Rainbow Lifelong Learning Institute

Using Jill Lepore’s We the People as our guide, we will explore the uncertain future of the Constitution and the equality, freedom, rights, security and order it has come to promise for all. How did we get here? What happened to that promise? What exactly is the “originalism” that has been cited in a generation of decisions by the Roberts Court? Does the Constitution need to be amended? What are the competing visions of the future of the Constitution? Can any of these visions repair the fraying of the promise the Constitution has come to represent?

We will read and discuss one chapter per week from We the People as the chapter addresses the questions for each session below:

Session 1. What does freedom even mean? Do we think of the function of the Constitution as primarily to protect property, to protect rights, or to structure non-violent compromise between the two?

Session 2. How was the Constitution actually formed? What were its weaknesses and contradictions according to the framers? How have those weaknesses and contradictions played out over American history?

Session 3. What are the implications, for each of us, of the frameworks the Supreme Court and legal scholars have used to interpret the Constitution?

Session 4. What are the philosophical underpinnings and real-world consequences of the profound tilt toward executive power during the generation of the Roberts Court?

Session 5. Where is the Constitution headed? Where are “we the people” headed?

We the People by Jill Lepore. Students will need to acquire a copy of the book, whether by purchase or from the library

No preparation necessary. We the People is 581 pages long, more than we can read in five weeks. Students who are interested in reading the whole book should get a head start!