LAW 7123 :
Race and the Law

This course will provide an overview of the legal treatment given to race in the United States. The class will consider the legal and historical experiences of the five major racial groups in this country: African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos/as, Native Americans, and White Americans. Students will have the opportunity to study and assess a variety of issues, including: (1) the meanings of race and racism, as well as their manifestations in the law (2) the relationships among race, citizenship and the construction of our political community; (3) the development of legal doctrines pertaining to race, with a specific emphasis on doctrines of equality; and (4) the relevance of race in a post-Civil Rights world. Some of the specific topics we will consider are slavery, immigration, and conquest/colonization; Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement; the importance of race in writing the Constitution; the process through which various groups of Europeans became White; affirmative action; voting rights; and finally, reparations for previously-interned Japanese-Americans and the question of reparations for the descendants of African slaves.