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Full-Text Articles in Law
Harry Kalven, Jr., Vincent A. Blasi
Harry Kalven, Jr., Vincent A. Blasi
Faculty Scholarship
The first week of law school is for most students an intimidating experience. Everyone is so serious. My first week was leavened considerably by Harry Kalven. A group of students and Kalven were watching the seventh game of the 1964 World Series in the student lounge of the University of Chicago Law School. The broadcast was interrupted by a news bulletin: Nikita Khrushchev had just been deposed. Viewers were treated to several minutes of political and diplomatic analysis, with correspondents around the globe speculating on what this might mean for East-West relations. One of my classmates, an amateur Kremlinologist …
'"You Have Been In Afghanistan": A Discourse On The Van Alstyne Method, Garrett Epps
'"You Have Been In Afghanistan": A Discourse On The Van Alstyne Method, Garrett Epps
All Faculty Scholarship
This essay pays tribute to William Van Alstyne, one of our foremost constitutional scholars, by applying the methods of textual interpretation he laid out in a classic essay, "Interpreting This Constitution: On the Unhelpful Contribution of Special Theories of Judicial Review." I make use of the graphical methods Van Alstyne has applied to the general study of the First Amendment to examine the Supreme Court's recent decisions in the context of the Free Exercise Clause, in particular the landmark case of "Employment Division v. Smith". The application of Van Alstyne's use of the burden of proof as an interpretive tool …
Dr. King, Bull Connor, And Persuasive Narratives, Shaun B. Spencer
Dr. King, Bull Connor, And Persuasive Narratives, Shaun B. Spencer
Faculty Publications
This article describes an in-class exercise that illustrates the use of persuasive narrative techniques in a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The article first describes the background to the Supreme Court’s decision in Walker v. City of Birmingham. Next, the article examines persuasive narrative techniques through the lens of an in-class exercise in which students identify the Justices’ narrative devices and consider how those devices preview the Justices’ legal arguments. Finally, the article describes why the Walker case and the exercise are valuable not only to teach persuasive narratives, but also to raise broader issues of lawyering and social justice.