Term Paper Assignment
Introduction
This assignment is one in which you will examine one of the Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century that impacted civil rights and freedoms. Generally speaking, the Supreme Court was much more active in expanding civil liberties and protections in the twentieth century than during any other period of U.S. history.
For this paper, you will analyze a single Supreme Court decision from almost any point in this course (1914 through 2000). The only topics you need to avoid are subjects that do not fall within the time frame for this assignment or are not connected to the expansion of civil liberties in the United States (e.g. Korematsu v. United States). A list of pre-approved court cases has been provided for you as a handout in Canvas, but you are not limited to these topics. If there is another topic of interest, please contact me for approvalbefore you begin your research.
As a bit of advice, a lot of former students choose very large cases like Brown v. Board or Roe v. Wade with the thought that the more resources available the better, but the amount of information out there can be overwhelming and hamper your research (so you might find selecting a less well-known case makes for an easier paper).
Required Submissions
• Topic Approval (optional)
If you have decided to write on a case which is listed on the handout, you have the option to skip this step.
If you have decided to write on adecision that is not listed on the handout, you must submit a prospectus (formal proposal) that includes a detailed description of your project. The goal of a prospectus is to explain the main components of your paper, the key evidence, and the sources of that evidence.
The prospectus must include the subject of your research paper and a brief summary of the impacts and significance of the case. You must also include the specific sources where you found the information in your preliminary research. This is an ungraded assignment, but the subject of all papers not listed on the handout must be approved to receive credit for the other submissions listed below.
Any papers submitted with a non-approved topic will not be graded and will be marked as "Incomplete." If you have chosen a topic from the approved list, but you would like me to look over your sources and early research, feel free to send me a prospectus. There is no location within Canvas to upload the prospectus, so please submit the prospectus via email as a Word attachment.
Final Draft-
The paper will consist of a title page, three distinct and individual sections that focus on your selected Supreme Court case, and a works cited page.
Late papers are accepted, but they will receive a one grade (20 point) deduction for each day they are late, or any portion thereof. The last submission date for late papers is five days after the due date, at which point the assignment will be graded as an "Incomplete." Below is a description of each section.
Section I. This section should provide a short background of the case, including the circumstances of the initial arrest, incident, or challenge to established law. Include any information you feel is important for the reader to know in order to understand your subject. This section should be a minimum of one and a half pages in length.
Section II. This section should explain the decision by the court. This will include the motivations for the decision as well as an explanation of the dissenting votes (unless it was a unanimous vote, in which case you would analyze the legal arguments presented by the losing side in the case). This section should be a minimum of one and a half pages in length.
Section III. This section will analyze the significance of the case on civil liberties and should much more extensively researched than the first two sections (which are largely explanatory). Examine the outcomes of the decision in terms of immediate changes and their impact on other cases, if relevant. This section should be a minimum of two full pages in length.
Attachment:- Term paper topics.rar