Civil Liberties and the Bill of Rights

By: John E. Finn, The Great Courses

Narrated by: John E. Finn

The civil liberties and constitutional rights possessed by our nation's citizens - not only in theory, but in the courtroom, where the state can be forced to honor those liberties - are a uniquely American invention.

And when we were taught history and learned about the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, we were always made aware of that uniqueness, of the extraordinary experiment that gave to every citizen of this new nation a gift possessed by no others.

Now you can learn exactly what that gift was - in a series of 36 lectures based on Supreme Court opinions from dozens of the Court's most important landmark decisions, presented by an award-winning teacher who is also an internationally recognized expert in constitutional law.

You'll learn just what liberties and rights the Founders wanted the new government to protect, as well as how we get from what Professor Finn calls the Constitution's "wonderfully elastic and vague" language to the finely tuned specifics of the Supreme Court's opinions about speech, abortion, and religion, and so much more. And you'll grasp the hard truth that no matter how unwavering the Constitution's language on any subject may appear, things are almost invariably more complicated than it would seem at first reading.

The result is a legacy of questions that multiplies with each passing decade, and explains why generations of jurists and legal scholars, not to mention legislators, presidents, and citizens, have argued so long and hard about the meaning of what often appears to be unambiguous phrasing.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2006 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2006 The Great Courses

Very interesting

I'm not a lawyer. Sometimes my brain hurt trying to keep up with all the information. I'm hoping to read it a few more times before it locks. Tremendous book

Great course, great subject, great professor

I enjoyed this course very much! Well organized and the professor highlighted the importance of the cases that he spoke about. I cannot recommend this lecture enough.

History of the evolution of civil liberties

I was drawn to this because of current issues regarding ending birthright citizenship in illegal immigration — I was hoping to better understand that that amendment. Not what I expected— but much much more. These are a heavily Supreme Court focused series of lectures. I think it is from mid 2000’s, so some issues the court has covered since this recording, but great background info. He organizes by property rights, privacy, death penalty, religious freedom, discrimination... etc.

Great lectures and lecturer

Very interesting and enjoyable, I would have continued for 360 lectures, too bad there's only 36!

Great overview of the Bill of Rights per the Law.

36 Lectures

1 What Are Civil Liberties?

2 The Bill of Rights—An Overview

3 Two Types of Liberty—Positive and Negative

4 The Court and Constitutional Interpretation

5 Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review

6 Private Property and the Founding

7 Lochner v. New York and Economic Due Process

8 The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment

9 Fundamental Rights—Privacy and Personhood

10 Privacy—Early Cases

11 Roe v. Wade and Reproductive Autonomy

12 Privacy and Autonomy—From Roe to Casey

13 Other Privacy Interests—Family

14 Other Privacy Interests—Sexuality

15 Same-Sex Marriages and the Constitution

16 The Right to Die and the Constitution

17 Cruel and Unusual? The Death Penalty

18 The First Amendment—An Overview

19 Internal Security and the First Amendment

20 Symbolic Speech and Expressive Conduct

21 Indecency and Obscenity

22 Hate Speech and Fighting Words

23 The Right to Silence

24 Why Is Freedom of Religion So Complex?

25 School Prayer and the Establishment Clause

26 Religion—Strict Separation or Accommodation?

27 The Free Exercise Clause—Acting on Beliefs

28 Free Exercisee and “the Peyote Case”

29 Two Religion Clauses—One Definition?

30 Slavery and Dred Scott to Equal Protection

31 Brown v. Board of Education

32 Equality and Affirmative Action

33 Equality and Gender Discrimination

34 Gender Discrimination as Semi-Suspect

35 The Future of Equal Protection?

36 Citizens and Civil Liberties



I enjoyed these lectures on the Bill of Rights and Civil Liberties. I have an idea that this course was designed for pre-law or law school classes as it does go in great depth on certain cases and issues.

I do not remember a case on the second amendment at all. What I liked about these classes was learning how the Supreme Court works and what their job is. They are required to interpret the Constitution and whenever they step outside of those boundaries they are called “Lochnering” after a famous case in lecture 7. The justices in this case seemed to make up the law as they went along and did not use the Constitution as the basis of the judgement.

Another portion that struck me was the duality of the Freedom of Religion laws. The first is that no establishment of a religion is allowed and the second is that people are allowed to believe in their own religions. Obviously, if your religion believed that killing your neighbors would have you attain heaven, that would have to be restricted. Most of the cases dealt with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.

The next lectures had to do with slavery and civil rights. The professor explained the Dred Scott decision differently than I had ever learned before. Basically, since a black man in those days was considered property, the Court treated Dred Scott as stolen goods.
That goes way back to the compromise in Founding the Constitution. Thank goodness our Constitution is fluid enough that we can do away with bad laws without destroying our government.

These lectures were produced before the Gay Marriage decision but he does touch on what was happening at the time he taught. Women’s rights are also touched on as well as Roe vs. Wade. The reason we are still fighting over Roe vs. Wade is that per the professor it was a badly written ruling.

These lectures last around 30 minutes and I believe it was well worth my time.

Does Not Cover the 2nd Amendment

Over all the lectures were well presented and worth listening to. However, if you hope to learn about the 2nd Amendment, you will have to look elsewhere.

not what I expected

in the last lecture he mentions that most people in the US don't know what is in the bill of rights. I got this course to find out. unfortunately, he never goes through them. still it's a really good great course and I'm glad I listened to it. I learned a lot about the constitution, the bill of rights and how the supreme court works.

Good Content, but Difficult Delivery

The lecturer obviously knew what he was talking about, but tended to over-qualify every sentence, to the point that he was hard to follow. It might be a fun drinking game for future listeners to take a shot every time the lecturer says “or I *should* say...”

That said, this was a reasonably good course on the legal basis behind American civil rights. It’s a pity that it isn’t more recent than 2005.

Great Book & Easy Listen

I am a fan of constitutional themed books. This one caught my attention but I was hesitant since such subject matter can easily be told only in light of great bias or out another way with heavy view point prejudice attached to the underlying content.

I am happy to report that after finishing this book I can say that my fears were for the most part completely unfounded. The author who is also the narrator does a great job of going through this subject without demanding the reader (or listener) land on either side of any particular issue.

I highly recommend this book as it is both an easy listen as well as extremely informative.

Far more interesting than I imagined

I'm neither a lawyer nor an American, but this course was far more interesting than I imagined it would be.

it allowed a glimpse into constitutional law, American legal history and liberty and its meaning to humanity.