Course Syllabus

V339-8439: Legal History and Public Policy

Christine Walsh is the instructor for this course. A full syllabus and an outline of what we will do in each class is available under the Modules tab in Canvas. The schedule on Canvas is subject to limited change.

Class Meetings

This class meets in person. Regular attendance is essential to performing well in this class. Class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning at 11:10 a.m. and ending at 2:25 p.m. The first class meeting is August 25, 2026. Class meets in O’Neill Room 168.

COURSE DESCRIPTION (FROM COURSE BULLETIN)

This course will cover a specific policy issue in American history (such as race relations or political protest/dissent) during specific time periods and focus on the role played by the U. S. Supreme Court in dealing with that issue.

COURSE MATERIAL

There is no textbook for this course. Instead, each class meeting has a corresponding Module, accessed through the "Modules" navigation link on this site. The Modules contain all readings and other materials (either as files or hyperlinks) that you will use to prepare for class sessions. he Modules contain all readings and other materials (either as files or hyperlinks) that you will use to prepare for class sessions. You should expect to spend between 3 to 4 hours preparing for each class session.

If you have any trouble accessing any material in a Module, please let me know as soon as possible.

I reserve the right, with sufficient advance notice to students, to alter course materials or the order of topics to reflect new developments and to adjust as needed to the pace of the class. 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of the semester, students should be able to:

  • Describe how key individuals, groups, events, and ideas have contributed over the course of US history to law's relationship with religion;
  • Describe the major historical evidence and modern arguments for different views of what the Religion Clauses require, prohibit, and allow;
  • Describe how key legal doctrines surrounding the Religion Clauses emerged and apply them to current actual and hypothetical disputes;
  • Evaluate how the relationship between law and religion has changed over the course of US history, and the major factors producing the change; and
  • Incorporate historical, statistical, demographic, and other evidence together with relevant case law and policy materials into useful advice for an authentic decisionmaker confronting an issue of law and religion**

 

**Please note that this course is the “iterative writing course” for O'Neill's Law and Public Policy (LPP) major. This means that students are required to complete a writing project with multiple drafting stages and to incorporate feedback into a final product.  Completing this project is how students meet this course goal and the corresponding learning outcomes.