Spoiler: I did not follow the Four Book Rule
A couple of posts ago I mentioned I’m prepping a course in legal argumentation to run in September 2021. I’ve made a lot of progress on the course and thought I’d update you all on what’s going on with it.
Books!
First and most importantly are books. I did not follow the much celebrated “Four Book Rule” that I wrote about previously. The reason why is that some of the books are not books for the course but are reference and research books for some of the things that we’ll do in the class.
The books will be peppered with a couple of readings here and there. I am considering starting with some Critical Race Theory readings as law is it’s starting place. Given the heated conversation the media is having about Critical Race Theory I think that starting there would be a nice way to communicate the importance of the law in larger discourses, and how the discourse of the law has been seriously challenged.
Another good place to start would be with a very particular legal case. I’m thinking of the challenge to President Trump’s so-called “Travel Ban” brought against the government by the ACLU and heard in the U.S. Fourth Circuit. These readings might be related to these two possible opening acts.
For the CRT opening act, Derrick Bell and Richard Delgado are top choices. For the 4th circuit case whatever I could find about the basis of the challenge and the reasons that they sued the government. Maybe even the transcript. Tempted to just jump right in.
Scope!
Since I’m a rhetorician and a sophist on top of that, I can’t help but find continuous unfolding multiple meanings in any phrase. “Legal Argumentation” has the obvious interpretation that the course should teach people how to argue within the law – how to argue like a lawyer would argue. But also just as interesting is the scope of how we argue about the law – the normative aspects of it, existence, it’s history, and all that. So that will be the other half of the course. That part of the course is following the (blessed) Four Book Rule. In that part we’ll take a look at the two shortest books and then engage Fiss and Chemerinsky together to create a vision of a law system that would respond to the critiques in some degree.
Stuff to Do!
The first part will be re-adjudicating some cases that are of some recent interest to the students or for whatever sorts of issues they care about the most. The second part is questioning the judicial system from the outside using argumentation. I think it’s a good combination.
My interest these days in in having students create arguments about things they feel and think about the texts. I’m trying to dismiss with reporting on the meaning of the text entirely, and using any semblance of that as a starting point for the generation of new texts that are in conversations and inspire new conversations about the readings.
Outcomes!
After the course is over I hope the students will be able to create some entry-level arguments the way lawyers would as well as gain a critical appreciation for listening to legal argument.
I also hope they are able to marshal arguments against our legal system as well as defend it using the practice and familiarity with the readings and the critiques of the law they are going to get in the books and other readings.