Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors Greenbaum, Johnson-Blanco, and Kengle

J.D. Seminar 568 | 5 credit hours (year long)

This two semester course will examine contemporary legal issues and trends in U.S. voting rights jurisprudence.

For the fall semester, the course will follow a modified seminar course format. Students will meet weekly for a two hour combined lecture and discussion on voting rights case law, and to a lesser extent electoral policy where particular focus will be given to legal issues surrounding access to the ballot. On the case law side, students will review seminal voting rights cases including those that deal with suffrage, racial vote dilution, restrictions on the right to vote, and redistricting in cases brought under the Equal Protection Clause and Election Clause of the United States Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act and other statutes. We will also discuss less known voting rights cases that address contemporary ballot access issues including felony disenfranchisement and the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act. With regards to policy, students will discuss and analyze recent legislative and advocacy efforts to secure voting rights and instill confidence in the franchise.

In the second semester of the course, students will work at least 10 hours per week at the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Students will be given assignments based on the existing needs of the project. Examples of assignments include drafting pleadings in ongoing cases, drafting memoranda on legal and factual issues, and assisting in developing and implementing plans to reform elections at the federal and state level. This is a 4 credit, year-long course. Two credits will be awarded for the 2 hour weekly seminar in the fall which includes class participation, a mid-semester assignment, and a seminar paper. The remaining two credits will be awarded for at least 10 hours of supervised work per week in the spring semester, including a one hour mandatory meeting for the entire class.

Students may not concurrently enroll in this seminar and a clinic (except Street Law) or another practicum course. Students may concurrently enroll in this seminar and an externship in the fall semester, but may not concurrently enroll in an externship in the spring semester.

Students who wish to receive credit for the Externship Seminar and an experiential learning course that has the same field placement may do so only if: (1) the experiential learning course is taken in a semester following the Externship Seminar; and (2) the student receives permission from the Assistant or the Associate Dean for Clinical Programs. To receive such permission, the student must explain in writing how the experiential learning course field work would serve substantially different learning goals than did their externship field placement. THIS IS AN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING COURSE. This is a year-long course. LAWJ-568-05 is offered for 2 credits and will require 2-hour weekly seminar meetings and a paper in the fall semester. LAWJ-568-06 is offered for 3 credits and will require 2-hour weekly seminar meetings and a WR paper that meets all WR requirements in the fall semester. The remaining 2 credits for each section of the course will be awarded for 10 hours of supervised work per week for a minimum of 11 weeks in the Spring semester, including a weekly 1-hour mandatory meeting for the entire class. In addition, there will be periodic meetings to be arranged at a later date in the spring semester. The seminar portion will be graded. The 2 credits of supervised work in the fall semester are mandatory pass/fail and count toward the 7 credit pass/fail limit. Students will be allowed to take another course pass/fail in the same semester as the supervised work.