Civil Rights

Upon completion of coursework in this area, students will possess knowledge and understanding of the multiple sources of civil rights law, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory, and international law, and of the doctrinal foundations necessary to civil rights practice, including civil procedure, constitutional law, tort principles underlying civil rights damages actions, contract principles relevant to the negotiation and enforcement of civil rights settlements, and core methods of statutory interpretation. Students will understand the substantive civil rights of specific groups, including rights based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and immigration status, as well as the civil rights issues that arise within particular institutional settings, such as the education system, the workplace, the national security system, and the criminal justice system. Students will further understand specific constitutional and statutory rights central to civil rights practice, such as free speech and the right to vote, and will be familiar with additional sources of rights, including international human rights law and state constitutional law. Students will also understand the procedural and evidentiary frameworks necessary to civil rights litigation, including the rules of evidence, complex and class action litigation practice, and the jurisdictional and institutional principles governing constitutional litigation in the federal courts.

Students will be able to analyze and apply civil rights doctrine to concrete factual disputes arising in litigation, legislative, and policy contexts, including the ability to identify viable theories of liability or relief across multiple potential sources of civil rights law. They will be able to critically evaluate the relative advantages and limitations of impact litigation, individual litigation, legislative advocacy, and public education and organizing as strategies for advancing civil rights, and to assess how institutional context shapes the availability and effectiveness of civil rights remedies. Students will be able to engage critically with interdisciplinary and theoretical perspectives on civil rights, including critical race theory, feminist theory, civil rights narratives, and political theory and philosophy, and to integrate these perspectives with doctrinal analysis in evaluating civil rights problems.

Finally, students will be able to demonstrate the professional skills necessary to civil rights practice, including the lawyering skills introduced in the first-year Lawyering program, such as legal research, writing, client interviewing, and negotiation. Through NYU's clinical programs, students will gain direct experience representing plaintiffs, defendants, groups, or causes in civil rights matters, developing the ability to advocate on behalf of actual clients in real-world litigation, policy, or advocacy settings, including experience with policymaking skills in areas such as elections and voting, access to justice, and national security. Students pursuing the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program will additionally develop the capacity to conduct sustained, self-directed work within civil liberties or human rights organizations and to complete independent research or scholarly projects under faculty guidance, while students pursuing coursework in critical and theoretical perspectives will develop the ability to produce original scholarly writing engaging civil rights law, theory, and practice.

Multiple-Section Course Learning Outcomes

Hays Program Seminar (LAW-LW.10004)

Through the seminar students will begin to develop or refine the following skills and abilities:

1. Further develop the skills, knowledge, and experiences necessary to provide competent representation to their clients with a deep understanding of how their work relates to broader movements to advance and deepen the protection of civil rights and civil liberties.
2. Further develop the skills necessary to be innovative and effective advocates who are able to engage in complex problem solving, collaborate across disciplines and areas of expertise, and lawyer across silos and systems.
3. Further develop the foundational professional values necessary to enter the legal profession.
   • Learn additional tools to help them bring a systemic lens to their advocacy and representation, to challenging systems of inequality, and work in support of building power for traditionally marginalized communities.
4. Be further prepared to provide client representation that is grounded in a deep understanding of how their advocacy work relates to and supports broader movements to advance structural change.