Constitutional Law and Business Ethics

Undergraduate

The purpose of this course is to explore how the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court case law have had an impact on business and commercial activities throughout U.S. history. We first identify provisions of the Constitution that relate to economics and familiarize ourselves with methods of constitutional interpretation, including originalism and living constitutionalism. We then apply this guiding framework to our analysis of key Supreme Court cases that have addressed the Commerce Clause, the Takings Clause, the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and a number of other constitutional provisions that relate to commercial exchange and the legal status of corporations. Additional concepts we discuss include the countermajoritarian difficulty, the rational basis test, strict scrutiny, substantive due process, fundamental rights, disparate impact, public accommodations law, antidiscrimination law, and antitrust law. The guiding question we confront is whether the courts should a.) defer to legislatures in regulating business actors; or b.) overturn democratically enacted laws to protect the economic liberties of individuals. T 1:30pm-3:25pm