Landmarks in the Judicial Interpretation of Civil Rights in America

Extract

Approximately 65 applicants opted for acceptance in this seminar, from whom twenty were ultimately selected. All accepted. They came from seven colleges and thirteen universities, located in ten states; ranked from instructor through professor; ranged in age from 29 to 61; and included seventeen men and three women.

Wisely, the objectives of the four seminars conducted under the program constituted both substantive inquiry and teaching methodology. Consequently, my approach to the examination of “landmarks in the judicial interpretation of civil rights in America” was designed to stress the communicative responsibilities of teaching as well as content matter. All too frequently, the latter suffers because of insufficient attention to the former. I did not utilize video aids in the seminar, but I provided sundry types of exhibits that have proved helpful in my now more than four decades of teaching at the university level.

Although the thrust of the seminar's aims and context was self-evident, it seemed to me that to address the subject matter without an analysis of seminal components of the nature of the judicial process, in general, and the parameters of judicial power, in particular, would be both short-sighted and dysfunctional. Looking back to the seminar now, I am more persuaded than ever that that resolve was appropriate—for, perhaps quite naturally and understandably in view of the deeply felt components of the subject matter, pre-conceived personal, as well as professional commitments, were indubitably in evidence at the threshold. Consequently, the entire first day's attention to an examination of the lines and limits of the judicial role and the postures of individual jurists would serve as seminal background material for the gravamen of the seminar's remaining days.