Faculty First Year Seminars 191UW2 - Conflict and Debate in Supreme

This seminar will examine well-known Supreme Court judicial desciosn (both majority and minority dissent) as the basis of our conversations. For each case we examine, we will consider the conflict in ideas and what these conflicts mean for ideas about the US as a nation. We will also examine the writing as literature by looking at rehetorical devices and the organization of evidence, paying attention to the structure of the majority argument and the specific strategies used in the dissenting opinions. All students have likely heard of cases such as Roe v Wade and Plessy v. Ferugson and Loving v. Virginia. But how do the judges present the majority decision in each of these cases, and what do the dissenting opinions argue> What are the ideas at the center of these conflicts?

Freshmen Only