Course Catalog

Students litigate civil rights cases addressing issues such as: racial justice, police misconduct, voting rights, fair housing, student rights, free speech, women’s rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, ethnic and religious discrimination, disability rights, and the right to privacy. Taught by the former long-time legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, the goal of the course is to prepare students to use the law to advance social justice. Students will have the chance to litigate civil rights cases on behalf of individuals as well as larger impact cases.
Students, under faculty supervision, will gain experience in many of the following areas: working with impacted communities to identify injustices; researching and developing winning legal theories; interviewing potential clients; writing public record requests and demand letters; drafting complaints; researching and writing briefs; arguing motions; taking depositions and engaging in other discovery; negotiating settlements; trying cases; drafting appellate briefs; and arguing appeals. It is anticipated that students will work primarily in federal court and will learn how to avoid the many procedural minefields that civil rights litigants face when seeking injunctive relief or recovering damages under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
The course will also emphasize how litigation can be most effective in achieving change when it is part of an “integrated advocacy” campaign that includes public education, legislation and/or community action. Students will be encouraged to work in coalitions and with community groups to win not only in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion.
The Civil Rights Litigation Practicum (Law 807) is a recommended but not required prerequisite for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative. Students must take the Initiative for a letter grade; it is ineligible for letter grade conversion to pass (“P”) election. It fulfills the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation and the New York Pro-Bono requirement, but not the New York State Bar ethics requirement. The Initiative can either fulfill the Law School’s professional responsibility requirement for graduation or the credits can count toward the Experiential Learning requirement, but not both.

• Type: Clinic

An intensive and critical examination of the role of federal courts in maintaining a constitutional order in the United States. Among the topics considered are justiciability, the power of Congress to control the jurisdiction of federal and state courts, Supreme Court review of state court decisions, federal habeas corpus for state prisoners, and suits challenging official action.

• Type: Upper Class

Spend a semester working with other law students and upper-level undergraduate students to support lawyers from the Michigan Immigration Rights Center on asylum cases here in Michigan. Under faculty supervision, students will learn to draft asylum briefs, summarize and translate historical texts, research effective legal arguments, and contribute to developing a national research database for use in asylum cases. Students will also deepen their understanding of immigration law and policy, develop historical and legal research skills, and explore the history of violence and migration through work on real-life asylum cases. This class is ideal for students who are eager to work conscientiously and ethically with others in teams to benefit a non-profit community partner. Instructor permission required.

• Type: Practice Simulation

One model of social change entails the strategic use of carefully planned litigation to achieve law and policy reforms. In this seminar we will explore the benefits and drawbacks of the impact litigation model, compare impact litigation to other models of public interest law, and consider its ethical and professional implications. Then, turning to two local case studies involving criminal law reform, we will examine how impact litigation can work in practice. How were these cases selected and developed? What strategic decisions had to made along the way? How were the cases shaped by procedural limitations and extrajudicial considerations? Students will be tasked with either undertaking their own case study or proposing a new case that fits within the impact litigation model.

• Type: Seminar

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In 1980, approximately 500,000 people were behind bars in this country. Now, even after significant pandemic-related, the figure approaches 2 million (over two-thirds of whom are non-white), incarcerated in jails, state prisons, and federal prisons. This course will examine the constitutional law, and some statutory law, relevant to their incarceration. The central topics will be the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments and its Fourteenth Amendment analog, and Congress’s regulation of litigation brought by prisoners in the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Other classes will examine First Amendment rights in prison, solitary and supermax confinement, race discrimination inside jails and prison, and the law of injunctive relief in constitutional cases brought by inmates. (We will not discuss criminal procedure, habeas corpus, or sentencing.) This course is for anyone interested in civil rights, criminal prosecution, or criminal defense.
The course will be co-taught by UM Prof. Margo Schlanger and Amy Fettig, the director of the Sentencing Project and former Deputy Director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project. It is 2 credits, meeting 4 hours per week for the first 5 weeks of the semester, with one weekend day negotiation exercise on Feb. 5 or 6. Note: Professor Schlanger has been nominated for an administration position. If she is confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Fettig will teach the class alone from that point forward.

• Type: Upper Class

Theory and practice are engaged in an inquiry into the relationship between sex inequality in society and sex equality under law. Context provided draws on social science, history, international and comparative law. The dominant approach to legal equality is examined on its own terms and through an alternative. Concrete issues-employment discrimination, family, rape, sexual harassment, lesbian and gay rights, abortion, prostitution, pornography-focus discussion through cases. Racism, class, and transgender status are considered throughout. The course investigates, criticizes, and expands the law toward civil equality between the sexes and on the basis of gender.

• Type: Upper Class

This seminar will examine sexual orientation and gender identity in the U.S. legal system. We will explore the ways in which different views of sexual orientation and gender identity have influenced the constitutional and statutory rights of gays, lesbians, and transgender people. Topics will include: anti-sodomy laws; associational rights (relating to both associations among LGBT persons and those who seek to exclude such persons from public and private spaces and activities); anti-gay ballot initiatives; military service; efforts to expand and limit family and parental rights, including second-parent adoption and marriage rights; equality rights in educational contexts; equal employment opportunity; and religious freedom restoration acts. Throughout, we’ll consider the interactions among lawyers and legal advocacy; LGBT movements; legislative politics; and doctrinal development in state and federal courts, as well as in administrative agencies such as the EEOC and the federal Department of Education.

• Type: Seminar