Topics such as military tribunals, same-sex marriage, informative privacy, reproductive rights, affirmative action, and states' rights fill the landscape of contemporary legal debate and media discussion, and they all fall under the umbrella of the Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution. However, what is not always fully understood is the constitutional basis of these rights, or the exact list of due process rights as they have evolved over time through judicial interpretation. In The Arc of Due Process in American Constitutional Law, Sullivan and Massaro describe the intricate history of what are currently considered due process rights, and maintain that modern constitutional theory and practice must adhere to it. The authors focus on the origins and contemporary uses of due process principles in American constitutional law, while offering an overarching description of the factors or normative concepts that allow courts to invalidate a government action on the grounds of due process. They also analyze judicial interpretations and expressions as a key manner and perhaps the most powerful source of how due process has taken form in the United States. In the process of charting this arc, the authors describe the judicial analysis of rights within each category applying an illustrative list, and identify several fundamental norms that span these disparate threads of due process and the most salient principles that animate due process doctrine.

In The Arc of Due Process in American Constitutional Law, Sullivan and Massaro identify the historical underpinnings of due process while describing the evolution of the American due process doctrine.

“Gripping and essential.”—Jesse Wegman, New York Times An authoritative history by the preeminent scholar of the Civil War era, The Second Founding traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism and adoption amidst intense postwar politics to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws. Today these amendments remain strong tools for achieving the American ideal of equality, if only we will take them up.

A comparative and collaborative study of the foundational principles and concepts that underpin different domestic systems of criminal law.

A host of political factors—both internal and external—influence the Court’s decisions and shape the development of constitutional law. Among the more significant forces at work are the ways lawyers and interest groups frame legal disputes, the ideological and behavioral propensities of the justices, the politics of judicial selection, public opinion, and the positions that elected officials take, to name just a few. Combining lessons of the legal model with the influences of the political process, Constitutional Law for a Changing America shows how these dynamics shape the development of constitutional doctrine. The Tenth Edition offers rigorous, comprehensive content in a student-friendly manner. With meticulous revising and updating throughout, best-selling authors Lee Epstein and Thomas G. Walker streamline material while accounting for new scholarship and recent landmark cases—including key opinions handed down through the 2018 judicial session. Well-loved features keep students engaged by offering a clear delineation between commentary and opinion excerpts, a “Facts” and “Arguments” section before every case, a superb photo program, “Aftermath” and “Global Perspective” boxes, and a wealth of tables, figures, and maps. Students will walk away with an understanding that Supreme Court cases involve real people engaged in real disputes and are not merely legal names and citations.

An eminent constitutional scholar reveals how our approach to rights is dividing America, and shows how we can build a better system of justice.

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and alarming book that aims to vindicate the rights of public school stu­dents, which have so often been undermined by the Supreme Court in recent decades. Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to un­authorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compul­sory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer—these are but a few of the cultural anxieties dividing American society that the Supreme Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation. Justin Driver maintains that since the 1970s the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated its responsibility for protecting students’ constitutional rights and risked trans­forming public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court’s decisions in recent decades would conclude that the following actions taken by educators pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporal punishment on students without any proce­dural protections, searching students and their possessions without probable cause in bids to uncover violations of school rules, random drug testing of students who are not suspected of wrongdoing, and suppressing student speech for the view­point it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have upheld a wide array of dubious school actions, including degrading strip searches, repressive dress codes, draconian “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, and severe restrictions on off-campus speech. Driver surveys this legal landscape with eloquence, highlights the gripping personal narratives behind landmark clashes, and warns that the repeated failure to honor students’ rights threatens our basic constitutional order. This magiste­rial book will make it impossible to view American schools—or America itself—in the same way again.