Think Learning Con Law Is Hard? Try Teaching It!

// Does the current Supreme Court’s jurisprudence make it harder to teach Con Law? Yes. Welp, that’s the article, see you next week!

Seriously though. The phrase “it depends” has been associated with law school for ages, but with shadow dockets and rulings that undercut standbys like stare decisis, it is hard to give compelling lessons on which parts of the Constitution and its case law matter and why. And if Rebecca Brown or Barry Friedman’s reactions are a good litmus test, its probably stressing your poor Con Law professor out too. From ABA Journal:

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“While I was working on my syllabus for this course, I literally burst into tears,” she told the New York Times author. “I couldn’t figure out how any of this makes sense. Why do we respect it? Why do we do any of it? I’m feeling very depleted by having to teach it.”

“What feels different at this moment,” said Barry Friedman, a professor at the New York University School of Law, “is the ambition and the velocity, how fast and aggressively it’s happening.”

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It’s really bad — to the point that law professors are handing out “it depends” on questions about judicial review. Rough time to teach Con Law at University of Texas:

“I started this semester with Marbury v. Madison, as almost all of us do,” [Jeffrey] Abramson said. “I traditionally played devil’s advocate with judicial review. I didn’t have to. Before I had gotten 20 sentences out of my mouth, the students were already asking whether judicial review, both historically and today, serves any democratic purpose.”

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Teachers aren’t the only ones shook up about how rapidly the Supreme Court is changing our laws. Judges have found the Bruen test to be unworkable. Is it constitutional for the court to give advisory opinions? After 303 Creative, looks like it! 2022 was so bad the National Conference Of Bar Examiners had to do damage control on the July bar exam because test takers didn’t know if they should pay attention to their Barbri instructors or Justice Alito!

Best of luck to everyone trying to make sense of Con Law — students and teachers.

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Is SCOTUS Making It Harder To Teach Constitutional Law? Profs ‘Depleted’ And Taken Aback By ‘Velocity’ Of Change [ABA Journal]

Earlier: Supreme Court Cares Less About The Facts Of A Case Than Hungover1Ls

Taking The Bar Exam? Don’t Worry, This Disastrous SCOTUS Term Won’t Be Tested

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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Constitutional Law