Prayer before football games? Drug testing in schools? Lately, the Supreme Court has had its say on all of these compelling issues. And its decisions have powerfully shaped America’s schools and civic life. For most of us, that is not a problem—we believe that the Supreme Court has the last word in interpreting the Constitution. Barring amendment, the Court’s decisions are the law of the land. But are they? Is there something fundamentally wrong about having nine unelected jurists decide the fate of so many burning questions? In this seminar, we are going to take a hard look at the Supreme Court’s power: How does the Court interpret the Constitution? Where does that power come from? When should it be used? Is the Court using or abusing its authority?

We will investigate these questions by looking at some specific writings from the Founding period and then examining several Supreme Court decisions on freedom of speech and students’ rights.

Jeffrey Sikkenga is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashland University. He is the co-author of The Free Person and the Free Economy (forthcoming, Spring 2001) and the co-editor of the History of American Political Thought (forthcoming). He is the associate editor of the Journal of Market & Morality, a bi-annual journal published by the Acton Institute. He earned a B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto.

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