Explores the principles underlying the United States Constitution and offers an introduction to the powers of the three branches of the federal government and the interrelationship of state and national governments. Includes an introduction to the individual rights protected by the Bill of Rights and the operation of the Fourteenth Amendment's due process and equal protection clauses.
Introduces lawmaking in the modern administrative state. Examines the way Congress and administrative agencies adopt binding rules of law (statutes and regulations, respectively) and the way that implementing institutions--courts and administrative agencies--interpret and apply these laws. Considers the structure of the modern administrative state, the incentives that influence the behavior of the various actors, and the legal rules that help to structure the relationships among Congress, the agencies, and the courts. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Studies nonconsensual allocation of losses for civil wrongs, focusing primarily on concepts of negligence and strict liability. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Examines how the institutions, practices, and the very identity of the law are in part affected by the media through which law is apprehended and communicated. Hence the general question posed in this course: To what extent and how are the forms and methods of the new media having an effect on the perception, role, and identity of law? Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Examines theories of legislation and the relation between legislatures and courts, emphasizing problems of statutory interpretation and other issues in the judicial use or misuse of statutes. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Helps students expand their perspective to understandthe ways in which lawyers more broadly participate in social change work in this service learning class. Analyzes case histories of cause lawyering. The service learning component is based on the precept that one of the most effective ways to learn a role is to perform that role. Students will participate as social change lawyers by working with a local community to help it develop projects that the community believes will help it better itself. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Examines speech and religion clauses of the First Amendment. Includes the philosophical foundation of free expression, analytical problems in First Amendment jurisprudence, and the relationships between free exercise of religion and the separation of church and state. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Presents a comprehensive study of federal civil rights statutes briefly reviewed in other courses (e.g., Constitutional Law or Federal Courts). Studies federal civil rights statutes, their judicial application,and their interrelationships as a discretely significant body of law of increasing theoretical interest and practical importance.
Considers issues raised by the interaction of law and education. Issues may include the legitimacy of compulsory schooling, alternatives to public schools, socialization and discipline in the schools, and questions of equal educational opportunities.
Covers practices and procedures of administrative agencies and limitations thereon, including the Federal Administrative Procedure Act, and the relationship between courts and agencies.
Studies state legislative and judicial control of the activities, powers, and duties of local governmental units, including home-rule cities and counties, and some problems of federal, state, and local constitutional and statutory limitations on governmental powers when exercised by local governmental units (e.g., the powers to regulate private activities, tax, spend, borrow money, and condemn private property for public uses). Offered in alternate years.
Teaches the substantive constitutional law governing public education. Students will teach constitutional materials to high school students in the local Denver Metro area high schools. Interested students must apply and requires a commitment to a full-year curriculum. Encourages individual development as teachers, writers, and critical thinkers an provides an opportunity to grow as colleagues and teammates. Recommended prereq. LAWS 7055. Pass/Fail only. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Examines the rapidly evolving field of election law: the right to vote, voting procedures, redistricting, candidate selection, campaign finance laws, and direct democracy. Emphasizes federal law, including applicable constitutional jurisprudence.
Studies selected tort actions and theories. Topics covered may include "Dignitary torts" (e.g., defamation, privacy, etc.), business torts, and product liability. Offered in alternate years.
Explores the legal and policy responses to poverty in the United States and addresses how the law shapes the lives of poor people and communities. Examines the extent of poverty in the United States, the root causes, and the historical development of social welfare policy. Focuses on the rights-based aspect of poverty law and various policies that attempt to ameliorate poverty. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Examines the judiciary's approach to racial discrimination from America's colonial period to thepresent day. Concludes with an analysis of the contemporary status of racial subordination in the legal system and considers recent scholarly critiques of the law's limitations in effecting racial justice. Employs an interdisciplinary approach and covers the experiences of American Indians, African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, and Chicana/os.
Covers three distinct but interwoven topics: substantive law governing marijuana, policy rationales behind and outcomes produced by different approaches to regulating the drug and the legal authority to regulate the drug. Prepares one to handle legal issues that arise in practice, but also to provide informed counsel on proposed and future reforms to law.
Addresses "Equal Protection" rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and "Privacy" rights to personal autonomy. Analyzes varied constitutional grounds for recognizing or rejecting abortion rights; limits on Congressional power to pass civil rights laws granting broader rights than the Fourteenth Amendment does; treatment of sexual orientation-related laws and government actions as "Privacy" versus "Equality" matters; and "Benign"/"remedial" race- and sex-based government decisions such as affirmative action and same-sex schools.
Examines the role of the courts and the other branches of government in defining and enforcing constitutional values. Relevant readings are from philosophy, social sciences, and legal scholarship, as well as cases. Requisites: Restricted to Law (LAWS) students only.
Explores the development of "Our Federalism", the relationship between federal and state governments, from the founding period of the US Supreme Court's recent New Federalism jurisprudence. Studies historical material, commentary, and case law, and addresses how federalism is defined; the values that federalism serves; the role of federalism in our interconnected, global society; the Supreme Court's boundaries of federalism; the direction of New Federalism.
Addresses past and continuing debates involving potential tensions between antidiscrimination principles and free speech, free exercise, and establishment clause values. Examines constitutional protections under the First Amendment and the equal protection clause, together with an array of existing and proposed federal and state antidiscrimination laws regulating employment,housing, and public accommodations, among other areas.
Examines legal structures and concepts typically found in constitutions, including judicial review, distinction between legislative and executive authority, federalism and the principle of subsidiarity, the relationship between church andstate, free speech and press, and social welfare rights. Examines differences between constitutional law and other domestic law, role of comparative constitutional law in domestic constitutional law adjudication. Emphasizes American and Swedish perspectives.
Examines how the institutions, practices, and the very identity of law are in part affected by the media through which law is apprehended and communicated. Hence the general question posed in this seminar: To what extent and how are the forms and methods of the new media having an effect on the perception, role, and identity of law? This is a year-long seminar.
Explores how theories of social freedom and self-governance developed in the United States. Analyzes the most controversial socio-legal issues as they relate to privacy, equal protection and other questions of substantive due process. Discusses recent trends in national security and information privacy to evaluate their overall relevance to civil liberties and nascent influence on the fundamental rights debate in the US and abroad.
