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Written by a diverse group of authors with varied subject matter expertise and professional backgrounds, Race and the Foundations of American Law explores systemic racism in American law and legal systems. This casebook goes beyond providing students with an historical account of racist laws and policies: It explains how early legal regimes created current systems of racial oppression, and encourages reflection on how lawyers might help our society move toward solutions to these long-festering problems. This innovative text contextualizes legal concepts and cases using historical information, statistics, news stories, and supplementary media resources. Students and professors will appreciate the attention to storytelling, the use of pleadings and other examples of lawyering, the care taken to elevate the varied and distinct experiences of America’s multiple racialized communities, and the relentless focus on identifying and contextualizing the law’s codification of racial hierarchies and White supremacy. In addition, an unapologetic emphasis is placed on exposing the persistent and virulent anti-Blackness that has been a feature of this nation’s legal systems since its founding. Race and the Foundations of American Law is an accessible text for law students that requires no prior knowledge, but nonetheless contains sufficient nuance and research to appeal to the academic.
Benefits for instructors and students:
- Modular chapters allow for greater flexibility in teaching; chapters can be assigned alongside another casebook.
- Effective visuals—photographs, charts, diagrams, and illustrations—provide context and help to bring the material to life.
- A variety of boxed features—Want to Learn More; Time Out for Practice; Timeline; If You Like This, You Will Like That; There is More to the Story—help to engage students and encourage class discussion and further exploration.
- A variety of excerpted materials are included, such as cases, court documents, poems, book chapters, speeches, and law review articles.
- Notes, conversational prompts, and discussion questions help to engage students.
