Show and Tell: Writing Constitutional Law Casebooks When the Law Doesn't Matter

Writing a constitutional law casebook today presents significant challenges. One reason among several stands out: law matters less—indeed, sometimes very little—to those charged with interpreting our constitutional law and implementing our constitutional system. This Essay examines this challenge and explains how my contribution to the constitutional casebook genre attempts to answer it. It argues that the current moment requires instructors, and the books they use, to “show”—that is, to demonstrate to their students both the handiwork of those interpreters and implementers and alternative pathways.

Sometimes, however, practical considerations preclude such showing. In those situations, “telling” may be required. But regardless of the modality, we need to reveal what is going on in the current moment. My book’s answers to these challenges are not the only possible answers; the very difficulty of writing a constitutional law casebook today yields a variety of reasonable and responsible approaches.

As one contribution to the search for solutions, this Essay is intended to engage in dialogue with the other essays, by other casebook authors, that compose this Symposium.