Reading Notes

In late 1998, Qi Yuling discovered that a former classmate had used her identity and admission notice to take her place at a technical secondary school eight years earlier. This episode traces how the Supreme People’s Court brought the constitutional right to education into a civil dispute through its 2001 Reply No. 25—and why the reply’s repeal seven years later left the debate over judicial application of the Constitution unresolved.

Free speech in the United States is not without limits. Through a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases, this article traces the development of the rules governing restrictions on speech.

In 1984, protester Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag during the Republican National Convention and was convicted of a crime. Beginning with Texas v. Johnson, this episode explains why political flag burning became expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment—and whether the government may impose criminal punishment simply because a political message offends the public.

Why is the Fourteenth Amendment sometimes called America's “Second Constitution”? This article traces its development from Reconstruction to the present, explaining the Privileges or Immunities, Due Process, selective incorporation, substantive due process, and Equal Protection Clauses through landmark cases including Brown, Roe, and Dobbs.

How could a manifestly defective death investigation survive layer after layer of review and nearly send two innocent people to execution? Beginning with an uncleaned silver test needle, this episode traces how a botched autopsy, torture, fabricated corroboration, and five levels of review turned prejudice into an “iron case”—and how gentry networks, newspapers, and imperial power finally reopened it.