The Best Podcasts for Learning Constitutional Law

The United States Constitution is the most influential legal document in human history — and also one of the most contested. Every generation fights over what it means. The best constitutional law podcast episodes give you the tools to follow that debate at the level of legal scholars, not cable news pundits.

This track is structured around the Constitution's most important provisions, taught by three of the country's leading constitutional scholars — each representing a distinct interpretive tradition. Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law School approaches the Constitution as a coherent whole: he reads it alongside the full historical record of the founding, Reconstruction, and the 20th-century civil rights movement to argue for what he calls a "democratic Constitution." Randy Barnett of Georgetown argues from a libertarian originalist perspective: he believes the text means what it meant when ratified, and that modern expansions of federal power have systematically violated that original understanding. Kimberlé Crenshaw of Columbia Law School — who coined the term "intersectionality" — examines how constitutional doctrine has been interpreted and applied to marginalized groups, and where the gap between constitutional promise and social reality remains largest.

You don't need a law degree to benefit from these episodes. You need to understand how Marbury v. Madison gave courts the power to strike down laws. What "due process" actually means. Why the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause is the legal foundation for everything from school desegregation to marriage equality. And what the live debate between originalism and living constitutionalism means for the court decisions being made right now.