The 28140 section of this course will be taught in person but with the option of occasional remote participation via Zoom. If students require all remote participation, they must register for the 28149 section of this course, which is identical but web-based.
This course will examine historic and contemporary issues of race within American law and jurisprudence. We will scrutinize how law has been used at the state and federal level to maintain systems of oppression, perpetuate hierarchy and how it has also been used as a tool to remedy those injustices. Critical Race Theory will be the primary lens through which we analyze the assigned materials. Through this course, students will learn substantive principles dealing with race; study the growing body of legal scholarship known as Critical Race Theory; and examine the inherent potential (and limits) of law to be used for social change. Grades for the course will be based upon class participation, a group presentation and completion of a paper (20 page double-spaced pages, inclusive of footnotes). Students’ papers may examine any issue concerning race (citizenship, education, health care, housing, criminal justice, etc.) so long as a substantial focus of the paper is an examination of doctrinal, theoretical, and/or policy-based facets of a legal problem and corresponding solutions.
Henderson, Shavonne 