American Constitutional Law : Powers and Liberties

by MASSEY CALVIN R.

• ISBN13: 9780735550988
• ISBN10: 0735550980
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-03-16
• Publisher: Wolters Kluwer

Summary

Instructors who use the traditional cases-and-notes approach to constitutional law but want a less dense, more accessible casebook find American Constitutional Law: Powers and Liberties provides the ideal foundation for their course. Revised, refined, and updated for its Second Edition, this concise and student-friendly casebook presents a thorough examination of fundamental questions of law and doctrine and engages students in careful consideration of crucial underlying issues.Here is why so many of your colleagues rely on American Constitutional Law: Powers and Liberties:brevity; at less than 1,300 pages, the book is considerably shorter than most othersstrong and effective teaching book provides the basics of constitutional theory without dissolving into pure theory; rather, it provides a platform for extended discussion of theory and gives professors the opportunity to shape the discussion and develop issuescomprehensive coverage of all topics in an introductory survey courseminimal reliance on secondary materials; by omitting detailed treatment of academic commentary, the author achieves concise coveragecarefully-crafted hypotheticals challenge student thinking during class preparation and stimulate class discussionabundant author-written text condenses some portions of constitutional law into narrative summariesflexibility makes the book appropriate for either a four-unit, single-semester survey or a two-semester formatsensible organization presenting the overall issue or problem at the beginning of each part, chapter, and section, along with the relevant materials, followed by a tentative resolution of the issueThis Second Edition responds to both classroom experience and developments in the law:important new cases include Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (affirmative action), Virginia v. Black (hate speech and true threats -- the Virginia cross-burning case), Tahoe-Sierra (conceptual severance in regulatory takings), Legal Services Corp v. Velasquez (government sponsored speech), McConnell v. FEC (campaign finance speech restrictions), Republican Party v. White (restrictions on candidate speech), Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (school vouchers redeemable at religious schools), Locke v. Davey (marking the line between establishment and free exercise), Garrett and Hibbs (scope of the 14th Amendment's enforcement power), and Lawrence v. Texasupdated or expanded hypotheticals and problemsmodest reorganization of some sectionscompletely rewritten Teacher's Manual provides additional hypothetical problems and presents various classroom strategies, including alternative ways of teaching a topic or section