LAW 489 - Race and the Constitution Sem

This seminar offers a broad overview of legal constructions of race and the theories that inform those constructions from the American founding to the present. The course will explore the ways in which American courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, have defined and constructed “race.” We will examine jurisprudence on Blackness, Indigeneity, and whiteness from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. The course begins with reviewing case law on race and secondary sources that contextualize that case law to put the court’s decisions into conversation with the societal, political, and economic period in which they take place. The second half of the course will shift to examining the theoretical frameworks that aid the court or should aid the court in making decisions about race, paying particular attention to colorblind constitutionalism and Critical Race Theory. This part of the course will address contemporary debates on the role of these frameworks in the media and public sphere.

The primary goal of this course is to introduce and encourage students to think critically about major theories and themes that inform modern debates about how the court should decide or interpret cases about race. It is merely an introduction and not a comprehensive survey on race and constitutional law. Due to time limitations and constraints, the course focuses exclusively on three racial groups. This is not to suggest that the topics covered in the course could not be applied to other racial groups. Instead, the course provides a theoretical framing that will help cultivate the ideas that can be applied to other facts. At the very end, the course will cover some scholarship on intersectionality, Asian, and Latina/o studies but that will not be the primary focus. Grading is based on (1) class participation; (2) weekly discussion questions; (3) a final 20-25 page research paper; (4) and a final in-class presentation.