint readings.
  • Weekly submission of briefs on assigned cases - posted to shared files on CourseWorks by midnight before the day of class.
  • Participation in speaker training sessions.
  • Participation in 2 Moot Courts.
  • Submission of a 4-5 page critical essay on some aspect of a week’s reading at any point through final week of shared readings.         
    [NOTE: weekly briefs need not be submitted the week a critical essay is submitted]. 
  • Submission of a 12-15- page research paper on a topic to be determined in consultation with the professor.          
    [See syllabus for due dates on drafts.]

Grading:

  • Class participation (including speaker training sessions and moot courts): 40%  
  • Weekly briefs: 10%
  • 4-5 page critical essay: 10%
  • Research paper: 40%

  
Course Readings: Readings from books are available on reserve in the library and for purchase at the Columbia Bookstore:

Garrett Epps, Democracy Reborn (Henry Holt) 
Ronald Labbe & Jonathan Lurie, The Slaughterhouse Cases (Kansas) 
Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (Oxford) 
Nancy Woloch, Muller v. Oregon (Bedford) 
William Leuchtenburg, The Supreme Court Reborn (Oxford) 
Fred Friendly, Minnesota Rag (Random House) 
Linda Kerber, No Constitutional Right To Be Ladies (Hill & Wang) 
Constitution of the United States (Bantum Classic) 
Supreme Court Decisions: available in the Law Library, or on line.  
 

Schedule of Classes

Jan. 21 – Introductions

·       Deborah Tannen, “The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 1995, 139-148.

Jan. 28 – The Original Meaning of the 14th Amendment

    • Garrett Epps, Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), entire.
    • Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U.S. 130 (1872);
    • Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880);
    • Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).

Feb. 4 – The 14th Amendment and the Bill of Rights

    • Ronald M. Labbe & Jonathan Lurie, The Slaughterhouse Cases: Regulation, Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth Amendment, abridged edition (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005), entire.
    • Slaughter House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873).

Feb. 11 - The Birth of Substantive Due Process

    • Charles W. McCurdy, "Justice Field and the Jurisprudence of Business-Government Relations," Journal of American History, 61 (1975), 970-1005 (also in L. Friedman and H. Scheiber, eds. American Law and the Constitutional Order (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 246-265;
    • Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877);
    • Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad v. Minnesota, 134 U.S. 418 (1890);
    • Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).

NOTE: You must see me this week to discuss the topic for your research paper. Bring a one-page proposal with you to the conference.

Feb. 18 – Separate But Equal

    • Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3-170.
    • Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896);
    • Berea College v. Kentucky 211 U.S. 45 (1908).

Feb. 25 – Freedom of Contract and Gender

    • Nancy Woloch, Muller v. Oregon: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books, 1996), entire;
    • Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908);
    • Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923).

March 4 – The Constitutional Revolution of 1930s

    • William Leuchtenburg, The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 3-236
    • West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937);
    • U.S. v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. (1938);
    • Goesaert v. Cleary, Liquor Control, 335 U.S. 464 (1948).

March 11 – The End of Separate But Equal

    • Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, 171-468.
    • Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950);
    • Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

March 18 - SPRING BREAK  
 
March 25 – Incorporating the Bill of Rights

    • Fred W. Friendly, Minnesota Rag: The Dramatic Story of the Landmark Supreme Court Case that Gave New Meaning to Freedom of the Press (New York: Vintage, 1982), entire;
    • Leuchtenburg, The Supreme Court Reborn, 237-58.
    • Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925);
    • Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).

April 1 – Gender and the 14th Amendment Revisited

    • Linda Kerber, No Constitutional Right To Be Ladies (New York: Hill & Wang, 1998), chs. 4-5
    • Hoyt v. Florida, 386 U.S. 57 (1961)
    • Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973)
    • Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 US 57 (1981)

April 8 – Conferences

April 15 – Conferences: complete first draft of research papers due

April 22 – half of class members presents research

April 29 – remaining half of class members presents research

May 4 -- final draft of research paper due  
 

Bibliographical Aids: The following are worth consulting when you begin the research for your term paper:

Leonard Levy, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Constitution

Kermit Hall, ed., A Comprehensive Bibliography of American Legal and Constitutional History.

Leslie Friedman Goldstein, The Constitutional Rights of Women: Cases in Law and Social Change (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1988), 88-297; 498-512; 552-584.

All are available in the Barnard Library reference area. You will also want to make use of the Columbia Library’s on-line catalogue, Pegasus, accessible through Clio Plus.