Political Science 020 Office: BT 455
Controversial Legal Issues Phone: 924-5346, email: kpnuger@email.sjsu.edu
Professor Ken Nuger Office Hours: 7:45-8:45, 10:30-11:45, T, Th
Spring, 2004 5:15-5:45, Th, and by appointment
Course Objectives
This course critically analyzes the complex relationship between individual liberty and the public interest. A major goal of this course is to introduce students to principles of critical thinking by examining legal environments that often embattle society against the individual. The goals of the class are diverse. First and foremost, students should become familiar with principles and patterns of critical thinking. Among some of the elements of critical thinking we shall explore are the following: 1) to understand the relationship between language and logic, 2) to distinguish informational claims from normative or prescriptive judgments, 3) to understand and practice the patterns of critical analysis and 4) to recognize how social applications of human self interest affect and distort sound analysis in the political arena. Since the course utilizes controversial legal issues as the subject matter in which critical thinking will be stressed, another course goal is to increase students' knowledge of the complex issues that frame these legal issues. Students will learn that legal issues cannot be fully appreciated without accounting for historical, psychological, sociological, economic and political realities. Students will become aware that controversy, if considered emotionally, breeds intolerance and ignorance. By definition, controversy suggests people find value in arguments others find abhorrent. The course will wrestle with why individual expressions of liberty often unsettle society. Exploring whether society chooses to favor individual rights or the public interest will prove a fascinating exercise in critical analysis. Another course goal is to acquaint students with traditional and electronic research materials. Finally, students will have ample opportunities to further develop their written and oral communication skills.
Student Learning Objectives
1. By studying the scientific method and applying it to controversial legal issues including, but not limited to racial discrimination, sexual orientation, search and seizure and cruel and unusual punishment, students will be able to better analyze, evaluate and construct their own arguments about issues of diversity, appreciate different viewpoints, evaluate factual claims and ultimately; more confidently employ analytical reasoning skills.
2. By studying the scientific method and applying it to all of the issues explored in this class, students will be able to recognize deductive and inductive reasoning patterns, including common fallacies inherent in reasoning through the logic of competing government policy options. Students will be able to better distinguish between fact and opinion, descriptive and evaluative statements and evaluate different types of reasoning.
3. By completing the course readings, taking part in class discussions, researching materials to develop arguments that lead to final research position papers, and by writing critical thinking evaluations on the research sources used to construct the research papers and by having professorial feedback regarding these writing assignments, students will be able locate, retrieve, organize and synthesize information relevant to the course.
4. By orally presenting their research to the class and participating in numerous class discussions about the course curricula, students will be able to communicate relevant information about the course and hone their qualitative reasoning skills by having to explain and rationally justify their reasoning processes and research conclusions.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK
Please purchase the following:
Domino, John, Civil Rights and Liberties in the 21st Century, 2nd Edition
Reading Packet on Critical Thinking (on reserve)
GRADING AND EVALUATION
There will be one midterm and one final exam. Each exam is worth 100 points for a total of 200 examination points. In addition, students will prepare two sets research papers and critical thinking evaluations on two issues subsumed within our four general units. Each research paper is worth 25 points and each critical thinking evaluation is worth 15 points for a total of 40 points per set. They will be due at the end of each unit as noted in the syllabus. When you write your critical thinking evaluation, you will be required to use the format found in the reading packet in Chapter 6, Critical Thinking Skills on page 109. Students writing research papers can earn up to two points of extra credit by presenting an article to class as our lecture begins to correspond to the article’s subject. Additionally, students may earn up to ten extra credit points for perfect attendance and conversely, lose two points for each absence past five absences (three weeks!) In sum, students have a chance to earn as much as fourteen extra credit points. We will also have a few short surprise quizzes, each worth five points. You have the option of dropping one of the quizzes. There are no makeup quizzes and no exceptions to this rule. Therefore, if we have five quizzes, I will add twenty points (five possible points x four non-dropped quizzes) to the base of 280 possible earned points. I would suggest that you do some research on your research paper early enough before it is due to find and interesting source to offer to the class.
CLASS FORMAT
After an initial analysis of basic critical thinking skills and constitutional theory, we will explore four general constitutional issues. Here is the format. We will spend approximately two to three weeks on each of our four constitutional units and, time permitting, a brief unit on gun control. Generally, I shall lecture on different aspects of each of our four general issue units. As we progress through these lectures, we will pause to discuss both compelling points related to lecture as well as relevant articles students bring to class who are writing research papers on topics related to our lectures. The article the student presents to the class must be a newspaper, magazine or journal article that illustrates how our topic or legal issue is affecting our society. If you wish to earn up to two points of extra credit, you may write a one page summary and opinion of the article, attach the article to it and turn it in to me. The purpose of this brief presentation is to augment our lectures with timely and interesting examples of the constitutional issue for which you are preparing your research paper. While not required, I would recommend that you use one of the articles you use to research your paper as the article to present to the class. We will discuss your articles as they become timely to our lecture. Your article’s class discussion value diminishes if we have to discuss it after we have progressed to new lecture ideas. This requires that you be prepared to discuss your article at the time we get to your topic in our lecture, so for you to take advantage of this extra credit, you must have your article ready to discuss and turn it to me when we get to the point in our lecture that corresponds with your article sooooooo..KEEP YOUR WITS ABOUT YOU AND KNOW HOW THE UNIT’S LECTURES ARE PROGRESSING! I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU HAVE YOUR ARTICLE AND SUMMARY FINISHED WHEN WE START EACH UNIT SO YOUR CHANCE TO DISCUSS YOUR ARTICLE AND EARN EXTRA CREDIT DOES NOT ACCIDENTALLY PASS YOU BY.
Each student will be assigned two units in which to prepare two sets of written papers which as a set shall include a 4-5 research paper on some issue related to the unit you are assigned as well as a critical thinking evaluation. The critical thinking evaluation shall be approximately 3 pages and will evaluate the credibility of one of the research sources you used in preparing your research paper. The research resource you use for your critical thinking evaluation must be no less than 1000 words. If I have any doubt that the article is less than this 1000 word minimum, I will deduct two points from your grade on the critical thinking evaluation. The research source may not be a chapter in a book or an official government document, like a court case. It must be a topical article of some type in which the author takes a position on the issue. Feature articles in newspapers, magazines or journals will have a format that will allow you to complete the critical thinking evaluation as completely as possible. If the set of papers is turned in late, each paper will receive a two-point penalty. Your research paper will be graded on both substance and style. You can earn up to 20 points on the substance of your paper and up to five points on the paper’s style. Style points are earned with an appropriate title, footnotes and bibliography. The critical thinking evaluation must have a copy of the evaluated article attached to the evaluation, with notations marked within the article body indicating what question of the evaluation the marked article section pertains to. Failure to appropriately synchronize the article to your evaluation will result in a one point penalty. Because I cannot grade a critical thinking evaluation without an appropriately annotated article, any evaluation without the accompanying article will receive a zero grade. Finally, it is important that you keep all graded work. If there is a question about what you earned on any given assignment, you can easily correct any errors by showing me the work in question and the grade it received. If you are absent when assignments are handed back, it is your responsibility to come to my office to get your graded work.
Please note: The absolute last moment I will accept any late work is the last moment of our last day of our regularly scheduled class, not the day of the final exam.
ATTENDANCE
Attendance will be recorded each day but you get 3 weeks (three class days of vacation). You will start with 9 extra points but for each day of class you miss you will lose three points. For example, if you attend every class, you keep your 9 extra credit points. If you miss three classes, you lose the nine extra points you started with. You will continue to lose three points per class for every class you miss after three missed classes but now the points you lose come from the points you have earned on your assignments and tests. Not only is this a good way to encourage you to attend this class, as if you need any encouragement, but just being in class regularly will help you better learn the material and do better on tests and quizzes.
Miscellaneous Grahdoo: The following contains important and/or useful information about this course.
Accommodations: If you need accommodations because of a disability or if you wish to provide emergency medical information, please make an appointment to see me during my office hours as soon as possible.
General Education: This course meets the lower division general education requirement in A3, Critical Thinking.
Electronic slave devices. Please turn off or to silent operation any cellphones, pagers, beepers, etc. If you are expecting an emergency call or page, and have to have the device on, please sit near the classroom door and as soon as your electronic slave device activates, quietly leave the room and tend to your business in the hall.
FINAL WORDS
You will be expected to conduct yourself in a mature, responsible, and most of all, creative manner. Ponder intensively! Question that with which you disagree! Discuss! Never assume without understanding. As John Stuart Mill insightfully pleaded more than a century ago:
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker, it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.
But do not grow complacent: To wit:
Semester schedule
January 29th to February 19th: Introduction to Critical Thinking, Legal Reasoning and Constitutional Analysis
Critical thinking course reader, on reserve (don't read the last article on guns, that comes later)
Domino, Ch. 1, Introduction
Unit One: February 19th to March 2nd: Expressive Freedom and the First Amendment. Research papers and critical thinking evaluations for group 1 are due on March 2nd.
Domino, Ch. 2, Freedom of Expression
Domino, Ch. 3, Obscenity and Offensive Speech
Mini Unit: March 11th: States’ rights, nonfundamental freedoms and the Second Amendment right to bear arms. (No research papers on this mini unit)
Read the article in the course reader on guns and the second amendment, review for the midterm examination
March 18th: Midterm Examination
Unit Two: March 25th to April 15th: The Constitution and Criminal Justice. Research papers and critical thinking evaluations for group 2 are due April 15th.
Domino, Ch. Due Process Rights and Criminal Justice
Unit Three: April 15th to April 29th: Privacy. Research papers and critical thinking reviews for group 1 are due April 29th.
Domino, Ch. 6, Privacy
Unit Four: April 29 to May 13th: Equal Protection of the Laws. Research papers and critical thinking evaluations for group 2 are due May 13th.
Domino, Ch. 7, Equal Protection of the Laws
May 13th: Finish Equal Protection, course conclusion, review for the final exam and course evaluations.