Civil Rights

This survey course examines the causal and remedial relationship of law to racial discrimination.  The course begins with a historical overview of the law's engagement with race in order to understand the framework of US anti-discrimination law.  Competing visions of racial equality embedded in civil rights legislation, in case law and in legal discourse and theory are evaluated as well as critiques of traditional models of anti-discrimination law.   We will examine how the legal system has both enabled and constrained anti-racist politics, movements and objectives with particular attention to contemporary civil rights cases and controversies.