CONSTITUTIONAL LAW I
Professor Mike Ramsey
Spring 2014
Reading List
Part 3 – Individual Liberties: The First Amendment
Note: All paginated assignments refer to the casebook (Sullivan & Feldman, Constitutional Law
[18th ed. 2013]). Assignments designated as supplemental reading, hypotheticals or writing
assignments are available for download from the course webpage.
I.
Introduction to Individual Liberties
A.
B.
C.
II.
Free Exercise of Religion
A.
B.
C.
III.
Introduction to the Religion Clauses (pp. 1477-1489)
Employment Division v. Smith and related notes (pp. 1510-1526)
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah & related notes (pp. 1490-1496)
Establishment of Religion
A.
B.
C.
D.
IV.
Text of the Constitution: U.S. Const. Amendments I-IX and XIII – XV
Introduction to state action: Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison and related notes
(pp. 828-835)
The incorporation doctrine (pp. 446-465)
Engel v. Vitale, Lee v. Weisman and related notes (pp. 1556-1572)
Marsh v. Chambers, Lynch v. Donnelly and related notes (pp. 1580-1591)
McCreary and Van Orden (pp. 1591-1604)
Establishment Clause hypothetical
Introduction to Free Speech; Suppressing “Dangerous” Speech
A.
B.
C.
D.
Foundations of the freedom of speech (pp. 885-898)
Early free speech cases: Schenk and Abrams (pp. 899-907)
Brandenburg v. Ohio and accompanying notes (pp. 931-938, esp. Planned
Parenthood v. American Conference of Life Activists on pp. 935-936)
Confidential Information: New York Times v. United States (The Pentagon Papers
Case) and related notes (pp. 1308-1316)
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V.
Fighting Words and Hostile Audiences
A.
B.
C.
VI.
False Statements
A.
B.
VII.
C.
D.
E.
Introduction to content neutrality (pp. 1111-1123)
Public forums and “time, place and manner” restrictions (pp. 1156-1170, esp.
Kovacs v. Cooper and City of Ladue v. Gilleo on pp. 1162-1165 and Cox
v. Louisiana on p. 1168)
Taxpayers for Vincent, Clark, and Ward (pp. 1173-1182 and n. 1 on pp. 11821183)
United States v. Grace (pp. 1191-1192)
The non-public forum: Adderly, Greer and Kokinda and related cases (pp. 11921199 and notes 1-5 on pp. 1199-1210)
Expressive Conduct
A.
B.
X.
Roth, Miller and related notes and comments (pp. 1009-1018)
Erznoznik v. Jacksonville and related cases (pp. 1036-1038)
FCC v. Pacifica and subsequent cases (pp. 1054-1074)
Stevens (pp. 1075-1077) and Brown (pp. 1080-1084)
Content-Neutral Restrictions of Speech
A.
B.
IX.
New York Times v. Sullivan and related notes and cases (pp. 978-991)
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, Snyder v. Phelps and United States v. Alvarez
(pp. 999-1009)
Obscenity and Offensive Speech
A.
B.
C.
D.
VIII.
Cantwell and Chaplinsky (pp. 938-945)
Feiner v. New York and accompanying notes (pp. 945-950, esp. Edwards and Cox
on pp. 947-948)
Cohen v. California (pp. 950-955)
O=Brien and related notes (pp. 1123-1131)
Flag burning (pp. 1131-1143) and nude dancing (pp. 1151-1156)
First Amendment Writing Assignment
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