Constitutional law

  Constitutional law, particularly pertaining to individual rights, is a constantly evolving field. When I first taught this course, same-sex marriage was not legal in most of the country. For your final project, you will find a contemporary issue that is either under consideration by or may one day be decided by the Supreme Court. We will build up the components of this paper throughout the term: + The first component will be a research proposal. You will write approximately one paragraph explaining the legal question you hope to research and write a paper on. This should be supported with primary source materials, like news articles, highlighting the relevance of this topic. + The second component will be an annotated case bibliography. You will be responsible for finding seven (7) court cases relevant to your question, and outlining the background, tests, and main conclusions relevant to that case. + The third component will be an outline of your paper. This will be graded on (a) the appropriateness of the cases selected for your argument; (b) the organization of that argument; (c) and the amount of detail provided.