Constitutional Law

Professor: Jack Baldwin LeClair
Office Hours: by appointment and posted on office door.
Office Phone: 973.655.7953
Email: leclairj@mail.montclair.edu
F: = Text: Davis.Louis Fisher, American Constitutional Law (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 200X Latest Edition).
I: = Required Supplemental: Irons, Peter. The People's History of the Supreme Court. (New York: Penguin Books, 1999)

All reading and written assignments must be completed prior to the class in which they are due.
Attendance is mandatory. Students are responsible for keeping current with the assignments. The professor is not responsible for keeping students current.
Class participation is encouraged and will be rewarded academically.
All assignments must be each student's workproduct.
Readings will be from the text, cyberspace, or handouts.
There will be no makeup examinations except for excused illness or documented handicap.
Handicapped students needing accommodation must make arrangements prior to the class in which the accommodation is needed.

Midterm Examination	40%
Final Examination	40%
Classroom Participation	10%
Assignments and Blackboard Tests	10%

DATE	ASSIGNMENT	READINGS	NOTES
09.04.08	Introduction to Constitutional Issues// The history of the common law and the politics of the American courts.		The Magna Carta; Articles of Confederation
09.11.08	Politics of the revolutionary era; Jurisdiction and Power.--- The Court confronts free speech	I: Intro, Ch1, Ch 2	United States Constitution The Articles of Confederation USSR Constitution ;
09.18.08	Free speech in the Colonial period	F: Ch 10; I: Ch 19-22
09.25.08	Continued	Reread	Ninth Circuit Blues; The Ninth Circuit Strikes Back
10.02.08	The Press as Speech	F: Ch 11
10.09.08	Speech as religious freedom	F: Ch 12
10.16.08	MIDTERM EXAMINATION
10.23.08	continued Speech.
10.30.08	Political Participation as speech	F: Ch 18.	Elections and Diversity Jurisdiction in the 2002 Term
11.06.08	The speech of the accused	F: Ch 13
11.13.08	The speech of the suspected	F: Ch 14
BARRIERS TO SPEECH
11.20.08	Race and national origin as a barriers to speech	F: Ch 15
12.04.08	Pressures: womens' rights, gay rights, and handicap rights; Privacy as the right not to speak	F: Ch 16, 17
12.11.08	Attacks on the courts	F: Ch 19	South African Consitution (1997)
12.18.08	FINAL EXAMINATION