Spring 2025
Professor(s):
Seth Chandler (FACULTY)
Credits: 4
Course Areas: 1st Year - Section C
Time: 10:30a-12:00p MTTH Location: 210
Course Outline: This course will help you understand the historical development of the Constitution, including the movement away from the Articles of Confederation, the originally narrow interpretation of federal power, the changes created by the Civil War, the modern scope of federal legislative, judicial, executive and administration power, the expansion of federal power during the New Deal era and the modern Constitution, including the evolution of due process and equal protection doctrine. It will help you appreciate, recognize and form your own beliefs regarding the different theories of interpreting the Constitution, textualism vs. non-textualism; static vs. dynamic; pragmatic vs. formalist. With its study of black letter doctrine in federalism, including the commerce clause and the scope of other Congressional powers, separation of powers, and the Civil War amendments, and a sampling of first amendment matters, it will lay the foundations for success on the bar exam and enable you to recognize constitutional law issues as they arise in practice. This course will make significant use of the problem method. Many will involve contemporary events (I think there may be some); others may be set in earlier times but require you to understand the Constitution and litigation strategies in that context. All will involve significant use of tutors to provide guidance in your movement towards solutions. There will be a midterm and a final.
Course Syllabus: Syllabus
Course Notes: (Face-to-Face) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid-term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.
Prerequisites:
First Day Assignments:
Final Exam Schedule: 5/5/2025 9-1Pm 210 200 211
This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:
Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No
Experiential Course Type: No
Bar Course: No
DistanceEd ABA: No
Pass-Fail Student Election: Unavailable (Required Course)
Course Materials
Book(s) Required
Course Materials: Randy Barnett & Josh Blackman, Constitutional Law: Cases in Context (4th ed. 2021
