Race, Rights, and Citizenship

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course will critically examine the complex relationship between race, rights, and citizenship. We will closely review contemporary laws on immigration, national security, voting rights, language access and affirmative action, and their associated social contexts and legal conflicts around racial profiling, education access, and citizenship rights. Citizenship rights are understood broadly in this class from "alienage" (the hierarchical demarcation of non-citizen versus citizen) to the right to marriage. A primary focus of this course is to understand how despite discrimination, outsiders have gained access to "insider" rights and in the process have naturalized what previously was considered out of the norm.