Assigned Inspiration

My Civil Procedures professor has us reading Storming the Court: How a Band of Law Students Fought the President - and Won by Brandt Goldstein. The book is fairly light reading (especially in comparison with my Contracts casebook). She has us reading it because she is a bleeding-heart-liberal (her words, not mine), which, of course, I love, and because much of the book hinges on key moments of procedure. It helps you learn and appreciate their importance just as when reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air you learn and appreciate some of the pivotal elements of technical climbing. Now, don't worry Mom and Dad, she has us reading plenty of weighty papers and cases to make sure we understand it all in depth. This is just to charge us up and give it some inspiring context.

In addition to being a fascinating and inspiring read about some very determined law students and lawyers, it is incredibly relevant to many current and (if we continue down this foreign policy path) many future political situations. It particular it deals with the legal rights of non-citizens under US care on foreign soil that is fully under US Military control. In other words, it hinges on how the US can and cannot treat non-citizens being held, against their will, at Guantanamo and whether or not the US president has the right to make the decision to override established law. The non-citizens in this situation are Haitian refugees fleeing a political coup not Middle Eastern detainees, and the US president is Bush Sr. not Bush Jr.

I promise not to recommend that you read anything else I'm reading here this semester (unless you are suffering from insomnia), but you should pick this up. Make it your last summer read.