
Confronting Modern Case Law, Part 2
Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar continues his course on America's Unwritten Constitution by examining landmark Warren Court decisions through the lens of case law. He defends the school prayer rulings as protecting religious liberty and equality, then turns critical on Mapp v. Ohio, arguing the exclusionary rule overreached by freeing guilty defendants and breaking from longstanding practice. He traces one person, one vote from Reynolds v. Sims back to the Constitution's Republican Government Clause and Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The lecture closes with an overall assessment of the Warren Court, suggesting it was faithful to the Constitution's spirit even when it cited the wrong clause, and notes how both political sides now claim its legacy. Chapters mark each case discussion, making the argument easy to follow across roughly twenty-eight minutes of close constitutional analysis.