In Review
Racial Liberalism and the Ethics of Law and Justice
This course examines the relationship between race and liberalism in the formation of the US legal system, focusing in particular on the use of law both to reinforce and to repudiate legal codes and institutional practices designed to subjugate African Americans and dispossessed groups in the United States.
Law’s Empire
Ronald Dworkin (Belknap Press, 1988)
This presentation of Dworkin’s theory of law explains how the Anglo-American legal system works and on what principles it is grounded, arguing that the most fundamental point of law is to answer the requirement that a political community act in a coherent and principled manner toward all its members.
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
Eric Foner (Norton, 2019)
A compact history that traces the arc of pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century.
Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism
Charles W. Mills (Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities; Oxford University Press, 2017)
Challenging mainstream accounts of liberalism, political philosopher Charles Mills argues that rather than bracket as an anomaly the role of racism in the development of liberal theory, we should see it as shaping that theory in fundamental ways, thereby denying its promise of equal rights to people of color.
Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
Mae M. Ngai (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America; Princeton University Press, 2004)
This book traces the origins of the “illegal alien” in American law and society. It explains why and how illegal migration became the central problem in US immigration policy, a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century.
And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice
Derrick Bell (Basic Books, 1987)
Through a series of fables and dramatic dialogues modeled on the grim fairytales of the eighteenth century, legal scholar and civil rights activist Derrick Bell explains the true pervasiveness of racial oppression within the American legal system. Racial inequality is an integral part of American law and society, and it cannot be easily reversed through legislation.
Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process
A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. (Oxford University Press, 1996)
In this magisterial account of the interaction between the law and racial oppression in America from colonial times to the present, a noted scholar and celebrated jurist documents how early white perceptions of Black inferiority slowly became codified into law.
What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America
Ariela J. Gross (Harvard University Press, 2008)
Unearthing the legal history of racial identity, this book examines the paradoxical and often circular relationship of race and the perceived capacity for citizenship in American society. It reminds us that the imaginary connection between racial identity and fitness for citizenship remains potent today and continues to impede racial justice and equality.
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Dorothy Roberts (Vintage Books, 1997)
In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, this groundbreaking book exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. These abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.
Law’s EmpireRonald Dworkin (Belknap Press, 1988)
This presentation of Dworkin’s theory of law explains how the Anglo-American legal system works and on what principles it is grounded, arguing that the most fundamental point of law is to answer the requirement that a political community act in a coherent and principled manner toward all its members.
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the ConstitutionEric Foner (Norton, 2019)
A compact history that traces the arc of pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century.
Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism Charles W. Mills (Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities; Oxford University Press, 2017)
Challenging mainstream accounts of liberalism, political philosopher Charles Mills argues that rather than bracket as an anomaly the role of racism in the development of liberal theory, we should see it as shaping that theory in fundamental ways, thereby denying its promise of equal rights to people of color.
Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern AmericaMae M. Ngai (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America; Princeton University Press, 2004)
This book traces the origins of the “illegal alien” in American law and society. It explains why and how illegal migration became the central problem in US immigration policy, a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century.
And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial JusticeDerrick Bell (Basic Books, 1987)
Through a series of fables and dramatic dialogues modeled on the grim fairytales of the eighteenth century, legal scholar and civil rights activist Derrick Bell explains the true pervasiveness of racial oppression within the American legal system. Racial inequality is an integral part of American law and society, and it cannot be easily reversed through legislation.
Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. (Oxford University Press, 1996)
In this magisterial account of the interaction between the law and racial oppression in America from colonial times to the present, a noted scholar and celebrated jurist documents how early white perceptions of Black inferiority slowly became codified into law.
What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in AmericaAriela J. Gross (Harvard University Press, 2008)
Unearthing the legal history of racial identity, this book examines the paradoxical and often circular relationship of race and the perceived capacity for citizenship in American society. It reminds us that the imaginary connection between racial identity and fitness for citizenship remains potent today and continues to impede racial justice and equality.
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of LibertyDorothy Roberts (Vintage Books, 1997)
In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, this groundbreaking book exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. These abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.
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