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With all of this talk about "originalism," I want to share how I teach it in my survey classes. Usually, when I start my units on the Framers and the Constitution, I& #39;ll start off by asking my students to name some of the Founders. We get the usual suspects: Washington, Adams,
2/Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, etc. I usually make some innocuous-sounding statement, like "these were the guys who created our government. All their faults aside, they obviously did something great, right?" I& #39;ll usually get some affirmative responses. I& #39;ll then say
3/something like "there are many people in our government who believe that the best way to interpret the Constitution and make and evaluate laws today is by asking themselves a simple question: & #39;what would the Founders think about this law?& #39;" I then say something like
4/"I think we can all agree that people like Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison are far superior to the crop of politicians we have today, right?" Again, I& #39;ll usually get a bunch more yeses and head nods. Then I say "Let& #39;s see if that& #39;s true." And I invite them to play
5/ a little game. I tell them all to stand up. I explain that this is the American electorate in 2020. This is the "people." These are the people who--we at least claim--should have full rights as citizens. I ask them to look at each other and tell me what kind of
6/people they see (and this is where teaching in a very diversely-populated school is wonderful). Obviously, they point out that standing up are blacks and whites and hispanics and Asians, men and women, and probably rich and poor. I say "this is a good thing, right?"
7/to which almost everyone says yes. I then say "ok, now let& #39;s look at those whom the Founders--those really awesome men who we all just admitted should be the arbiters of what we think is just--wanted to be part of & #39;the people& #39;--in other words, who did the Founders believe
8/should have full rights of citizenship?" I start off by saying "ladies, please sit down." Half the class is left standing. Then I say "anyone not white, sit down." Then I ask who is left. When they say "white men," I explain that this is still too many. I ask anyone who
9/is not independently wealthy, either by owning their own business or having a large amount of land/property to sit down. (I sit down at this point as well). Usually by this point everyone in the room is sitting. "Understand?" I then ask? Then we talk about this ridiculous
10/idea that the Founders were somehow infallible, and that we, today, should bow to their every belief. Because if we did, we would really, really dislike the world we& #39;d be living in. I think it gets the point across.
