Ident Undo Bias in Pub Pol

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

Identifying & Undoing Bias in Public Policy. This course examines the implicit and overt biases that inform policy-makers. Students will be responsible for digesting and interrogating the history of a number of major 21st century US policy areas to identify structural bias in policy-making. Topics to be covered span health, housing, justice, and environmental policies. Students will also begin to understand their own personal biases, and those of previous policy-makers, and how they also inform the policies that govern society. Students will be introduced to and adopt the role of various stakeholders in setting out policies of the distant and recent past for hands on experience vetting and implementing policies in the furtherance of their final project, a blue-ribbon commission on undoing bias in a previous policy intervention of their choosing. Subject matter discussions in this course, as well as readings and multimedia material, may be triggering. All students must show respect and practice grace and diplomacy.