This book, American Constitutional Law, was important in my summer camp experience at CTY. This book has 800 pages, and my course covered landmark cases and used it as a source for dissents, background, and the court’s opinion. This book is essential for understanding American legal history, and it helped me understand the turning points in the Supreme Court context.
During CTY, we used cases from this book to form moot courts. I am most proud of my performance as a representative of the West Coast Hotel in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish. Before the case, I reviewed all potentially relevant cases. I have a knack for creativity, and I think that was important in my discovery of a connection between this case and an earlier one that would strengthen my argument. The earlier case is the Plessy v. Fergusson case, and I used arguments expressed in the dissent of Justice Harlen:
“The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race, while they are on a public highway, is a badge of servitude [inferiority] wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds.”
This was the lone dissent that greatly supported the eventual overturning of the case. By projecting my voice by citing other supreme justices, I am using precedent to reinforce my argument. Precedents are an important aspect of considering cases, but other than that, Harlen’s dissent also weaves in textualism and the Constitutional intent.
This book has helped me understand the judicial branch of government, and for someone who spends much time studying and working in engineering subjects, it complements my understanding of the world as it is currently. Humans have been subject to immense change, and the Supreme Court’s record merely offers a glimpse of the many winding ideologies of our world.
