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ShianneWilliamsFirstEssay 7 - 17 May 2023 - Main.ShianneWilliams
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Title | | | In asking that question, what I really wanted was for him to give me hope; and he tried. | |
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< | He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. However, he was not very convincing.
I'm not sure whether it was the tiredness in his voice or his subtle suggestion, in not so many words, that people die all the time that left me feeling just as hopeless.
[How do I end this on a more positive note given that I do not feel very hopeful about the state of Constitutional Law...?] | >
> | He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. However, I was not satisfied. | | |
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ShianneWilliamsFirstEssay 6 - 30 Apr 2023 - Main.ShianneWilliams
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< | The Myth of Constitutional Law | >
> | Title | | | -- By ShianneWilliams - 16 Feb 2023 | | | Inner thoughts: Game over. | |
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< | While I had been right about the holding of San Antonio, my Professor’s question was meant to stump me. He was attempting to show us how incompatible these two decisions were while simultaneously asking me to reconcile them. I had no good answer. | >
> | While I had been right about the holding of San Antonio, my Professor’s question was meant to stump me. He was attempting to show us how incompatible these two decisions were while simultaneously asking me to reconcile them. | | | Unsurprisingly, one glance at Thurgood Marshall's dissent that was carelessly skipped over on my first read informed me how dire the consequences of this opinion truly were. As Kimberlee Crenshaw so gracefully put it this semester in her critical race theory lecture, "reform and retrenchment." While Brown may have been reformative, San Antonio was the retrenchment waiting to happen.
Dobbs | |
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< | Sadly, the right to education was just the tipping point. Not long after San Antonio, we started reading the string of landmark abortion cases. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court told me I had a fundamental right to get an abortion in the first trimester. However, within 24 hours of reading Roe, I was slapped with Dobbs, and the sliver of a right to my body that I thought I had was gone. | >
> | Not long after San Antonio, we started reading the string of landmark abortion cases. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court told me I had a fundamental right to get an abortion in the first trimester. However, within 24 hours of reading Roe, I was slapped with Dobbs, and the sliver of a right to my body that I thought I had was gone. | | | | |
<
< | Once again, I was forced to reconcile legal opinions that were seemingly contradictory; and, once again, I was left with no choice but to undertake the mental gymnastics required to understand the doctrinal reasons that allowed my rights to be stripped. | >
> | Once again, I was forced to reconcile legal opinions that were seemingly contradictory; and, once again, I was left with no choice but to undertake the mental gymnastics required to understand the doctrinal reasons my rights could be stripped. | | | Our lecture on Dobbs confirmed once and for all that I had no idea what my rights were. I finally realized that I could only know my rights if the Supreme Court decided to extend the kindness of informing me. And if I thought it could not get worse, the Supreme Court decided that they can declare a fundamental right and then take it back like a child who says something they did not mean. | |
<
< | What I Learned | >
> | The Last Day | | | | |
<
< | The first thing I did after realizing my rights were hidden in the minds of the Supreme Court justices was call my parents. Boy, was I ready to tell them how unhelpful their advice had been! The conversation went something along the lines of, "Mom, Dad, I am sorry to inform you that I will never be able to know my rights because some white men decided to make the 9th amendment extremely vague." There was never any google search that could help me. But why? | >
> | The first thing I did after realizing my rights were hidden in the minds of the Supreme Court justices was call my parents. Boy, was I ready to tell them how unhelpful their advice had been. The conversation went something along the lines of, "Mom, Dad, I am sorry to inform you that I will never be able to know my rights because some white men decided to make the 9th amendment extremely vague." There was never any google search that could help me. | | | | |
<
< | Despite being one of the six required classes in the first year curriculum, Constitutional Law is a myth only to be explained by the number of red leaning justices sitting on the court at the time. While my Professor and I pretended that there were doctrinal justifications for San Antonio and Dobbs, we both knew the truth. Ironically, however, the truth of the matter is not what we spent a semester learning or an acceptable answer for the final exam. | >
> | After a semester of reading legal opinions that left me wanting to tear up our Constitution all together, I was not feeling particularly hopeful about progressive change being in the near future. Consequently, the last question I posed to Professor Greene was simply, “Are you hopeful?” | | | | |
<
< | The question I posed to my Professor on the final day of class was simply, "Are you hopeful?" His answer was simultaneously honest and heartbreaking. He was not hopeful but also made sure to leave me with several tangible first steps toward progressive change. He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. However, what I could tell he really wanted to say, and did, in not so many words, was that people die all the time. I may not know my rights, but hey, at least now I know. | >
> | In asking that question, what I really wanted was for him to give me hope; and he tried.
He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. However, he was not very convincing.
I'm not sure whether it was the tiredness in his voice or his subtle suggestion, in not so many words, that people die all the time that left me feeling just as hopeless.
[How do I end this on a more positive note given that I do not feel very hopeful about the state of Constitutional Law...?] | | | | |
<
< |
I think there should be a way to gain more of the promise opened by the first draft. Let's talk it over and see if we can come up with something.
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ShianneWilliamsFirstEssay 5 - 24 Apr 2023 - Main.EbenMoglen
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The Myth of Constitutional Law | | | Despite being one of the six required classes in the first year curriculum, Constitutional Law is a myth only to be explained by the number of red leaning justices sitting on the court at the time. While my Professor and I pretended that there were doctrinal justifications for San Antonio and Dobbs, we both knew the truth. Ironically, however, the truth of the matter is not what we spent a semester learning or an acceptable answer for the final exam.
The question I posed to my Professor on the final day of class was simply, "Are you hopeful?" His answer was simultaneously honest and heartbreaking. He was not hopeful but also made sure to leave me with several tangible first steps toward progressive change. He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. However, what I could tell he really wanted to say, and did, in not so many words, was that people die all the time. I may not know my rights, but hey, at least now I know. | |
>
> |
I think there should be a way to gain more of the promise opened by the first draft. Let's talk it over and see if we can come up with something.
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ShianneWilliamsFirstEssay 4 - 04 Apr 2023 - Main.ShianneWilliams
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< | Something I Learned In My 1L Constitutional Law Class | >
> | The Myth of Constitutional Law | | | -- By ShianneWilliams - 16 Feb 2023 | | | "Never fight back with the police, but make sure you know your rights." | |
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< | My 9th grade US history class was the first time I read about the Bill of Rights, and it seemed to make a lot of sense at the time. I saw the right to free speech, the right not to be unreasonably searched, the right to a jury, and that there may have been some other rights not written down. I did not really think much more about it, and at the very least, I thought my parents would stop nagging me because I could finally say that I "knew my rights." While I did not bother to put them to memory, I went on in life assuming that the worst-case scenario was having to conduct a quick google search. I never questioned whether I knew what my rights were because how could I not? It was unfathomable to me that the only place I would be able to find my basic rights as a United States citizen was shoved into legal opinions that most people never even read. | >
> | My 9th grade US history class was the first time I read the Bill of Rights. I saw the right to free speech, the right not to be unreasonably searched, the right to a jury, and some other rights not written down. While I did not bother to put them to memory, I went on in life assuming that the worst-case scenario was having to conduct a quick google search. At the very least, I thought my parents would stop nagging me because I could finally say that I "knew my rights."
It was unfathomable to me at the time that the only place I would be able to find my basic rights as a United States citizen was shoved into legal opinions that most people never even read. | | | The Cold Call | | | Inner thoughts: Game over. | |
<
< | I wrestled back and forth with the right to education versus the right to exist in the same space as white people. I was angry with my own conclusions because they did not make any sense. How could there be no right to education when this is what people have been fighting for decades? After my cold call ended, I returned to the San Antonio case for a second read. One glance at Thurgood Marshall's dissent that was carelessly skipped over on my first read informed me how dire the consequences of this opinion truly were. As Kimberlee Crenshaw so gracefully put it this semester in her critical race theory lecture, "reform and retrenchment." While Brown may have been reformative, San Antonio was the retrenchment waiting to happen. | >
> | While I had been right about the holding of San Antonio, my Professor’s question was meant to stump me. He was attempting to show us how incompatible these two decisions were while simultaneously asking me to reconcile them. I had no good answer.
Unsurprisingly, one glance at Thurgood Marshall's dissent that was carelessly skipped over on my first read informed me how dire the consequences of this opinion truly were. As Kimberlee Crenshaw so gracefully put it this semester in her critical race theory lecture, "reform and retrenchment." While Brown may have been reformative, San Antonio was the retrenchment waiting to happen. | | | Dobbs | |
<
< | Sadly, the right to education was just the tipping point. Not long after this class session, we started reading the string of landmark abortion cases, which confused me even more. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court told me I had a fundamental right to get an abortion in the first trimester. However, within 24 hours of reading Roe, I was slapped with Dobbs, and the sliver of a right to my body that I thought I had was gone. How could the Supreme Court tell me I had a right and then take it back? | >
> | Sadly, the right to education was just the tipping point. Not long after San Antonio, we started reading the string of landmark abortion cases. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court told me I had a fundamental right to get an abortion in the first trimester. However, within 24 hours of reading Roe, I was slapped with Dobbs, and the sliver of a right to my body that I thought I had was gone. | | | | |
<
< | The day we had our lecture on Dobbs confirmed once and for all that I had no idea what my rights were. Even worse, I found out that I would only know my rights if the Supreme Court decided to extend the kindness of informing me. And if you thought it could not get worse, the Supreme Court has decided that they can declare fundamental rights and then take it back like a child who says something they did not mean. | >
> | Once again, I was forced to reconcile legal opinions that were seemingly contradictory; and, once again, I was left with no choice but to undertake the mental gymnastics required to understand the doctrinal reasons that allowed my rights to be stripped. | | | | |
<
< | What I Learned | >
> | Our lecture on Dobbs confirmed once and for all that I had no idea what my rights were. I finally realized that I could only know my rights if the Supreme Court decided to extend the kindness of informing me. And if I thought it could not get worse, the Supreme Court decided that they can declare a fundamental right and then take it back like a child who says something they did not mean. | | | | |
<
< | The first thing I did after realizing my rights were hidden in the minds of the Supreme Court justices was call my parents. Boy, was I ready to tell them how unhelpful their advice had been! The conversation went something along the lines of, "Mom, Dad, I am sorry to inform you that I will never be able to know my rights because some white men decided to make the 9th amendment extremely vague." There was never any google search that could help me, and seeing my cold call question regarding the right to education as "Question #1" of my professors' 2020 exam made me feel better about not knowing what to say that day in class. | | | | |
<
< | The last day of Constitutional Law was weirdly frustrating to me. I still had so many questions about why we interpreted the constitution in particular ways and where we were supposed to go from here. The last question I posed to Professor Greene was simply, "Are you hopeful?" His answer was simultaneously honest and heartbreaking. He was not hopeful but also made sure to leave me with several tangible first steps toward progressive change. He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. I may not know my rights, but hey, at least now I know. | >
> | What I Learned | | | | |
<
< |
This draft does an excellent job of clearing away the brush so that we can see clearly the central issue on which the next draft can focus. If we take legal realism seriously—which in the rest of law school, as we have discussed, we absolutely do—then we have as axioms Chief Justice Hughes' statement that "the Constitution of the United States means what five votes on the Supreme Court say it means," and that the opinions collected in the US Reports are rationalizations for results otherwise arrived at. How to square that with our belief in the rule of law and the persistence of our individual and civil rights is your central problem, as it is for every thoughtful student in our quite exceptionally realist system of legal education. | >
> | The first thing I did after realizing my rights were hidden in the minds of the Supreme Court justices was call my parents. Boy, was I ready to tell them how unhelpful their advice had been! The conversation went something along the lines of, "Mom, Dad, I am sorry to inform you that I will never be able to know my rights because some white men decided to make the 9th amendment extremely vague." There was never any google search that could help me. But why? | | | | |
<
< | But the Constitutional Law course often proceeds as though the problem were somehow not acute, were being magically solved somewhere off the set, or were somehow less important than "learning the law." That whole conception is deficient, which is why a sensible teacher cannot carry it through, and winds up—under your questioning—having to treat the matter as one of "hope." There is, however, more to it, or there had better be. So that's the next draft, it seems to me.
| >
> | Despite being one of the six required classes in the first year curriculum, Constitutional Law is a myth only to be explained by the number of red leaning justices sitting on the court at the time. While my Professor and I pretended that there were doctrinal justifications for San Antonio and Dobbs, we both knew the truth. Ironically, however, the truth of the matter is not what we spent a semester learning or an acceptable answer for the final exam. | | | | |
>
> | The question I posed to my Professor on the final day of class was simply, "Are you hopeful?" His answer was simultaneously honest and heartbreaking. He was not hopeful but also made sure to leave me with several tangible first steps toward progressive change. He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. However, what I could tell he really wanted to say, and did, in not so many words, was that people die all the time. I may not know my rights, but hey, at least now I know. | | |
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ShianneWilliamsFirstEssay 3 - 20 Feb 2023 - Main.EbenMoglen
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Something I Learned In My 1L Constitutional Law Class | | |
The last day of Constitutional Law was weirdly frustrating to me. I still had so many questions about why we interpreted the constitution in particular ways and where we were supposed to go from here. The last question I posed to Professor Greene was simply, "Are you hopeful?" His answer was simultaneously honest and heartbreaking. He was not hopeful but also made sure to leave me with several tangible first steps toward progressive change. He urged me to think about all the good state governments can do for protecting fundamental rights, all the people who are still actively fighting for the rights of minorities, and how much time I have in my legal career to make a difference. I may not know my rights, but hey, at least now I know. | |
>
> |
This draft does an excellent job of clearing away the brush so that we can see clearly the central issue on which the next draft can focus. If we take legal realism seriously—which in the rest of law school, as we have discussed, we absolutely do—then we have as axioms Chief Justice Hughes' statement that "the Constitution of the United States means what five votes on the Supreme Court say it means," and that the opinions collected in the US Reports are rationalizations for results otherwise arrived at. How to square that with our belief in the rule of law and the persistence of our individual and civil rights is your central problem, as it is for every thoughtful student in our quite exceptionally realist system of legal education.
But the Constitutional Law course often proceeds as though the problem were somehow not acute, were being magically solved somewhere off the set, or were somehow less important than "learning the law." That whole conception is deficient, which is why a sensible teacher cannot carry it through, and winds up—under your questioning—having to treat the matter as one of "hope." There is, however, more to it, or there had better be. So that's the next draft, it seems to me.
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