Antidiscrimination Law LAW-610

This course will survey federal constitutional and statutory mechanisms designed to fulfill the promise of equality under the law. Students will learn to apply key antidiscrimination law doctrinal frameworks in several areas (including education, employment, housing, voting, policing, and marriage), and they will learn how these frameworks have applied to different types of discrimination (including discrimination based on race, sex, religion, disability, and sexual orientation). Students will also examine the conceptual assumptions and normative commitments that have shaped these doctrines, and they will be asked to compare alternative visions of equality with those embodied in existing law. The course will plot developments in antidiscrimination law along a temporal arc—from Reconstruction, through the civil rights movement, and to the present day. It will conclude by considering whether the current state of federal antidiscrimination law adequately addresses contemporary problems and whether, for example, it should be expanded to offer additional protections against immigration- and class-based discrimination or contracted to elevate the corrective role of markets.