“Tell me what you know about Mr. Hamdi,” came the opening directive from Professor Scott Himsel to his constitutional law class on this Thursday morning.
As the 19 students sitting around the conference table in Baxter Hall begin unraveling the day’s featured court case, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which questioned the U.S. Government’s ability to detain a citizen as an alleged enemy combatant indefinitely without counsel, charges, or trial. Himsel listened, asked more questions, and he prodded.
“Now that you’ve stated your position, let’s flip you around,” he said to one student. “Make the case for the government. I’m asking you to wrestle with this for a bit.”
Himsel also had an ace up his sleeve. Sitting just to his left was Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and the first person to argue a case on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.
This was first-person source material, and the relevance was not lost on the students.
“With the case we were discussing today, and him being the first to set some of this in motion, it was really eye opening from a procedural aspect,” said Justin Spurgeon ’26, a political science major from New Albany, Indiana, as class let out. “He had awesome insights. For him to be here was a blessing.”
The discussion continued with Himsel guiding and Chemerinsky adding helpful details, hands continue to go up, the dialogue is constant. At one point, Chemerinsky explains how everything was difficult, logistics, trust, rapport, and delays.
When claims of executive privilege come up, Chemerinsky added, “That’s what I fought hardest against.”
Every student participates, some repeatedly. As the group gets deeper into the case, a discussion of the balance of individual rights vs. the government’s power to fight terrorism ensues.
Guys deliberately consider points and ask questions, each one adding to the experience without trying to own it.
“The students were dazzlingly impressive,” Chemerinsky said, “and I admired the craft with which Professor Himsel conducted the class, how he got all the students participate in the level of sophistication of the discussion. Especially in that last turn around the table, practically everybody raised their hand to speak. I aspire to that when I’m teaching a seminar. Rarely can I achieve what he did today.”
Spurgeon returned the compliment.
“Those are the kinds of discussions we aim for every day,” he said. “Dean Chemerinsky definitely added to it by being here. For the guy who started this to be here today was just awesome. It was my favorite day of class.”
