It's Your Education, Make an Informed Choice.

In this course, students learn about the substantive area of Constitutional law and why the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights are so important to the American legal system. Students will discover how the legislative process involving proposals for new laws is conducted as well as how laws are reconciled with the Constitution. Participants will have an understanding of how laws are created -- at both a state and federal level -- and who exactly has the power of enforcing the established laws.

Constitutional law is a major substantive area of the law because the Constitution is the final word on the law of the land.

The Constitution

Constitutional law is one of the major substantive areas of the law. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land and upholding the Constitution was the first order of business as the U.S. emerged as a unified country organized around the concept of Federalism, a system through which the various layers of government cooperate to create and uphold the laws of an organized society.

Fears of the Framers of the Constitution

The framers of the Constitution believed the fundamental rights and liberties of the people must be protected by restricting the power of government. This limited the government’s ability to violate the rights and liberties of its citizens. The separation of powers and the system of checks and balances were built into our government by the language of the Constitution and, later, by amendments to it including the Bill of Rights to do just that -- protect the American people from a corrupt government.

Course Objectives

• By the end of this course, students will know the importance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to the interpretation and application of such law and the powers to create and interpret said law.
• Students are the path to making their own decisions related to other substantive areas of the law, including criminal, contract and tort laws. Participants will note that in all substantive areas of the law, at the federal or state level, the procedural law within the substantive areas ultimately relates back to the U.S. Constitution under the concepts of due process and equal protection.