Monday, September 7, 2015


Posts for September 7, 2015
These are the posts that are accumulated in our newsletter which goes out every 4-6 days during the school year. The posts are organized by the major units in our Con Law (5th ed.) student textbook.

Classroom Assignments Fail to Meet Common-Core's Higher Bar, Study Says [Ed Week, 9/2/15]: A new report looks at whether individual classroom assignments meet the common-core criteria for literacy. And it, too, finds that alignment, for the most part, is lacking.
Read the full report:


I. Introduction to Law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court [See TOPICS 1-10 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

Affirmative Action, Class Actions And Conspiracy On Supreme Court's Fall Docket [Forbes, 9/4/15]: Beginning Oct. 5 and extending across 16 argument days until Dec. 9, the Supreme Court will hear a mix of civil and criminal cases chosen mostly to resolve unsettled areas of the law. 

Groundbreaking female justices on the Supreme Court [Wash Post, 8/28/15]: Read this review of a joint biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor.

It's Time for Conservatives to Reject Judicial Restraint [Huff Post, 9/4/15]: Amongst conservatives, nominating judges committed to "judicial restraint" used to be as uncontroversial as seeking to elect the next Ronald Reagan. Today, an increasing number of conservatives are embracing an alternative approach.


II. Defining the Political System: Federalism and Checks and Balances [See TOPICS 11-15 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

Alabama Supreme Court shoots down law banning open carry of pistol 'on premises not one's own [Birmingham News, 9/5/15]: The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday ruled a state law that banned the open carry of a gun on someone else's property is unconstitutional.

III. The Political System: Voting and Campaigns [See TOPICS 16-20 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

 

Watching as the Fabric Holding This Society Together Unravels [Nation of Change, 9/6/15]: A bleak assessment of our political culture, this argumentative essay, expressing the progressive point of view of author Michael Payne, might be worth having students read to critique and analyze.

Calbuzz: Memo to MSM Bloviators: Get a Clue About Polling [CalBuzz, 9/7/15]: The Iowa caucuses are about five months away and the 2016 presidential election is almost a year and two months away and yet not a day goes by without another poll being released – NBC/Marist, Survey USA, Florida Times Union, Fox/Morris News, Monmouth, PPP, Loras College, Quinnipiac, ABC, CBS, CNN, NYT, WashPo. We’re expecting one soon from Wossamotta U.
http://www.calbuzz.com/2015/09/calbuzz-to-msm-bloviators-get-a-clue-about-polling/

Inside Bernie Sanders' strategy to win over organized labor [Reuters, 9/6/15]: Union activist Cliff Smith once thought of Bernie Sanders as an "obscure" U.S. senator. That changed in August when Smith joined 27,000 people to hear the Democratic White House candidate speak at a Los Angeles sports arena.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/06/us-usa-election-unions-idUSKCN0R60QG20150906?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews

Legislation and the Legislative Process (TOPIC 20)

Iran, budget, highways and national debt on tap for Congress [AP, 9/7/15]: Congress returns on Tuesday with a critical need for a characteristic rarely evident through a contentious spring and summer — cooperation between Republicans and President Barack Obama. 

IV. Criminal Law and Procedure (4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments) [See TOPICS 21-28 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit
 
About Those Rising Murder Rates: Not So Fast [The Marshall Project, 9/4/15]: Are the increases in murders in major cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York City indicative of a broader trend in American cities? 

Life sentence for then-14-year-old murderer upheld [Easton (PA.) Express-Times, 9/4/15]: A panel of Pennsylvania appellate court judges ruled a life sentence without the possibility of parole will remain in place for a Phillipsburg man who committed murder when he was 14.

Ohio death row quandary: 2 dozen executions, no lethal drugs [AP, 9/7/15]: The state now has two dozen condemned killers with firm execution dates, but with four months before the first one, it still doesn't have the lethal drugs it needs to carry them out.


The Worst of the Worst [New Yorker, 9/14/15]: Judy Clarke excelled at saving the lives of notorious killers. Then she took the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The Anomaly of Dylann Roof [The Marshall Project, 9/4/15]: White-on-black murders rarely result in a death sentence. Roof might be an exception.

V. 1st Amendment (Speech, Religion, Press and Assembly) [See TOPICS 29-33 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

Doubts Over Confederate Symbols Put a Chief Justice's Statue in Jeopardy [WSJ, 9/3/15]: Officials in Frederick, Md., favor removing a bust of Roger Brooke Taney, author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

Obama encouraged to end religious hiring exemption [SF Chron, 9/6/15]: When the George W. Bush administration allowed an evangelical organization in 2007 to hire only members of its own religion to work on a government contract, Sen. Barack Obama criticized the decision, saying taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize discrimination in hiring, and that he would end it if elected president.

Children of the Tribes [PS Mag, 9/1/15]: To spank or not to spank? A religious sect known as the Twelve Tribes, whose members think of themselves as direct descendants of the Puritans, claims a disciplined child becomes a disciplined adult. Do children suffer under this First Amendment-protected belief?  

‘God is STILL in our schools!': Video shows mass baptism at public high school football practice [Raw Story, 9/2/15]: A high school football coach in Villa Rica, Georgia, promoted his personal religious beliefs in what appears to be a mass baptism on the field. The Villa Rica Touchdown Club later promoted the video on social media, asking users to share it with others.  

VI. 14th Amendment, Discrimination, Privacy, Working, Citizenship & Immigration [See TOPICS 34-41 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

Kentucky clerk appeals order putting her in jail [AP, 9/7/15]: A defiant county clerk is willing to stay in jail for her beliefs, but she'd prefer to be a free woman.

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