Individual Rights and the American Constitution

The Fourth Edition of Individual Rights and the American Constitution is designed for a two- or three-semester-hour course on the intellectual sources of and cases dealing with individual human rights, including especially religion, speech, and economic liberties, as well as the concepts of due process and equality.

This book explores how government power is expressly or impliedly limited to protect individual interests in religious exercise, speech, the freedom from irrational discrimination, and autonomy, as well as economic liberty. It is designed to meet the needs of professors of political science, government, history, and public policy by supplying a casebook that is at once accessible to study by virtue of generous chapter overviews, skillful case selection and editing, and extended introductions and following notes and questions. In addition, out of abundant respect for the rich intellectual tradition that exists within the university, this book fully reflects that Supreme Court cases emerge from history, and history itself reflects centuries of political and philosophical understanding.