Originally Posted: March 20, 2017
Associate Professor of Political Science Joe Kobylka and the students in his Honors Program class “The Supreme Court Seminar” are spending six days in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., doing research in the papers of former Supreme Court Justices. Each student has developed a unique research topic, question, and design, and will use the justices’ papers to find evidence to help answer the question and write a culminating original research paper.
An update from Greg G., a sophomore majoring in statistical sciences, and minoring in computer science and history:
For all of us on the trip, our ability to easily sift out information that’s unlikely to help us and picking out useful quotes, memos, and snippets of conversation between the Justices has grown leaps and bounds over the past week. After reviewing thousands of pages, it’s easy to become a little numb to the material passing through your hands. One thing that’s easy to miss after the shell shock of research hits you is the sheer number of drafts that the Justices go through in preparing their final opinions.
Take Justice William O. Douglas as an example: An incredible scholar, hugely successful lawyer, and long-time judge on the highest court of the land. Despite the credentials, his drafts often bleed red and blue ink with all the markups. Below you can see his letter to Justice Black explaining his struggle to articulate his viewpoint and several pages with markups. READ MORE