Constitutional Interpretation Takes on a Broader View
Constitutional law has been a hallmark of Yale Law School for generations. While often taught with a focus on courts, a course offered this spring is providing students with a wide-angle view on the ways that courts decide constitutional cases that are enveloped in fierce conflict.
“Democratic Constitutionalism,” taught by constitutional law scholars Reva Siegel ’86 and Robert C. Post ’77, offers an unconventional perspective on constitutional interpretation while instilling foundational skills that make for great lawyering. Where traditional constitutional law courses tend to focus on the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions, Siegel and Post’s course seeks to examine constitutional law in and out of the courtroom.
“This [course] opens the lens [to] look at constitutionalism as a much larger phenomenon than just the practice of lawyers,” said Post. “Constitutional law is also the province of citizens and of the other branches of government. To grasp constitutional law from this point of view raises a host of questions that don’t ordinarily come up in law courses.”
“We often advise students who are thinking about taking this course that even though we study a much wider range of sources than a more doctrinally focused class might, students will acquire skills and forms of judgment that are critical for lawyering,” said Siegel. “It’s really about doing ordinary craft in an excellent way — acquiring instincts about when and how law can enable change.”
Siegel and Post — the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law and Sterling Professor of Law, respectively — have been teaching this course at the Law School episodically for nearly 20 years. They share a background in American studies which, they say, offers a special perspective.
“We are part of a group of scholars who are interested in thinking about the Constitution not only as interpreted by courts, but also as interpreted by other branches of representative government and by the people, themselves,” said Siegel. “By teaching this course we have tried to share this perspective on constitutionalism with our students.”
This is the type of course that sets YLS apart.”
—Jake McDonald ’25
“It's a course about the relationship between the Constitution understood as a document that judges have special expertise to interpret, and the Constitution understood as the common property and destiny of all Americans, and how these two forms of constitutionalism relate to each other. That relationship has a lot to do with the connection between political mobilization and judicial interpretation,” continued Post.
Unlike previous years, Post said, students enrolled in the course this year are studying this relationship with a sharp emphasis on political polarization and its implications for constitutionalism. Class discussion topics include federal and state law on abortion, the Second Amendment, and campaign finance — issues that, as Post said, are “salient in politics” and “salient in courts.”
“This is the type of course that sets YLS apart,” said Jake McDonald ’25, who has taken several of Post’s classes including his “Constitutional Law” course as a first-year student. He said “Democratic Constitutionalism” has been one of his “favorite academic experiences” in the three years he’s been at the Law School because of its in-depth study of case histories combined with class discussions in which Siegel and Post push students to consider the creation of constitutional authority from both a legal and political perspective.
“The discussion always brings out wide perspectives on the role of the federal judiciary in broader democratic society, and while my views on that topic are likely different than many of my classmates, the conversations have helped to refine my own beliefs and equip me to defend them going forward,” said McDonald.
Class discussions have proven to be a formative experience for Jackson Dellinger ’26, who credited the course for reframing the way he thinks about constitutional law.
“Class discussion casts ‘The People,’ not the Court, as the driving force behind the evolution of our constitutional order. And, as considered here, ‘The People’ includes all of us, not only through our elected representatives but also personally, individually, as citizens,” he said.
Dellinger described this reframing as inspirational — and a call to action.
“To quote one of the first readings the professors assigned, a constitution might be ‘less something we have than something we are’ or ‘something we do,’” he said. “This reframing has sharpened my appreciation of the opportunity that I (really, that we all) have to make our constitutional law into something of which we can be proud.”
Post said that he hopes students walk away from the course with a more sophisticated understanding of the law and how it can be shaped, a knowledge that will be useful to students in whatever roles they may eventually choose to embrace.
