Legal Studies Courses Fall 2026

This is a liberal arts course designed to introduce students to the foundational frameworks and cross-disciplinary perspectives from humanities and social sciences that distinguish legal studies as a scholarly field. It provides a comparative and historical intro to forms, ideas, institutions, and systems of law and sociological ordering. It highlights basic theoretical problems and scholarly methods for understanding questions of law and justice.

102: Policing and Society, Perry, 4 units, Area I

This course examines the American social institution of policing with particular emphasis on urban law enforcement. It explores the social, economic and cultural forces that pull policing in the direction of state legal authority and power as well as those that are a counter-weight to the concentration of policing powers in the state. Special attention is given to how policing shapes and is shaped by the urban landscape, legal to cultural.

103: Theories of Law & Society, Jason Ferguson, 4 units, Core (H, SS) or Area II

Surveys leading attempts to construct social theories of law and to use legal materials for systematic social theorizing, during the period from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. The course considers major discussions of such themes as the relationships between law, politics, society and economy; the connection between historical change and legal change; the role of law in the processes of social integration and social discipline; and the distinctive elements of legal ordering in the modern west.

113: Feminist Social Movements, Abrams, 4 units, Area I or IV

This course will survey recurrent dynamics of feminist social movements in the United States, while exploring in depth two contemporary social movements that aim to move the law in toward greater gender equality: the #MeToo Movement, and the movement to restore reproductive rights and advance reproductive justice after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The primary focus of the course will be on disputes within feminist movements about focus and reach of efforts to combat sexual violence and reproductive restriction: specifically, whether such movements serve primarily to advance the interests of the most privileged women, or whether they ground their work in intersectional analyses that respond to the lives of those impacted by other forms of discrimination. However, the movements, ideologies, and assumptions that work against feminist change in these areas will also be articulated and discussed.

132AC: Immigration and Citizenship, Christina Lee & Lisa Knox, 4 units, Area II or IV   

We often hear that America is a “nation of immigrants.” This representation of the U.S. does not explain why some are presumed to belong and others are not. We will examine both historical and contemporary law of immigration and citizenship to see how law has shaped national identity and the identity of immigrant communities . In addition to scholarly texts, we will learn to read and analyze excerpts of cases and the statute that governs immigration and citizenship, the Immigration and Nationality Act.

135: Law, Judicial Politics, and Rights in Latin America, Monica Castillejos Aragon, 4 units, Area IV or V
This course introduces the study of comparative constitutional law in Latin America and will prepare students to acquire substantial training on the existing legal traditions in the world: the common law and the civil law systems. We will study how political, social, and historical dynamics shape the work of state actors, such as the executive, legislative, judicial powers, as well as the legal profession, and civil society groups to mobilize legal and social change.

138:  The Supreme Court & Public Policy, Kyle Deland,  4 units, Core (SS) or Area IV or V

This course examines a number of leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions in terms of what policy alternatives were available to the Court and which ones it chose. Prospective costs and benefits of these alternatives and who will pay the costs and who gets the benefits of them are considered. Among the areas considered are economic development, government regulation of business, national security, freedom of speech and discrimination. Readings are solely of Supreme Court decisions.

141: Wall Street to Main Street, Mark Brilliant & Steven Solomon, 4 units, Area III (room-shared with American Studies 102 and History 133B)  

As longstanding metaphors in American history and culture, “Wall Street” and “Main Street” typically refer to streets that intersect at right angles and places that represent the antithesis of each other.  In this rendering, Wall Street is home to nefarious big banks and greedy financiers, while Main Street is home to wholesome “mom-and-pop” shops patronized by ordinary people of modest means. What’s good for one is not good for the other. This course, which will be co-taught by a historian and corporate law professor, will examine critical junctures in the intersection of Wall Street and Main Street in American history and culture, how and why Wall Street and Main Street have been understood to point in opposite directions, the extent to which that understanding makes sense, and how and why the relationship between Wall Street and Main Street has evolved over time.

142:  Monetary Law and Regulation, Bruno Meyerhof Salama, 4 units, Area III or V

This course surveys the history of US monetary law from its inception to the coming about of cryptocurrencies. We begin with a discussion of monetary affairs in colonial times and during the American Revolutionary War. We then examine the framework established at the Constitutional Convention. We cover the 19th century and New Deal Supreme Court cases that shaped US monetary law as we know it today. Finally we discusses contemporary legal dilemmas such as the regulation of bitcoin and stablecoins, the creation of central bank digital currencies, the workarounds of the US debt ceiling and the debate over the spectrum of the Fed’s legal authority. We conclude by revisiting some classic questions concerning the nature and functions of money.

143: History of Political Economy, David Grewal, 4 units, Area III or IV
This course surveys the history of political economy before the middle of the twentieth century aiming to give students a broad introduction to the way in
which modern economics emerged, and the varieties of schools of political economy that have been advanced since roughly the middle of the eighteenth century. It also surveys the critique of political economy in various eras, including recent criticisms of welfare economics and of economic inequality.

145:  Law & Economics I, Dhammika Dharmapala, 4 units, Core (SS) or Area III

This course introduces economics as a tool for analyzing, evaluating and interpreting the legal framework that underpins a market economy. The first part examines the most basic legal foundations of markets, namely property, contract, corporate, tort, administrative and criminal law. The second part introduces relevant topics in the regulation of markets. It covers a few conceptual questions (the role of efficiency considerations in law and policy, the concept of regulations and the role of courts, and the dilemma between growth and distribution) as well as applied topics such as insurance, bankruptcy, labor, family, antitrust, and intellectual property law.

154: Human Rights Research & Practice, Rohini Haar & Lisa Reinsberg, 4 units, Area IV

This course provides an overview of international human rights, including the field’s historical and theoretical foundations; the jurisprudence of international human rights; empirical insights from disciplines such as sociology, psychology, history, and anthropology; and emerging trends in human rights practice.

157:  International Relations & International Law, Lisa Reinsberg, 4 units, Area IV or V 

This course will evaluate and assess modern theories of international law. We will examine the work of legal scholars and look to political science and economics to see how these disciplines inform the study of international law. We will also examine a host of fundamental questions in international law, including, for example, why states enter into international agreements, why states comply with international law, and what kind of state conduct is likely to be influenced by international law.

158: Law and Development, Bruno Meyehof Salama, 4 units, Area III or IV

Focusing on developing countries, this course considers the relationship between legal institutions and rules – including informal and traditional ones – and develpment – defined by different actors by economic growth, education, health, or a wide spectrum of freedoms. It examines efforts by national leaders, international organizations, foreign aid agencies, and NGOs to “reform” law to promote development , along with the resistance and unplanned consequences that often ensue.

160:  Punishment, Culture, & Society, Nicole Lindahl-Ruiz, 4 units, Core (H,SS) or Area I or II

This course surveys the development of Western penal practices, institutions, and ideas (what David Garland calls “penality”) from the eighteenth-century period to the present. Our primary focus will be on penal practices and discourses in United States in the early 21st century. In particular we will examine the extraordinary growth of US penal sanctions in the last quarter century and the sources and consequences of what some have called “mass imprisonment.” To gain some comparative perspective the course will also take up contemporary penality (or penalities) in Europe, South Africa, Central America, and Asia, as well as US penality and society at some earlier conjunctures.
In our analysis of penality, we will draw upon a range of social science theories with general relevance but with particularly rich application to the study of punishment. These theories provide the “tool kits” we will use to interpret and analyze multiplex implications of punishment and its relationship to changes in economic, social, and political relations associated with modernization and more recently the globalization of modern capitalism. The course will examine many examples of penal practices and the ideas associated with them including mass imprisonment, the death penalty, and restorative justice. In the last portion of the class we will examine the recent crisis in California’s juvenile prisons through the lenses both of different social theories and the examples of different national and historical penal patterns.

162AC – Restorative Justice, Julie Shackford-Bradley, 4 units, Area IV

This course will examine the theory and practice of restorative justice, with an emphasis on the ways that criminal justice systems implicate the emotions and the social integration of both victims and offenders.  The course will begin with a critical examination of the current focus of the criminal justice system on retribution and incarceration. It will explore the racially disproportionate effects of this system, a product both of governmental failures to recognize the continuing economic, social and psychological effects of slavery and Jim Crow, and law’s failure to look beyond a narrow, individually-oriented notion of discrimination. The course will also interrogate the ways that existing approaches function – at times, purposefully – to foster vengeance and contempt toward offenders as a social category, complicating the process of re-entry and reintegration.

170: Crime & Criminal Justice, Nicole Lindahl-Ruiz, 4 units, Area I

This course introduces scholarly frameworks for thinking about crime and criminal justice, and traces through case law and scholarship the evolution of these earlier conceptions into today’s policy debates. It examines the scope and nature of crime in the United States from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on the uses and limits of the criminal justice system. The course will introduce concepts of criminal process and the main elements of the criminal justice system, including police, courts, and corrections. It will consider the main institutional features, problems, and critiques of the processes through which suspects are apprehended, tried, sentenced, and punished. Past and current trends and policy questions will be discussed.

177: American Legal & Constitutional History, Dylan Penningroth, 4 units, Core (H)  or Area II or III or V  (room-shared with Hist 129A)

This course explores the history of American legal institutions and doctrine from colonial times to the present. It deals both with the history of American constitutional law (through the study of major U.S. Supreme Court opinions) and with the development of certain important bodies of non-constitutional law, such as the law of property, the law of torts (civil wrongs), and criminal law. In exploring how American law has developed over time the course may serve as something of an introduction to our current legal and constitutional order.

184: Sociology of Law, Kristin Sangren, 4 units, Core (SS) or Area IV

This introductory course explores major issues and debates in the sociology of law.  Topics include theoretical perspectives on the relationship between law and society, theories of why people obey (and disobey) the law, the relationship between law and social norms, the “law in action” in litigation and dispute resolution, the roles of lawyers, judges, and juries in the legal system and in society, and the role of law in social change.  The course will examine these issues from an empirical perspective.

- SPECIAL TOPICS & HONORS Courses- 

190.1: Liberty, Equality, Privilege & the Constitution, Alan Pomerantz, 4 units, Area IV 

The course will examine current Supreme Court decisions that address the conflict between individual liberty and governmental mandated equality as informed by privilege. Specifically, recent Supreme Court decisions have addressed and modified numerous rights and liberties once thought to be protected by the Constitution, based on the Court’s current reasoning that when the Constitution is silent, or "neutral,"  the extent of protection from governmental abridgment of personal liberty and individual sovereignty should be left to the people and their democratically elected representatives.  Recent topics have included woman’s equality including abortion; LGBTQ+ rights including marriage equality and gender identity; the conflict between privacy and collective morality; religious exercise and state sponsorship of religious institutions; speech and expression; racial profiling; affirmative action; and voting. The class will be conducted primarily using the Socratic method. We will read important historical and current Supreme Court cases, as well as political and legal commentary from across the political spectrum. The prime focus of the seminar is to encourage students to develop and defend their own views and opinions regarding the relevant topics and to enhance their critical thinking skills.   

190.2:  Law, Economics, and Inequality, Dhammika Dharmapala, 4 units, Area III
Inequality with respect to income and wealth – both within countries and at the global level – has attracted increased attention and scholarly discussion in recent years. This course provides an overview of this topic and its relationship to law and legal institutions. Its conceptual framework draws primarily on the economic analysis of law and the theory of taxation, but also considers various other normative and theoretical perspectives, including those from moral philosophy. Topics to be covered include (but are not limited to) the following: the empirical facts on within-country and global income and wealth inequality; theories of distributive justice within societies and at a global level; economic perspectives on the use of private law doctrines to redistribute wealth; the relationship between meritocracy and economic inequality; the role of anti-discrimination law in reducing inequality; the role of the family in transmitting inequality; college admissions, social mobility and inequality; the impact of economic inequality on political equality; the history of restrictions on the electoral franchise and their relationship to political inequality; tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax havens and their impact on inequality.

190.3: Legal Anthropology, Kristin Sangren, 4 units, Area II or IV
This course aims to introduce students to the ways that anthropologists understand the place of law in human cultures and social organizations in historical and cross-cultural perspective. We will also investigate the roles that anthropologists have had in legal processes. Throughout, we will challenge ourselves to relativize our own culturally particular assumptions about rational modes of social organization and control, power, authority, vulnerability, and justice.

***CANCELED***190.6:  Family Policing & Defense, Meredith Ellen Wallis, 4 units, Area I or II
This class is on the law, practice and history of State removal of children to foster care, with family defense in California dependency serving as a case study. The course focus is not whether the system is good or bad, but what type of assumptions, familiar notions, and ways of thinking have contributed to family separation as an accepted practice for the protection of children and promotion of their well-being. Child welfare courts in California are considered non-adversarial—in fact they are called “collaborative”—and are technically civil (or at least quasi-civil), but the closest analog to the actual process is criminal law, i.e. adults receive charges from the State which, after adjudication, could result in the indefinite removal of a family member. Given this, the class would likely be primarily interesting to those looking to learn more about criminal defense in a parallel system, one which deals in managing risks, mostly those posed by poverty, substance use, and intimate partner violence. ***CANCELED***

190.7  Environmental Law, Lindsay Walter, 4 units, Area III or IV
This course will introduce students to the statutes and regulations governing the protection of natural resources and challenge students to think about how the legal, political, and theoretical structures advance or detract from the protection of our natural resources and for whose benefit. We will examine tensions within environmental law, and the readings and class discussions will require you to think critically and communicate verbally and in writing about complex ideas and laws. You will scrutinize environmental statutes, regulations, and policy documents; analyze seminal environmental law cases; read literature and journal articles from the social sciences; and develop an understanding of the practice and theory of environmental law.

190.8: AI & Emerging Technologies at the Religion-State Interface - Israel's Regulatory Laboratory, Dov Greenbaum, 4 units, Area II or III

When an AI triages patients, whose values does it encode? Should self-driving cars operate on the Sabbath? Is lab-grown meat kosher — and who gets to rule on foods that didn't exist when the rules were written? Can an algorithm decide who's Jewish?
Israel is a global tech powerhouse — and the only Western democracy where religious courts — Muslim, Christian, and Jewish — hold binding state power over citizens' lives, with no constitution separating religion from government. That collision produces governance challenges found nowhere else, and they're intensifying as AI, autonomous systems, and synthetic biology force every society to hard-code its values.
This seminar examines what happens at that collision point — and why it matters well beyond Israel. Every democracy is starting to face the same underlying problem: when you build AI systems, write platform rules, or regulate gene editing, you're embedding somebody's values. What do you do when your citizens fundamentally disagree about whose values those should be?
Each week we take on a different flashpoint — cultured meat and food security, genetic engineering and religious food law, deepfakes and election manipulation, military AI, predictive policing near holy sites, smart-city infrastructure on the Sabbath — through debate, simulations, and policy design exercises. We ask what Israel can learn from the U.S. and Europe, and what its decades of navigating technology across deep cultural divides can teach the rest of us.
Especially relevant for students interested in AI governance, tech policy, law, or public service. No background in Israeli law, Hebrew, or religious studies required.

190.11: On Tyranny, Kinch Hoekstra, 4 units, Area V