Legal Commentary

I am currently completing my syllabus for Constitutional Law I, the first of two required constitutional law courses at Boston College. The first, which we teach in the second semester of the first year, covers structural constitutional law while the second, which students may take in either their second or third year, focuses on civil and political rights.

Inspired in part by the work of Sanford Levinson, who was kind enough to visit my advanced seminar on constitutional politics last week, I have been debating the merits of when, and whether, to assign Marbury v. Madison.

I will keep Marbury in my preliminary syllabus, unlike Levinson, who does not teach Marbury in introductory constitutional law courses because of the "opportunity costs that must be paid in order to teach Marbury well." (Read more from Levinson here and here. A subscription is required for the first link.) 

But I've decided, tentatively at least, to depart from (what was once, still is, may always be???) the norm, which is to begin with Marbury. I will instead start with an historical and theoretical study of Article V, which prescribes the textual rules for amending the constitution. 

This, I think, will be a useful entrée into the larger themes of the course, namely federalism, the separation of powers, representative versus direct democracy, and the locus of sovereignty in the American constitutional order. It will also be an occasion to read some constitutional history, which adds great richness to the study of constitutional law.

I'm curious, though--do any Prawfs readers begin with Marbury? If yes, do you have a particular reason why? If you do not begin with Marbury, where do you begin?