LAW & SOCIETY

          Fall 2002

            Politics V53.0335; Law & Society Minor V62.0335

Professor Christine Harrington                                      Teaching Assistant: Tabatha Abu El-Haj
Office hours: Thurs. 11:30-12:30 at Politics                Office hours:  Tues. 3:30-5:30
and Wed. 4:00-5:00 at Law & Society                          taa205@nyu.edu
Christine.Harrington@nyu.edu                                       TBA

Politics 8-8509/ Law&Soc 8-6698                             

This course is an introduction to the study of law as a political practice. We treat law as a political practice from a multiple disciplinary standpoint, examining how law and a range of legal institutions embody and constitute political, cultural, economic and social forces.  We examine the mobilization of rights, the use of litigation and vernacular legal discourse, largely within the context of the United States, but with reference to transnational struggles. In the course of doing so, we study the relationship between making social policy and the use of litigation by social movements. Specifically, we study litigation strategies at the appellate and trial levels by focusing on three sociolegal movements:  the civil rights movement; the women's movement; and class action tort cases.  What are the political dimensions of legal arguments and legal remedies for racial and gender discrimination and toxic torts?  Under what conditions law is an empowering and/or effective political resource? What are the limits of legality in the making of social change?

You should read all the required materials before class and be prepared to discuss the major issues raised in the material as well as ask questions about the readings and the lectures.  You are also encouraged to read recommended readings, mentioned in the lectures and identified on the course outline below. There is a mid-term examination which is worth 40% of the final grade. The final examination covers the entire course material and is worth 60% of your grade.

Assigned Books

Harry P. Stumpf (1998) American Judicial Politics, 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall.

David M. Oshinsky (1996) AWorse Than Slavery@: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow   Justice. Free Press.

Mark Tushnet (1987) The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925-1950. University of North Carolina Press.

Elizabeth Schneider (2000) Battered Women & Feminist Lawmaking. Yale University Press.

Jonathan Harr (1995) A Civil Action. Vintage Press.

Materials in BOLD below are on the class Website or will be handed out in class.

Recommended

Richard Abel (ed) (1995) Law & Society Reader. NYU Press.

Adolph Reed Jr. (1999) Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era.    University of Minnesota Press.

Donald Alexander Downs (1996) More than Victims: Battered Women, The Syndrome Society, and the Law. University of Chicago Press.

           Course Outline

I. Law and the Political Process

   week 1:  Stumpf, American Judicial Politics, 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall, chapters 1 and 2

   week 2:  IBID., chapters 4, 6, and 7

   week 3:  IBID., chapters 8, 11 and 12

II. The Civil Rights Movement: Legal Remedies to Legalized Racial Discrimination

   weeks 4 and 5:

Oshinsky, AWorse Than Slavery@: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow   Justice. Free Press.

   weeks 6 and 7:

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Tushnet, The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925-1950.   University

of North Carolina Press.

            Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg BD of ED (1971) 

Milliken v. Bradley II (1977)

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)

             Oklahoma City v. Dowell (1991)

African-American Reparations Movement Materials

MID-TERM EXAMINATION-- October 19th

III. The Women's Movement: Legal Remedies to Domestic Violence 

   weeks 8, 9, 10: 

Elizabeth Schneider (2000) Battered Women & Feminist Lawmaking. Yale University Press.

      Nussbaum v. Steinberg (1994) 618 N.Y.S. 2d

Levinson, Betty & Craig Kaplan (1999) Nussbaum v. Steinberg: Brief for the Plaintiff-Respondent.

Schnieder, Elizabeth M. (1999) Nussbaum v. Steinberg: Memorandum of Law of Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent.

IV. Legal Remedies to Class Action Torts

   weeks 11,12 and 13: 

            Harr, A Civil Action. Vintage Press.

Schuck (1986) "Compensation," in AGENT ORANGE ON TRIAL

Ball (1986) "Rights and Remedies for the Downwinders," in JUSTICE DOWNWIND

V. The Law in American Politics

   week 14:

Stumpf, American Judicial Politics, chapter 13

FINAL EXAMINATION