News Releases
Course brings undergraduate, law students together
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
A new course is bringing several Valparaiso University law and undergraduate students together in the same classroom to examine some of the most pressing political and legal debates in American society.
“Enduring Issues in American Law and Politics,” is the first collaborative course offered between Valparaiso’s School of Law and its interdisciplinary undergraduate honors college (Christ College), and will focus on the issue of race, religious liberty and gay and lesbian rights.
“Here are three issues that are at the forefront of our national dialogue,” said Dr. Andrew Murphy, associate professor of humanities and political philosophy. “In exploring these matters, students are reading Supreme Court cases that are historically important and, on the other hand, reading recent books by legal and political scholars who are examining those issues.”
In doing so, students are learning about the historical roots of the three issues and how they have shaped the contemporary legal and political debates.
While bringing law and undergraduate students into the same classroom is rare in higher education, Dr. Murphy noted that Christ College has a long history of working to build connections with academic departments throughout the University.
“Working with the School of Law was a logical next step in making connections across campus,” Dr. Murphy said. “After determining both Christ College students and law students were interested in a course such as this, we were able to bring everything together.”
Dr. Murphy, who serves as co-chair of the Religion, Politics and the State Group of the American Academy of Religion, said the dynamic of the course has been beneficial for both Christ College and law students. Many of the Christ College students, he said, are interested in law careers and benefit from being able to converse with law students during in-class discussions. At the same time, law students have been able to take a broader view of the context and politics surrounding the legal issues than is possible in courses devoted to the nitty-gritty details of laws and legal rulings.
Claire Rueffer, a senior theology major from Batavia, Ill., said she was interested in learning about issues affecting groups on the fringes of society from a political and legal perspective.
“The lenses of political theory and legal practice and certainly changed the dynamic from a typical undergraduate discussion,” Rueffer said. “That added dimension has been fascinating and very helpful for me. I’m sure that the humanities approach of the undergraduate students has aided the discussion for the law students in the course as well.”
“One of the things that is interesting in examining these issues is looking at what lawyers and justices take as evidence at different times in our nation’s history,” Dr. Murphy said. “There are a lot of interesting things not only in the decision that ends up being made, but in what is being used to justify the decision. At times, such as in Brown vs. Board of Education, sociological evidence is relied upon very heavily, while in other decisions the justices focus more narrowly on the Constitutional text itself, or the historical circumstances surrounding its adoption.”
The course is nearly equally divided between law and Christ College students, Dr. Murphy said, and in the end he hopes the course will foster more connections between Valparaiso’s law and undergraduate students.
“To bring people together across campus is a great way to encourage more dialogue about these and other issues,” he said. “We always want to look for ways to get out of our comfort zones, because that’s a wonderful way to learn.”
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