September 13, 2018

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Thursday 9/13, I began by talking about two cases that dealt with a subject that was brought up in class last time: whether colleges have to provide funding for student organizations that are religious. In Rosenberger v. University of Virginia the Court held 5-4 that the school could not refuse funding to a Christian student publication. In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Court held 5-4 that a school could refuse funding for a student group that denied membership to gay students, even though the group said that it was just denying membership because of the beliefs and conduct of gay students did not correspond with the group's (but not on the basis of the gay students' status).
We then returned to Trinity. We began by trying to give a succinct Holding of the Roberts opinion, including fn.3. We went over the Thomas, Gorsuch, and Breyer concurrences. We began the Sotomayor dissent, getting through part II. We'll pick up with Section III next week.
The assignment for Tuesday 9/18 is to review the Sotomayor dissent. Continue work on your version of the outline of the dissent (not handed in or graded, but do write it out for yourself).


POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 9/13, we began by finishing the Heffron hypotheticals that I distributed last class. We then talked about the introductory section of the text. I clarified that, as used in class, the term common law will mean law made by judges in the absence of enacted law. We talked about natural law and MLK's Letter from the Birmingham Jail. We talked about the strange history of the courts of law and the courts of equity, and the echo of those two systems in injunctive relief in present day courts. Finally we began our discussion of juvenile justice and the 8th Amendment.
The assignment for Tuesday 9/18 is to read in text pp. 16-23. Try your hand at writing a case brief of the majority opinion in Miller (not handed in or graded), using the case brief template and my version of the Heffron case as guides for what the segments of the brief are, and what kind of stuff goes into each segment.