Political Civil Rights

Catalog description

The purpose of this course is to provide students with a survey of current and emerging issues in American civil rights litigation. It defines civil rights broadly and incorporates issues related to food justice as well as traditional doctrines addressing discrimination based on race, gender and other identities. As a start, the materials on racial discrimination serve as an anchor. The foundational framework for our civil rights laws is directly related to our racially discriminatory laws. For that reason, the course starts with landmark cases and historical developments impacting the social and legal treatment of blacks and other communities of color. Additionally, it asks students to think about what law is, what law is doing, and what it should be. The coverage, then, expands to the diverse areas of civil rights laws. Throughout, students will learn the contours of each doctrine, the principles that form it and their practical relevance. This begins with a discussion of racial discrimination as the catalyst for civil rights jurisprudence in America. The Civil Rights Act and relevant doctrines of the 14th Amendment are important to understanding the development of civil rights litigation. Ongoing and emerging issues affecting gay, transgender, women, nonconforming individuals, and poor classes are also covered as vibrant parts of civil rights jurisprudence. To this end, the course's materials are divided into three parts: the first part deals with foundational and historical issues that impact today's jurisprudence. Chapters in this first section examine the road to Brown and the struggle for desegregation in school systems nationally. It also discusses pre and post Reconstruction cases and statutes still relevant today. The second part examines in detail the cases and laws that make up the modern civil rights landscape. As such, it starts with the Civil Rights Act and a close examination of Title VII, Tile IX and Title VI. This section also includes cases that make up the voting rights canon as well as chapters on disability law, language minorities, and gender discrimination. The third section delves into a study of emerging issues in the twenty-first century. In these materials, relevant issues include the struggle for sustainability as civil rights issues, food justice, gender identity, sexual orientation, and same sex marriage.