CENTER FOR LEGAL STUDIES

Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes citizens. Law shapes our daily lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, "Law is too important to leave to lawyers." Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (including sociology, history, anthropology, political science, and psychology) in order to explore the sociology of law and law's role. This course introduces the relationship between social, cultural, political, and economic forces on the one hand, and legal rules, practices, and outcomes, on the other. We focus on several important questions about law including: How do culture, structure, and conflict explain the relationship between law and society? Why do people obey the law? Why do people go to court? How does the legal system work? What is the role of lawyers, judges, and juries? How does law on the books differ from law in action? How do social problems become legal ones? How can law create or constrain social change?

Constitutional Law II: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

This course examines how the United States government has defined, expanded, and constricted the rights and liberties of U.S. citizens (and non-citizens) dating from the Founding era with a heavy emphasis on the Progressive Era to today. While we will examine how the U.S. Supreme Court has defined these rights and liberties, we will not confine ourselves to reading only Supreme Court opinions. We will also be interested in how other political actors (e.g., Congress, the executive branch, the states, and the mass public) have argued about, imagined, and effectuated limits on government power.

Crucially, this is not a constitutional law class or a “preview” of what a constitutional law class in a law school might be like. Instead, we will be focused on thinking about civil rights and liberties from a political and developmental perspective. To give just one example, the meaning and scope of First Amendment’s “free speech” clause has dramatically changed over time, especially within the past 100 years. In order to understand how and why our rights and liberties have been politically constructed and expanded (or truncated) we will situate the debates about our rights and liberties within the political, social, and intellectual environments in which they occur(ed). Thus, the material covered is organized chronologically rather than thematically.

This course will examine multiple features of the American criminal justice system that have provoked civil rights concerns and/or controversies, such as discriminatory policing practices, racial/ethnic disparities at various stages of criminal processing, the criminalization of poverty, and living conditions within correctional facilities. We will use these topics to address broader questions central to the law and society discipline, particularly by interrogating the capacity of civil rights law to meaningfully transform punishment practices and advance equity in the criminal justice system.

Also taught as HUM 370-6 and RTVF 379-0-21.

In this course, we will view non-fiction and hybrid films that revolve around crime, criminal justice, and criminal court cases. Our emphasis will be on cases that are either mired in controversy and/or emblematic of wider social concerns. Readings will accompany viewings and experts will weigh in with legal, philosophical or scientific perspectives: What is accurately depicted? What is omitted? What is misrepresented? Concurrently, we will investigate the films aesthetically: How is the film structured and why? What choices are being made by the filmmaker in terms of camera, sound and editing and how do these choices affect viewers? Throughout the course, we will consider the ethics of depicting real people and traumatic events. We will also look at specific films in regard to their legal or societal impact. Assignments will include a series of short response papers and a substantial final project, which can take the form of either (up to the student) a final 12-15 page paper or an 8-12 minute film. The final should center upon a legal topic. Ideas include, but are not limited to: A comparison of two films depicting the same criminal case, a polished/edited interview with a person somehow connected to a crime, an investigation of a local court or legal advocacy center. Group projects (two people max) will be allowed.

Legal Studies 398 is a two-quarter sequence (398-1 and 398-2) required for all Legal Studies majors. This seminar will expose students to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to law and legal institutions; over two quarters, students will develop their own research paper on a topic of interest. During winter quarter, students will complete their research projects and present their projects to the class. Students will meet to discuss shared readings, will workshop their paper drafts with one another, will prepare oral presentations based on their research, and will meet individually with the professor and with the Graduate Teaching Fellows.