Law Program

= History =

Recognizing that law and legal processes and concepts are integrally involved in political, social, environmental, economic, scientific and other issues, Hampshire College has given law a significant place in its curriculum. Its pioneering Law Program, established in 1970, was the first undergraduate legal studies program in the nation. It offers an innovative interdisciplinary approach to the study of law, as well as a number of exciting opportunities for engaging legal questions outside the classroom.

= Set-Up =

The program is not a pre-law program in the traditional sense of one that specifically prepares students for the study of law as a profession. Rather, it is an interdisciplinary one, deeply committed to the principles of liberal education and founded on the premise that an understanding of law as a social force ubiquitous at practically all levels—local, regional, national and international—is basic to the exercise of the rights, privileges and duties of today’s citizens.

Teaching in legal studies supports a large number of Division II concentrations and Division III advanced independent study projects, some of which center primarily on law while others include legal perspectives as a secondary focus. Though many of our students do ultimately choose to go on to a professional legal education, some at the nation’s most highly regarded law schools, others simply incorporate an engagement with the study of law as part of their Division II concentration or Division III advanced research project.

At the program’s center are courses on subjects such as philosophy of law, crime and punishment, political justice, civil rights, freedom of expression, law and racial conflict, legal regulation of sexuality, reproductive rights, human rights and humanitarian law, immigration and refugee issues, anthropology of law, law in literature, and others in a wide range of areas of student interest.

Many first encounter legal studies through courses designed to present legal methods and reasoning to first-year students, such as Political Justice, The U.S. Supreme Court, and Affirmative Action. Others come to courses such as Feminist Legal Theory or International Human Rights as more advanced students interested in philosophy, sociology, psychology or international relations.

In 2010 the Law Program co-sponsored summer internship stipends for students engaging legal issues in community based organizations. While these are necessarily few in number due to financial constraints, Law Program faculty can offer advice and suggestions on a wide range of law-related internship placements in the local area, around the country and internationally. These may be incorporated into the Division II concentration as independent activities, or as Community-Engaged Learning in Div II or as an advanced independent study at the Div III level.

= Legal Studies Courses in the Five Colleges =

A quick piece of advice: when searching for Five-College courses, the best way to find them is through the Five Colleges, Inc. course catalog - it is much easier to deal with than the one on the Hub, and is also searchable. You can access it here:

www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/courses/ 

The courses listed here are selections from the Five College Course Catalog; for more complete course offerings, you can also search by for courses by department. Here are a few of the departments in the Five Colleges that regularly offer law-related courses:

Amherst: Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought (LJST), Political Science (POSC)

Mount Holyoke: International Relations (IR), Politics (POLIT

Smith: Government (GOV)

UMass: Legal Studies (LEGAL), Political Science (POLISCI)

Hampshire
Law, Politics, and Sexuality - CSI-102 (Flavio Risech-Ozguera)

Until 2003, consensual sex between adult same-gender partners was a crime in many of the United States. Most states and the Federal government still prohibit same-sex marriage and exclude nonconforming couples and individuals from a host of social and financial benefits automatically available to the straight. And those whose gender identity is transgressive face numerous legal indignities. Many forms of resistance (and backlash) have emerged to challenge (or reinforce) the normative assumptions of state control over sexuality and gender expression. Public confrontations between the values of traditional sexual morality, and those of individual autonomy and equality, take place in judicial, legislative and electoral arenas. By reading historical analyses and key cases that reflect and shape our debates about the proper place of the State in queer people's bedrooms and lives, we will gain basic familiarity with legal analysis, constitutional politics and the law as a historically contingent system of power.

Injury - CSI-113 (Jennifer Hamilton)

This course investigates competing conceptions and legal formulations of injury from a variety of social and cultural perspectives. What role does injury play in the formation of legal subjects, especially in the U.S.? How do legal cultures outside of the U.S. conceive of, interpret, and understand injury? We will also explore associated concepts of risk, responsibility and accountability.

Ethnography of Law - CSI-201 (Jennifer Hamilton)

This course introduces Division II students to qualitative anthropological methods. Through a series of ethnographic exercises, students will build a methodological toolkit for investigating complex social problems. Through the critical reading and analysis of ethnographic texts, students will also learn about the substantive areas of legal anthropology, science studies, and critical medical anthropology. The course will culminate in final mini-ethnographic research projects designed by students. 

The Law and Politics of Housing - CSI-213 (Carlos Suarez-Carrasquillo)

Recent economic events have brought to the forefront the growing impact housing has on people's lives. In a world that is becoming increasingly urban, the city and its suburbia have become the stage for significant political debates on housing policy and the locus of action for people impacted by these policies. This course will first consider how politics and law shapes housing, cities, homelessness, suburbia, and spaces. Second, this course will examine how the creation of spaces, and maps are used as mechanisms for restricting and controlling behavior. Finally, we will discuss how housing policies impact living conditions, political socialization, and dynamics of race and class.

Politics of the Abortion Debate - CSI-215 (Katherine C. Jones)

Abortion rights continue to be contested in the U.S. and throughout the world. Since the legalization of abortion in the U.S. in 1973, there have been significant erosions in abortion rights and access to abortion. Harassment of abortion clinics, providers, and clinic personnel by opponents of abortion is routine, and there have been several instances of deadly violence. This course examines the abortion debate in the U.S., looking historically at the period before legalization up to the present. We explore the ethical, political and legal dimensions of the issue and investigate the anti-abortion and abortion rights movements. We view the abortion battle in the U.S. in the wider context of reproductive freedom. Specific topics of inquiry include: abortion worldwide, coercive contraception and sterilization abuse, welfare rights, population control, and the criminalization of pregnancy.

Amherst
Intro To Legal Theory - LJST-110 (Adam Sitze)

This course provides an introduction to the primary texts and central problems of modern legal theory. Through close study of the field’s founding and pivotal works, we will weigh and consider various ways to think about questions that every study, practice, and institution of law eventually encounters. These questions concern law’s very nature or essence; its relations to knowledge, morality, religion, and the passions; the status of its language and interpretations; its relation to force and the threat of force; and its place and function in the preservation and transformation of political, social and economic order.

(In)equality - LJST-214 (David Delaney)

In our world, commitment to "equality" in one sense/form or another is nearly uncontested. At the same time, the form that it should take, its normative ground, scope, limits and conditions, the ways in which it may be realized, and much else are deeply contested. It is also the case that the world in which we live is characterized by profound, enduring and intensifying inequalities and numerous exceptions to the principle. These may be justified with reference to various countervailing commitments that are accorded ethical or practical priority (desert, liberty, efficiency, political stability, ecological integrity, pluralism, etc.). This suggests that while for many "equality" may be normatively compelling, its realization may be subordinated to any number of interests and desires; or, to put it bluntly, there may be such a condition as too much equality or not enough inequality, privilege and "disadvantage." This course treats these themes as they have arisen in distinctively legal contexts, projects and arguments. It will engage a range of debates within political philosophy and legal theory as to the appropriate limits of equality. While many forms and expressions of inequality have fallen into relative disfavor, some seem virtually immune to significant amelioration. Among these are those associated with social-economic class. Following general investigations of egalitarianism and anti-egalitarianism in social thought and legal history, we will devote closer attention to the legal dimensions of class inequality in contexts such as labor law, welfare and poverty law, education and criminal justice. We will conclude with an examination of the limits of legal egalitarianism vis-à-vis international class-based inequalities under conditions of globalization and cosmopolitan humanitarianism.

Film, Myth, and the Law - LJST-352 (Austin Sarat)

(Analytic Seminar) The proliferation of law in film and on television has expanded the sphere of legal life itself. Law lives in images that today saturate our culture and have a power all their own, and the moving image provides a domain in which legal power operates independently of law’s formal institutions. This course will consider what happens when legal events are re-narrated in film and examine film’s treatment of legal officials, events, and institutions (e.g., police, lawyers, judges, trials, executions, prisons). Does film open up new possibilities of judgment, model new modes of interpretation, and provide new insights into law’s violence? We will discuss ways in which myths about law are reproduced and contested in film. Moreover, attending to the visual dimensions of law’s imagined lives, we ask whether law provides a template for film spectatorship, positioning viewers as detectives and as jurors, and whether film, in turn, sponsors a distinctive visual aesthetics of law. Among the films we may consider are Inherit the Wind, Call Northside 777, Judgment at Nuremberg, Rear Window, Silence of the Lambs, A Question of Silence, The Sweet Hereafter, Dead Man Walking, Basic Instinct, and Unforgiven. Throughout we will draw upon film theory and criticism as well as the scholarly literature on law, myth, and film.

Mount Holyoke
International Human Rights Advocacy - IR-337 (Jon Western)

This course examines how and why international human rights norms, laws, and institutions have emerged and how they are influencing global politics. The course will examine closely the practices and influence of human rights advocacy organizations and international courts. Students will be introduced to strategies for advocacy including reporting and monitoring of human rights violations and the legal theories and procedures by which cases are adjudicated before domestic and international tribunals.

Civil Liberties - POLIT-236 (Christopher Pyle)

This course addresses the federal Constitution and civil liberties. Topics include the authority of the courts to read new rights into the Constitution; equal protection of the laws (and affirmative action) for racial minorities, women, gays, and non-citizens. Also, freedoms of expression, association, and the press. Emphasis on the appropriateness of different methods of interpreting law. Case method.

Smith
Workplace Law in Capitalist America - GOV-218 (Harris Freeman)

A critical introduction to government regulation of employment and to legal theories of freedom and justice in the workplace. Topics: 1) the development of laws granting workers the right to form labor unions and to collectively bargain, culminating with discussion of the current debate on the labor rights of public sector workers in Wisconsin and other states; 2) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and other anti-discrimination laws designed to protect women, persons of color, the disabled and GLBT individuals in the workplace as well as the rights of immigrant workers; and 3) privacy at work, including how law impacts the use of social media like Facebook and Twitter in the employment context. Lecture/Discussion. To be offered once only.

Seminar in American Government: Women in Politics - GOV 308 (Ann Robbart)

Women in politics, broadly defined. Topics include: identity, activism, appointments, electoral process and outcomes, and law and policy specific to women. Students will write a research paper on a topic, organization, or woman of their choosing.

UMass
Human Rights and Wrongs - LEGAL-375 (Lauren Mccarthy)

Introduction to humanitarian law. Topics include theory and history of international human rights law, growth and nature of human rights organizations, regional human rights schemes, cross-cultural contexts and meanings for human rights, the politics and law of immigration and refugees, international criminal law and other mechanisms for humanitarian intervention. Prerequisite: course in Legal Studies or international politics.

Legal Research and Writing - LEGAL-450 (Anna Curtis/Judith Holmes)

This course is designed to help students improve their ability to analyze and write about complicated legal issues. You should expect to do a lot of writing in this course. You will learn how to read and understand court opinions and how to find your way around a law library. Writing assignments include your own resume and a job application letter, case briefs, memoranda, OP-ED essays, and a research paper. These assignments are written from the perspective of a lay person writing to another lay person. Satisfactory completion of this course fulfills your junior year writing requirement for the Legal Studies Department.

= Faculty =

Law Program Faculty

= Lester J. Mazor Endowment = Established in honor of founding faculty member Lester Mazor, this endowment supports programming for the interdisciplinary study of law, culture, politics, and social science, and the use of this knowledge to promote cross-cultural understanding and a more just society for all people.

= Law Program Mailing List =

The Law Program mailing list is a way to get connected with other students, faculty, and staff about events and issues related to law and legal studies. If you have something you want people to see, send it to the list! You can subscribe to it here:

lists.hampshire.edu/mailman/listinfo/hamp-law

= Links =

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