Throughout U.S. history, race has been inextricably linked to law: both the perpetuation of racism and the struggle against it have taken place in various legal institutions. This 8-credit program provides an opportunity to think critically about the relationship between race and U.S. law. The program will begin with the histories of colonial settlerism, native dispossession, and Black bondage, move through emancipation, racial segregation, selective migration/immigration, the Civil Rights movement, and the neoliberal era. Grounded in the recognition that U.S. law has functioned to not only regulate race but also construct and police its boundaries, this program will provide students with a rich historical framework for understanding contemporary crises. The program will employ an interdisciplinary and comparative approach grounded in historical and legal analysis. Students are encouraged to make connections and introduce questions on issues that concern them in our current legal, political, and societal moment. There are no prerequisites for this class, but students should be prepared to engage with a variety of materials through close reading, class discussions, written reflections, and academic research.

At the end of this program, students should be able to:

• Identify and describe major throughlines and transformations in the legal histories racialized differentiation, subordination, expropriation, and exploitation.
• Analyze and compare historical and contemporary perspectives on race and legal institutions and interpretations.
• Integrate primary and secondary sources to develop historically and legally grounded analyses and arguments about race and law.
• Explain how and why socio-cultural factors influence our understanding and experience of race and U.S. law.

This class will meet twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, in person on the Olympia campus. In addition to attending these class meetings, 4 hours of learning will be conducted asynchronously. This asynchronous work will consist of viewing and analyzing recordings, listening to and analyzing audio recordings, participating in individual and group research projects, completing writing workshops, and engaging with discussion assignments. Students should expect that this asynchronous work will add between 3-4 hours of active learning in addition to the 4 hours of attending the synchronous in-person meetings.

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:

4 - History: Race and Law

4 - Race and Ethnic Studies: Legal Institutions