| This course is intended as an introduction
into Civil Rights law in the United States. We will explore how the law can and does
reinforce or change the ways in which race, gender, sexual orientation and disability
effect social status in the United States, through the examination of history, court
opinions, and historical writings. Students will be expected to read approximately 150
pages of reading per week, write one three to five page essay and a final examination.
Final grades will be based upon the following distribution:
Mid-semester paper, 30%, 5-7 pages
Final Examination, 60%, 10-12 pages
Class Participation, 10%.
The following texts are required reading for the course, and are available at the
Jeffrey Amherst Bookshop in Amherst, as well as other (new and used) bookstores throughout
the valley:
A. Leon Higginbotham, Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the
American Legal Process (Race and the American Legal Process, Volume 2), Oxford
University Press, 1996
J. Harvie Wilkinson, From Brown To Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration,
1954-1978, Oxford University Press, 1981
Douglas S. Massey & Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the
Making of the Underclass, Harvard University Press, 1994
Andrew MacDonald, The Turner
Diaries: A Novel, Barricade Books, 1996 OR Margaret Atwood, The
Handmaid’s Tale, Fawcett Books, 1991 (Students whose surnames begin with A
through M should read MacDonald; N – Z should read Atwood.) Students should
read or download the MacDonald book from http://www.tiac.net/users/hatred/books/turnerdairies/dairies.html.
There are also two films required during the course of the semester, Birth of a
Nation, and the PBS American Experience documentary, "One Woman, One
Vote." Both films will be shown on Saturday mornings, where I will be available for
questions and discussion after the showing. Both films will also be available on reserve.
Material in these films is as important as the required print material, and is fair game
for examination use.
In lieu of a printed supplement, readings are also found on the Internet, linked to www.umass.edu/legal/civilrights.
These readings are required for the class, and include cases, statutes, and law review
articles pertinent to our discussions, and to the examination. URL’s for the
supplemental material are printed below. Note: One of the advantages of an Internet
syllabus is its mutability. Please be on notice of the fact that assignments may change
during the course of the semester. Check the online syllabus often for updates.
Students enrolling in this course should recognize the powerful emotional impact of
the subject matter. Materials utilized in this course may be upsetting. Students are
encouraged to articulate or share these experiences in class, or to seek me out
individually.
Syllabus:
January 28 Introduction
Saturday, January 31 Film: Birth of a Nation (approximately 3
1/2 hours)
Prior to viewing the film please read http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/birth.html
Also, please be prepared to reflect on the four discussion questions presented.
February 4 The History of Civil Rights in America, to Plessy
Reading Due: Higginbotham, to p. 107
Internet, United States
Constitution and Amendments
The Civil Rights Cases
Dred
Scott v. Sanford
Plessy
v. Ferguson
February 11 The History of Civil Rights in America, From Plessy to Brown
Reading Due: Higginbotham, pgs 108-193
Internet,
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Brown I)
Brown
II
February 18 No class.
February 25 The History of Civil Rights in America, the Development of
Affirmative Action
Reading Due: Wilkinson
Internet Regents
of University of California v. Bakke
March 4 The Development of Affirmative Action & Contemporary Solutions
Reading Due: Massey & Denton, to pg. 114
Internet Sheff v. O’Neil
March 11 The Political Economy of Racism, Sexism and Anti-immigrant Sentiments
Reading Due: Massey & Denton, 115 to 238 (end)
Internet Summary of Welfare Reform
Bill enacted 8/96
March 18 No Class.
March 25 Introduction to Progressive Constitutionalism
Reading Due: West, to pg. 101
April 1 Application of Progressive Constitutionalism: The First and Second
Amendments’ Conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment
Reading Due: West, pgs. 105 – 151
MacDonald or Atwood (SEE ABOVE)
Internet R.A.V.
v. City of St. Paul
Bowman v. Heller
URL tba
Saturday, April 4 Film: "One Woman, One Vote" (approximately
two hours)
April 8 Application of Progressive Constitutionalism: Voting Rights
Reading Due: West, pgs. 155 – 318 (end)
Internet 42 U.S.C. §1971
(Voting Rights Act)
Shaw
v. Reno (1993)
April 15 Contemporary Issues: Integration of Education after Brown, Bakke
and V.M.I.
Discusson of single sex education and equal protection:
Professor Val Vodjik, Professor of Law, Western New England College, School of Law
(Attorney to Shannen Faulkner, Plaintiff in the Citadel litigation) and Professor Martha
Acklesberg, of Smith College.
Reading Due: Internet Mississippi
University for Women v. Hogan (1982)
United
States v. Virginia
VMI Assimilation Information
Facts on Single Sex Education
for Women
April 22 Contemporary Issues: Legislation and Constitutionality
Reading Due: Internet Romer
v. Evans (1996)
California Civil Rights Initiative
April 29 Development & Implementation of Civil Rights Protections: State and
International Constitutions
Reading Due: Internet Re-Read U.S. Constitution and Amendments
South Africa
China Declaration of Human
Rights
May 6 Enforcement of Civil Rights Protections
Reading Due: Internet: NAACP Statement on Texaco
Settlement
Consent Decree,
Denny’s Case
New Massachusetts Commisions Against
Discrimintation Regulations
May 13 Wrap-Up
Recommended Reading
On Birth of A Nation
African-American men in film:
Images
of Race & Gender in O.J. Simpson & Susan Smith Trials
"Enforcing White
Womanhood"
On Dred Scott and Plessy
Some
basic history
Excerpt
from "Eyes on the Prize" Civil Rights Reader
The Amistad
Cases leading to Brown
Cumming
v. Bd. Of Ed of Richmond (1899)
Missouri
ex rel Gaines v. Canada (1938)
Sipuel
v. Oklahoma (1948)
Swett
v. Painter (1950)
McLaurin
v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950)
On Brown & Current Issues of School Integration
PBS Background Information
Brown v.
Board of Education: 40 Years Later
THE
END OF INTEGRATION: A four-decade effort is being abandoned, as exhausted courts and
frustrated blacks dust off the concept of "separate but equal" (From
"Time" magazine, 4/29/96)
Texas Monthly article
on Cheryl Hopwood
Hopwood circuit
court decision
A Not
Quite Color-Blind Constitution: Racial Discrimination and Racial Preference in Justice
O'Connor's "Newest" Equal Protection Jurisprudence
Letter of the General Counsel,
U.S. Department of Education, on racial preferences
Letter of the Office for
Civil Rights, Dep’t of Ed. On Hopwood
"Legacy of a Southern Town: Schools Still Split on Racial Lines," N.Y.
Times, Apr. 21, 1991.
"Kansas City Uncertain on Its Schools' Fate," N.Y. Times, June 14, 1995.
Gary Orfield et al., Tables on status of school desegregation, 1968-1986.
James Liebman, "Desegregating Politics: `All-Out' School Desegregation
Explained," 90 Colum.
L. Rev. 1463 (1990), pp. 1465- 73, 1619-30.
"History of the Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment," in Paul Brest and
Sanford Levinson,
Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (3d ed. 1992).
"Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Supreme Court Procedures," in
Paul Brest and
Sanford Levinson, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (2d ed. 1983).
J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American
Families.
Jennifer Hochschild, The New American Dilemma: Liberal Democracy and School
Desegregation.
On Current Supreme Court Doctrine
Race, Law and
Justice: The Rehnquist Court and the American Dilemma (an issue of the American University
Law Review devoted to the issue)
On Affirmative Action
"Toward
Equal Protection: A Review of Affirmative Action"
Jesse Jackson,
"Race-Baiting and the 1996 Presidential Campaign"
Equal Opportunities Denied: Case
Studies of Nine Victims of Affirmative Action
ACLU Briefing Paper on Affirmative
Action
McGeorge
Bundy on Bakke, 1977
Negative
Action Against Asian Americans: The Internal Instability of Dworkin's Defense of
Affirmative Action, 31 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (1996).
On Welfare Reform & Economic Issues
Corporate Welfare
Information Center
Will Class
Trump Gender? The New Assault on Feminism
The
Job Ghetto
Welfare Mom Home Page
In Depth Articles
from the New York Times
US Dep’t of Health &
Human Services on Welfare Reform
"Two Wrongs
Don’t Add Up to Rights: The Importance of Preserving Due Process in Light of Recent
Welfare Reform Measures"
Reconciliation Committee:
Personal Responsibility Act Report (10/11/96)
Anti-Immigrant Backlash, from the Public Eye
Dollars
and Sense: Diverse Perspectives on Block Grants and the Personal Responsibility Act
Welfare
Reform: An Analysis of the Issues
Nathan Glazer, "A Tale of Two Cities," New
Republic, Aug. 2, 1993, pp. 39-41.
"The Greening of America's Black Middle Class," N.Y. Times, June 18, 1995,
sec. 4, pp. 1, 4.
Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made.
Eric Foner, Reconstruction, 1863-1877: America's Unfinished Revolution.
C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town.
Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma.
Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed
America.
Thomas Byrne Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American
Politics.
On Voting Rights
The Center for Voting
& Democracy
NAACP Statement on Expiration of
Voting Rights Act
ACLU Policy Alert, 1995,
on Voting Rights
Reno
v. Bossier Parish School Board (1997)
"For Very Strage Bedfellows, Try Redistricting," N.Y. Times, July 23, 1995,
p. 16.
David Strauss, "The Myth of Colorblindness," 1986 Sup. Ct. Rev. 99.
T. Alexander Aleinkoff, "A Case for Race-Consciousness," 91 Columb. L. Rev.
1060 (1991).
Michel Rosenfeld, Affirmative Action and Justice.
Nathan Glazer, Affirmative Discrimination.
Joel Dreyfuss and Charles Lawrence III, The Bakke Case: The Politics of Inequality.
Russell Nieli, ed., Racial Preference and Racial Justice: The New Affirmative Action
Controversy
On the Women’s Suffrage Movement
Suffrage History
On Single Sex Educational Institutions
"Single Sex School
Experimentation"
"Single Sex Institutions: A
Historical View"
Pros and Cons: U.S. News
& World Report Panel
On Roemer v. Evans & Legislative Process
Interview with
U.S. Senator and Ambassador John Sherman Cooper
Labor Policy Association voting analysis
of federal legislation
On the First Amendment
Links
to many first amendment sites
Why civil
liberties pose no threat to civil rights. By Henry Louis Gates Jr.
A
Conversation with Catharine MacKinnon
A
Conversation with Camille Paglia & Christina Sommers
Catharine MacKinnon, "Francis Biddle's Sister," in Feminism
Unmodified, pp. 163-197.
Charles R. Lawrence III, "If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on
Campus," 1990
Duke L. J. 431.
Jeffrey Toobin, "X-Rated," New Yorker, Oct. 3, 1994, pp. 70-78.
Nan D. Hunter & Sylvia A. Law, "Brief Amici Curiae of Feminist Anti-Censorship
Task Force, et
al., in American Booksellers Association v. Hudnut, " 21 U. Mich. J. L. Ref. 69
(1987-88).
Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women.
Edward Donnerstein, Daniel Linz, & Steven Penrod, The Question of Pornography:
Research
Findings and Policy Implications.
Cass R. Sunstein, "Pornography and the First Amendment," 1986 Duke L.J. 589.
Richard Delgado, "Words That Wound: A Tort Action for Racial Insults,
Epithets, and Name-Calling," 17 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 133 (1982).
Lee Bollinger, The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America.
On The Turner Diaries, the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Militia Movement
History of National
Alliance, the author’s organization
Militia Task Force,
Southern Poverty Law Center
Hate Watch
On the Second Amendment
"The
Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration"
On the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments
Conservative
Interpretation
Clarence Thomas
Confirmation Hearing Transcript
ACLU brief in "don’t
ask, don’t tell" case
"The Rhetoric of Racism and
Anti-Racism in France and the United States"
"White Ethnics in the New York
Economy, 1920-1960"
Collected Nuremberg Laws
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