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An eminent constitutional scholar reveals how our approach to rights is dividing America, and how we can build a better system of justice: “Incisive.” —Publishers WeeklyFinalist, American Association of Publishers Prose AwardYou have the right to remain silent—and the right to free speech. The right to worship, and to doubt. The right to be free from discrimination, and to hate. The right to life, and the right to own a gun.Rights are a sacred part of American identity. Yet they're also the source of some of our greatest divisions. We believe that holding a right means getting a judge to let us do whatever the right protects. And judges, for their part, seem unable to imagine two rights coexisting—reducing the law to winners and losers. The resulting system of legal absolutism distorts our law, debases our politics, and exacerbates our differences rather than helping to bridge them.As renowned legal scholar Jamal Greene argues, we need a different approach—and in How Rights Went Wrong, he proposes one that the Founders would have approved. They preferred to leave rights to legislatures and juries, not judges, he explains. Only because of the Founders'original sin of racial discrimination—and subsequent missteps by the Supreme Court—did courts gain such outsized power over Americans'rights. In this paradigm-shifting account, Greene forces readers to rethink the relationship between constitutional law and political dysfunction and shows how we can recover America's original vision of rights, while updating them to confront the challenges of the twenty-first century.“It is the argument of this important book that until Americans can reimagine rights, there is no path forward, and there is, especially, no way to get race right. No peace, no justice.” —from the foreword by Jill Lepore, New York Times–bestselling author of These Truths: A History of the United States“A superb stylist [with] an eye for the withering zinger.” —The Washington Post Book World“A provocative argument for more humility and listening, and less arrogance and dogmatism... Perfectly timed and passionately presented.” —Cass R. Sunstein, author of How Change Happens

With a foreword by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. An Engaging, Accessible Guide to the Bill of Rights for Everyday Citizens. In The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide, award-winning author and constitutional scholar Linda R. Monk explores the remarkable history of the Bill of Rights amendment by amendment, the Supreme Court's interpretation of each right, and the power of citizens to enforce those rights. Stories of the ordinary people who made the Bill of Rights come alive are featured throughout. These include Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharecropper who became a national civil rights leader; Clarence Earl Gideon, a prisoner whose handwritten petition to the Supreme Court expanded the right to counsel; Mary Beth Tinker, a 13-year-old whose protest of the Vietnam War established free speech rights for students; Michael Hardwick, a bartender who fought for privacy after police entered his bedroom unlawfully; Suzette Kelo, a nurse who opposed the city's takeover of her working-class neighborhood; and Simon Tam, a millennial whose 10-year trademark battle for his band'The Slants'ended in a unanimous Supreme Court victory. Such people prove that, in the words of Judge Learned Hand,'Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court, can save it.'Exploring the history, scope, and meaning of the first ten amendments-as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, which nationalized them and extended new rights of equality to all-The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide is a powerful examination of the values that define American life and the tools that every citizen needs.

This easy-to-read book about the United States for kids brings history and social studies classes to life as readers learn about the Bill of Rights, how they came to be, and what they mean. Here is a book that will be valued by teachers and enjoyed by young students.Parents, teachers, and gift givers will find:a clear explanation of each of the amendmentsfascinating facets of American constitutional history and lawa book that makes the Bill of Rights relevant to kids'livesBy 1787, the leaders of America's 13 newly-created states that had just won their independence from Britain convened to draw up the Constitution of the United States. However, citizens of many of the states feared that a new American government could take away certain of their rights, just as the British had done when they were colonies. It was soon agreed to add a series of ten amendments to the Constitution in order to guarantee specific rights to all citizens and states.

This book explores the state of rights in America, examines their roots, assesses their effectiveness, discusses their future, and considers how the experience of the U.S. in defining and securing rights can serve as an important source of ideas for other countries. Written by philosophers, legal scholars, and political scientists, the essays contained here consider how well constitutional rights have accomplished their purpose of securing basic liberties over the past 200 years and how well suited they are to protect our individual rights in the future, perhaps the next 200 years.At Brigham Young University's Political Science Department, Gary C. Bryner is Associate Professor. Bryner has co-authored Constitutionalism and Rights and co-edited The Constitution and the Regulation of Society also published by SUNY Press. At Brigham Young University's Political Science Department, A. Don Sorensen is Professor.