Land Use and Racial Justice

1 unit

This course presents an opportunity to learn about the role race and ethnicity have played in the development of land use laws and the physical manifestation of those laws. In this course, we will explore the law's role in creating, exacerbating, alleviating, and remedying exclusionary and discriminatory tactics through the regulation of land. We will examine ways in which land use laws have helped create structural inequalities based on race and ethnicity. The course is centered on i) exploring ways land use laws have been used to segregate and discriminate and ii) analyzing facially-neutral land use laws that have a disproportionate impact based on race and ethnicity. Students who successfully complete this course will be able to: 1) Explain how the American common, statutory, and constitutional law governing land is affected by, and in turn affects, structural racism; 2) Identify the social impacts associated with objective or facially-neutral legal land use doctrines; 3) Describe structural racism as embedded in land use laws; and 4) Critically analyze laws and determine whether they are addressing structural racism, exacerbating it, or something else. Grades will be based on several short writing assignments and class participation. There will be a presentation scheduled for January 13 during class. 1 unit.