The Fourteenth Amendment provides that, among other things, no State shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This course will explore the meaning that the U.S. Supreme Court has given to these relatively innocuous words. Specifically, the first half of the course will be an examination of the birth, death, reincarnation, and continued life of substantive due process. The second half of the course will be an examination of the Court's equal protection jurisprudence. Canonical cases examined during the semester include The Slaughterhouse Cases, Lochner v. New York, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Lawrence v. Texas, and Grutter v. Bollinger. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.