Law-Related Courses
You may use up to 2 law-related courses from outside the Legal Studies Program to count towards the Distribution Requirements, for a maximum of 8 units from the U.S. or a maximum of 12 units from abroad.
Outside courses are an option, not a requirement. Outside courses should normally be drawn from the pre-approved list of law-related UCB courses, but may be approved from other four year institutions, or from study abroad programs.
If a course you are considering is not on the pre-approved list or listed in 'Course Offerings', you must submit a syllabus and description to the Legal Studies Academic Advisor via e-mail for approval.
Submit no more than two syllabi for consideration. All courses taken for the major must be taken for a letter grade.
AAS 141 Law in Asian American Community (4) Course will examine the nature, structure, and operation of selected legal institutions as they affect Asian American communities and will attempt to analyze the roles and effects of law, class, and race in American society. (Area II or IV)
Anthro 157 Anthropology of Law (4) Comparative survey of the ethnography of law; methods and concepts relevant to the comparative analysis of the forms and functions of law. (Area II)
Chicano Studies 174 Chicanos Law & Criminal Justice (4) An examination of the development and function of law, the organization and administration of criminal justice, and their effects in the Chicano community; response to these institutions by Chicanos. (Area I or II)
ESPM 162 Bioethics & Society (4) Exploration of the ethical dilemmas arising from recent advances in the biological sciences: genetic engineering, sociobiology, health care delivery, behavior modification, patients’ rights, social or private control of research. (Area II or IV)
NOTE: This course is currently undergoing changes Fa18. The new Fa18 version will not count towards the Legal Studies major.
ESPM 163 AC Environmental Justice: Race, Class, Equity & the Environment (4) Overview of the field of environmental justice, analyzing the implications of race, class, labor, and equity on environmental degradation and regulation. Environmental justice movements and struggles within poor and people of color communities in theU.S., including: African Americans, Latino Americans, and Native American Indians. Frameworks and methods for analyzing race, class, and labor. Cases of environmental injustice, community and government responses, and future strategies for achieving environmental and labor justice. (Area II or IV)
Ethnic Studies 144AC Racism and the U.S. Law: Historical Treatment of Peoples of Color (4) Intensive histori-legal survey of racism in theUnited States, exploring the legal antecedents of the country’s contemporary stratified society and emphasizing the role of law as a social policy instrument.Readingsand lectures will investigate the prevailing legal currency of racism in theUnited Statesthrough an examination of the country’s formative legal documents and the consequent effects of a myriad of judicial decisions on peoples of color. (Area II or IV)
UGBA 107 Social & Political Environment of Business (3) Study and analysis of American business in a changing social and political environment. Interaction between business and other institutions. Role of business in the development of social values, goals, and national priorities. The expanding role of the corporation in dealing with social problems and issues. (Area III)
UGBA 175 Legal Aspects of Management (formerly BA 175) (3) An analysis of the law and the legal process, emphasizing the nature and functions of law within the U.S. federal system, followed by a discussion of the legal problems pertaining to contracts and related topics, business association, and the impact of law on economic enterprise. (Area III)
Global 173 International Human Rights (4) (formerly known as PACS 126) International Human Rights (4) (Area IV or V)
This course will explore the philosophical evolution of human rights principles in the realm of political theory and the influence of such principles as they have transformed into a coherent body of law. We will focus specifically on issues in international human rights law; the approach will be both thematic and comparative. Topics will include but are not limited to: human rights diplomacy; the influence of human rights in international legal practice; cultural and minority rights; genocide and the world community; cultural relativism and national sovereignty; international law and international relations; individual and collective rights; migration, labor, and globalization; and national, international, and nongovernmental organizations.
History 100 Asian American Legal History (A defining feature of Asian American history has been the engagement between the Asian American community and the law. In the face of racial discrimination, Asian immigrants and Asian Americans turned to the court system to defend their economic, social, and political rights. These efforts not only empowered and defined the Asian American community, they also shaped American law and policy in ways that impacted American society as a whole. This course will proceed along both chronological and doctrinal lines. Tracing the relationship between Asian Americans and the law from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, we will pay particular attention to the development of the equal protection doctrine, immigration law, citizenship law, property law, labor law, the First Amendment, the legal profession, and criminal law. (Area II or IV)
ISF 100E Globalization of Rights, Values and Law in the 21st Century (4) This interdisciplinary course is an introduction to the complex interplay of transnational values, international rights and legal institutions that increasingly govern social, cultural and geopolitical interactions in our contemporary world. Theoretical and methodological tools from the social sciences, jurisprudence, and philosophy will be applied in the analyses of these interplays. A study of rights and norms presupposes not only an understanding of the empirical evolution of rights traditions (including constitutional traditions) in a variety of global regions, but also an understanding of the theories of rights and laws that support such traditions as they are embedded in them (just war theories, peace theories, etc.) The study of rights and norms also requires an exploration of the transformations of crucial international norms and rights due to the formation of supranational institutions and organizations in the 20th century (UN, UNESCO, GO’s, etc.). The course will provide the students with an opportunity to place emerging transnational rights institutions into a historical and geopolitical framework. (Area II or IV or V)
Media Studies 104A Freedom of Speech and the Press (3) The course considers the philosophical and historical underpinnings of the First Amendment guarantee of press freedom, with particular emphasis on the practical implications of major Supreme Court decisions. The focus is on the contemporary legal rights and obligations of the print and broadcast media with regard to libel, privacy, prior restraint, fair trial/free press, newsgathering, and access to information. (Area IV)
Media Studies 104D Privacy in the Digital Age (3) (Area I or IV)
This course examines issues of privacy in contemporary society, with an emphasis on how privacy is affected by technological change. Modern privacy is informed by a patchwork of overlapping constitutional rights, statutory laws, regulations, market forces and social norms. Thus, although the U.S.
Constitution does not contain the word “privacy,” the concept remains an important part of our legal and cultural experience. After an introduction to features of the American legal system and the theoretical underpinnings of privacy law, we will consider privacy in the context of law enforcement
investigations (including what it takes for the government to track your movements or read your email), national security (such as when the government can get a secret foreign intelligence wiretap), government records and databases (including how to get access to them), newsgathering torts,
protections for journalistic work product, First Amendment limitations on privacy regulation, and international perspectives.
NATAMST 100 Native American Law (4) Historical background of the unique relationship between the United States government and Native American tribes, and examination of contemporary legislation, court cases, and federal, state, and local policies affecting Native American social, political, legal, and economic situations. (Area II or IV)
NATAMST 102 Critical Native American Legal and Policy Studies. (4) Key contemporary issues in the critical study of tribal and federal policy pertaining to American Indians and Alaska Natives in the U.S. Topics include political and cultural sovereignty; religious, gendered, sexual, racial, and other tribal minorities, and civil rights within tribes; Native legal identity and tribal enrollment; the role of violence against women in the history of colonialism, and the struggle for justice and healing; and the movement for traditional or other culturally appropriate forms for tribal self-governance. (Area IV or V)
PACS 126 International Human Rights (4) (Now known as Global 173)
This course provides an overview to the historical, theoretical, political, and legal underpinnings that have shaped and continue to shape the development of human rights. Students are introduced to substantive topics within human rights and provided an opportunity to develop critical thinking, oral presentation, and writing skills. We discuss where the concept of human rights originates, how these ideas have been memorialized in international declarations and treaties, how they develop over time, and how they are enforced and monitored. We examine a variety of issues and encourage students to think differently–to analyze world and community events through a human rights framework utilizing some of the necessary tools to investigate, research, and think critically about human rights and the roles that we may assume within this arena. The course requires two six-page papers, participation in a team debate, and an independent reading assignment. (Area IV or V)
PACS 127 Human Rights & Global Politics (4) After World War II, we witnessed a “revolution” in human rights theory, practice, and institution building. The implications of viewing individuals as equal and endowed with certain rights is potentially far reaching as in the declaration that individuals hold many of those rights irrespective of the views of their government. Yet, we also live in a world of sovereign states with sovereign state’s rights. We see everyday a clash between the rights of the individual and lack of duty to fulfill those rights when an individual’s home state is unwilling or unable to do so. After introducing the idea of human rights, its historic development and various international human rights mechanisms, this course will ask what post-World War II conceptions of human rights mean for a number of specific issues including humanitarian intervention, international criminal justice,U.S.foreign policy, immigration, and economic rights. Looking in-depth at these five areas, we will ask how ideas about human rights, laws about human rights, and institutions to protect human rights have on how states and other global actors act, and how individuals have fared. (Area IV or V)
Philosophy 104 Ethical Theories (4) The fundamental concepts and problems of morality examined through the study of classical and contemporary philosophical theories of ethics. (Area II or V)
Philosophy 115 Political Philosophy (4) Analysis of political obligation and related problems. (Area V)
Political Sci 112B History of Political Theory (4) Early modern political thought up to the French Revolution, including Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. (Area V)
Political Sci 124C Ethics of Justice in Intl. Affairs (4) Should nations intervene in other countries to prevent human rights abuses or famine? On what principles should immigration be based? Should wealthy states aid poorer states, and if so, how much? Who should pay for global environmental damage? Answers to these moral questions depend to a great degree on who we believe we have an obligation to: Ourselves? Nationals of our country? Residents of our country? Everyone in the world equally? We will examine different traditions of moral thought including skeptics, communitarians, cosmopolitans, and use these traditions as tools to make reasoned judgments about difficult moral problems in world politics. (Area V)
Political Sci 150 The American Legal System (4) The nature of the American legal system; the interrelationships of judges, lawyers, police, political officials, bureaucrats, press, and general public; the political and social aspects of the legal process. (Area IV or V)
Political Sci 152A Topics in Law: Access to Justice & Regulations (4) In contemporary democracies, governments and legal systems democracy employ two strategies to respond the public’s demand for justice – 1) providing courts and other (less expensive) institutions to process legal claims and impose legal remedies: 2) establishing regulatory programs and social insurance that prevent or reduce the kind of harms that generate claims of injustice. The readings in this course are designed to encourage thought about the strengths, accomplishments, vulnerabilities, and limits of both strategies. (Area IV)
Political Sci 157A/B Constitutional Law of the U.S. (4) Fundamental principles of constitutional law, leading cases, causes, and consequences of legal decisions and their role in influencing, shaping, and constraining the American political system. A. Judicial Review and the Limits to National Power. B. Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. (Area IV or V)
Poli Sci 167AC Racial and Ethnic Politics in the New American Century (4) Some of the most enduring and violent conflicts inAmericacenter on race. The goal of this course is to explore, discuss, and better understand the relationship between perceptions of racial identity, attributions of racial difference, and politics, broadly defined. We focus on the recent and persistent debates about racism, identity, rights, representation, citizenship, conflict, and coalitions. A repeated theme of this course is the question whether racial order and inequality are essential to, or an exception from, the liberal democracy in theU.S.This is a lecture course with intensive readings, written assignments, and in-class discussion. (Area II)
Public Policy 190 Law and Public Policy (4) The course focuses on legal aspects of public policy, with an emphasis on the relative capacities of, and relationships among, law-making agencies (courts, legislatures, administrative agencies, referenda processes). Students will be exposed to primary legal materials, including judicial decisions, statutes, and regulations, and skills of legal interpretation will be developed. The course will be a mixture of lecture and discussion. (Area IV)
Rhetoric 152 (not 152AC) Rhetoric of Constitutional Discourse (4) The rhetorical context of The Federalist. Examines the tradition of Anglo-American constitutional argumentation in the eighteenth century, its sources, and its implications.Readings include Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, pamphlets of the American Revolution, and Anti-Federalist writings. (Area II or V)
Rhetoric 159B Great Themes in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Political & Legal Theory (4) This course concentrates on aspects of 20th century political, social, and legal theory that are too complex to be treated comprehensively as one section of the courses in modern theory. (Area II or V)
Rhetoric 160 Introduction to the Rhetoric of Legal Discourse (4) The application of rhetorical methodology to all categories of legal texts. (Area II)
Rhetoric 164 Rhetoric of Legal Theory (4) Rhetorical methodology applied to close analysis of the argumentative framework of important works in modern legal theory. (Area II)
Rhetoric 165 Rhetoric of Legal Philosophy (4) Consideration of basic philosophical issues related to the political and moral foundations of the law. (Area II or IV or V)
Rhetoric 166 Rhetoric in Law and Politics (4) Examination of the role of rhetoric in the legal and political thought of a particular era or culture. Course may compare societies or periods. All foreign texts will be studied in English translation. (Area II)
Rhetoric 167 Advanced Topics in Law and Rhetoric (4) Thorough consideration of particular rhetorical themes in the field of legal theory, legal philosophy, and legal argumentation. (Area II)
Rhetoric 168 Rhetoric, Law and Political Theory, 1500-1700 (4) Thorough consideration of particular rhetorical themes in the fields of contemporary law and legal discourse. Sample topics include entertainment law, First Amendment law, copyright law. (Area II)
Sociology 114 Sociology of Law (4) Selected legal rules, principles, and institutions treated from a sociological perspective. Influence of culture and social organization on law; role of law in social change; social aspects of the administration of justice; social knowledge and the law. (Area II or IV)
Sociology 137AC Environmental Justice, Race, Class, Equity, & the Environment (formerly 128AC) (4) (cross-listed w/ESPM 163AC) Overview of the field of environmental justice, analyzing the implications of race, class, labor, and equity on environmental degradation and regulation. Environmental justice movements and struggles within poor and people of color communities in theU.S., including: African Americans, Latino Americans, and Native American Indians. Frameworks and methods for analyzing race, class, and labor. Cases of environmental injustice, community and government responses, and future strategies for achieving environmental and labor justice. (Area II or IV)
Sociology 152 Deviance & Social Control (formerly 115) (4) A consideration of forms, causes, and controls of deviant behavior. (Area I)
NOTE: This list changes as departments change the course numbers and content. Students are responsible for making sure the courses in which they enroll are still approved by the Legal Studies program