Constitutional Law II: Poverty

This course will explore the Supreme Court’s explorations into providing constitutional protection for poor people during the 1960s and 1970s. It is part doctrinal analysis, part legal history, and part constitutional theory. We will first familiarize ourselves with various methods of constitutional interpretation to help us assess whether and how the Constitution might provide such protection. We will then read cases in which the Court considered different doctrinal approaches to protecting poor people, including wealth as a suspect classification, fundamental rights equal protection, procedural due process, and the right to travel. We will also read law review articles from the period arguing for and against constitutional protections for the poor. Finally, we will discuss the subsequent demise of such protections, the reasons for it, and recent developments in the constitutional treatment of poverty. Students will analyze the legal doctrines with which the Supreme Court experimented, learn about the historical developments shaping both the rise and fall of poverty protections, and develop their own constitutional theories about whether and how the Constitution affords protection against poverty.