CRJU 386 - Race and the Law

(3 credits)
Prerequisite: AFAM 200 or CRJU 101 or consent of instructor
This course focuses on the deep history of race in American law and the role of the American legal system in shaping notions of race as we experience them today. The course covers early American laws relating to slavery, Reconstruction-era Black Codes, Native American removal, anti-Asian laws and Jim Crow law. It considers the interpretations and impacts of the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause and the struggle for citizenship and civil rights in different historical eras. The course also examines how law has socially constructed whiteness as a racial category. Offered annually.