Research Paper Fall 2025

 Choose one of the following:

1. Justice Kagan’s Spider-Man quotation raises a Tocquevillian question: Who guards the guardians?

• Compare Federalist 78 with Wurman ch. 6 and Tocqueville (pp. 99–105, 262–276).
• Choose one decision that the Supreme Court has made or reversed during your lifetime. (Do not choose Dobbs, which reversed Roe.)
• Look at critiques of that decision. Explain how its reasoning reflects or departs from Hamilton’s and Tocqueville’s ideas about judicial legitimacy and restraint.

2. Few powers test the legitimacy of law more deeply than the power to take a life.

• Begin with Federalist 78 and Tocqueville’s discussions of judicial authority and moral order.
• Analyze one Supreme Court case on the death penalty—for example, Furman v. Georgia (1972), Gregg v. Georgia (1976), Atkins v. Virginia (2002), or Glossip v. Gross (2015).
• Then investigate how capital punishment operates today in one U.S. state of your choice: consult its department of corrections or court website for current laws, procedures, or recent executions.
• Finally, relate your findings to a moral or civic argument about justice or equality from our readings.

3. Candace Valenzuela’s simile of childbirth suggests that campaigning is both painful and creative.

• Read Malcolm X’s “Ballot or the Bullet” alongside Madrid’s The Latino Century excerpts.
• Interview (in person or by phone, Zoom, or email) someone who has volunteered or worked in a recent campaign—local, state, or federal. Do not interview yourself or a member of this class.
• Use that testimony, plus Rauch’s “Political Realism” and other sources, to discuss how individuals benefit from working in campaigns, and how campaigns and party organizations serve (or disserve) the broader public interest.
• Evaluate whether modern identity-based appeals strengthen or weaken democratic accountability.

4. Across American history, protest movements have struggled to turn moral energy into enduring political influence.

• Compare Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” with Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (pp. xiii–97, 125–164).
• Pick a recent protest movement (after 2015, but not including No Kings).
• Examine its evolution using primary materials such as social-media posts, manifestos, nonprofit filings, or contemporary news coverage.
• Assess how effectively the movement turned public demonstration into institutional or policy change—and what that reveals about the possibilities and limits of democratic protest..

Whichever option you choose, use primary sources (e.g., judicial opinions, transcripts of oral arguments, speeches) and scholarly sources (e.g., articles in academic journals and law reviews).

Include at least one visual or data exhibit (e.g., image of a flyer, campaign finance chart, protest map) with a caption explaining its relevance.  It will not count against the page limit.

In the weeks ahead, you will make very brief (5-minute) oral presentations on your research.

Requirements

• Length: Essays must be double-spaced and no more than five pages long. I will not read past the fifth page.
• Format: Submit as a Word document only. Do not submit pdfs or Google docs. Cite all sources with endnotes (not footnotes) in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count toward the page limit.
• AI Policy: You may use AI to locate primary and secondary sources, but you may not copy AI-generated summaries or arguments into your essay. Misrepresenting AI output as your own work is plagiarism and may result in referral to the Academic Standards Committee.
• Writing: Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. Read Strunk & White and watch my writing lecture before drafting.
• Deadline: Upload essays to Canvas by 11:59 PM, Friday, November 21 (revised deadline). If you have trouble with Canvas, email it to me as a Word attachment. I reserve the right to dock essays a grade point for one day’s lateness, and a full letter grade thereafter.