Library News & Events
You can browse for events by using the links below, or search our entire calendar by clicking here http://morris.law.yale.edu/iii/calendar/month.
Can Neuroscience Enhance Justice?
“Can neuroscience enhance justice?” The question posed by Judith G. Edersheim, JD, MD, was the resounding theme of New England Law School Library’s recent LLNE conference. As Edersheim* explained, advances in functional brain imaging (e.g., “being able to ask a question and watch parts of the brain light up”) have vastly expanded the field of neuroscience. Interactive brain measurement could enhance legal fact-finding and sentencing. As presenter Amanda Pustilnik, JD (Yale Law School),** explained, “the law depends, in some part, on models of the mind...” That attachment is the driving force behind this new area of legal practice and scholarship.
We can trace this trend back to the 1770s, according to Pustilnik. In the dwindling days of the French enlightenment, Pierre Cabanis, Baron d'Holbach, and others (see Martin) proposed material bases for thought and action. Since then, brain science has ebbed and flowed. Pustilnik suggested that “we are again in a materialist moment.” But she also cautioned that if jurists simply layer social categories (e.g., “terrorist”) onto natural brain structures, they will fall short like their Parisian forefathers. “Culturally constructed crimes cannot be mapped onto neural substrates,” she explained. Neural jurisprudence faces further limitations, according to Edersheim.
The use of brain images in court cases –particularly to abrogate criminal intent– is rarely advisable, according to Edersheim, because: scanners are indirect measures of how millions of neurons are firing; ‘average’ brains are statistically generated not anthropologically ‘discovered’; the colors used in scan output are artificially derived and can be misinterpreted (e.g., red doesn’t mean the tumor is malignant); we don’t yet know how much healthy parts of the brain can compensate for injured parts; neuroscience testimony can be more prejudicial than probative; compulsory brain scans might violate the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments; and more. Despite these cautions, she described a case in which neuroscience helped keep a relatively innocent man out of jail. But before we get to Mr. C. (that client), a revisionist history(-iography) of Julius Caesar might be the best case for the use of neuroscience in legal fact-finding.
The Ides of March might actually be lucky. At least that is what Harold J. Bursztajn, MD,*** would have us believe. For millennia, scholars have contended that Caesar fell prey to his enemies on that long-ago cursed day. But the full record undercuts that hypothesis. “A complete (patient) history always involves medical, legal, financial, physical, etc. evidence,” Bursztajn explained. In Caesar’s case, the record shows a man suffering from a degenerative form of epilepsy, embarrassed by his public incontinence, and well aware of the planned attack. That same ruler re-wrote his will shortly before the Ides, sent for his successor, cast off his guards, and walked to his death alone. “The Senate chamber was the worst place to assassinate anyone,” Bursztajn added. “It delegitimized the conspirators, it got Caesar his one last wish: immortality.” The revised story of Caesar, a passion of Bursztajn’s, is meant to drive home the larger point that neuroscience should be a constituent part of comprehensive bio-psycho-social fact-finding in medicine and the law. Edersheim concurs.
The case of Mr. C. takes up where Julius Caesar leaves off. Mr. C. was a well-regarded financial administrator who suddenly started hoarding his clients’ checks in a desk drawer. He neither spent nor bragged about the checks; he simply squirreled them away. Simultaneously, his squash buddy, a physician, noticed that Mr. C. could not return any ball hit to the northeast corner of the squash court. A brain scan revealed a tumor. It was removed and the strange behaviors stopped. Mr. C. could never explain why he kept those checks. The SEC suspended his license anyway, but prosecutors did not pursue the criminal case against him. “This was a good use of neuroscience,” Edersheim explained. “There was a focal neurological impairment, a known behavioral correlate, a clear before and after change, and the stakes were relatively low.” She contrasted this use of neuroscience evidence with “my brain made me do it” defenses of criminal behavior. Those defenses oversimplify the link between genes, proteins, brains, and behaviors. “Risk factors don’t cause behavior,” she emphasized. She added that juries and judges do not always know that: behavioral genetics research findings speak broadly about populations (i.e., not about individuals); that single genes do not explain/cause complex human social behaviors; that one’s environment affects and can alter one’s genes; that there is no linear pathway between genes and environmental stimuli; and more. Admitting those issues, the use of neuroscience in the law is still likely to grow, according to David Siegel**** and Wendy Wolf*****. In the case of juveniles, that might not be such a bad development.
If Julius Caesar and Mr. C.’s brains influenced their decision-making, wouldn’t we want to assess that evidence? In a series of recent decisions, the Supreme Court posed a similar (rhetorical) question. In Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), Graham v. Florida (2010), J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011), and Miller v. Alabama (2012), the court leveraged neuroscience to carve out exceptions for violent and non-violent juvenile criminal offenders (e.g., restrictions on life without parole and the death penalty). Recognizing that certain bio-cognitive processes are still in development during adolescence, the court concluded that “kids are different,” as some legal observers have summarized. Siegel regarded this application of neuroscience as promising because it: “focused on the culpability of a specific class of offenders (i.e., rather than all criminal defendants), recognized the societal goals of punishment (i.e., for youth), and reflected the practices of other states and countries.” Wolf agreed. She and Siegel posited that young people are less likely to understand the criminal process and effectively weigh plea bargains and other penalties. Of course, this is only partly due to neural development, they acknowledged. But there seems to be enough evidence to convince the high court that youth sentencing should take brain science into account.
Whether the convicted are juveniles or adults, Pustilnik explained, “this doesn’t mean that they are going to get off the hook. But their sentences could be mitigated by their diminished capacity…” Further, she and the other presenters explained, neuroscience could inform tort liability, evaluation of intent to execute a legal document, and more. “Can a 15-year old refuse cancer treatment? Get an abortion? Keep her child? Get a tattoo…?” Pustilnik offered. These determinations require a careful balancing of scientific evidence, legal precedent, the facts at hand, and liberty interests. In the nexus of these concerns lies one of the most fascinating frontiers in contemporary legal practice and scholarship. To learn more about neuroscience and the law, check out the library resources below and in the NESL Library neuroscience guide.
Neuroscience Conference Presenters:
*Co-director of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and Psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School; **Associate Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law and alumna of Yale Law School; ***Physician, senior clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School and co-Founder of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; ****Professor of Law and co-Director, Center for Law and Social Responsibility at New England Law School; *****Trial Attorney and Director of Training for the Youth Advocacy Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services
Yale Law Library Resources, a selected bibliography
Freeman, Michael. (2011). Law and neuroscience: Current legal issues 2010. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Gideon, Yaffe. (2010). Attempts: In the philosophy of action and the criminal law. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Martin, Xavier. (2001). Human nature and the French revolution: From the enlightenment to the Napoleonic code (trans. Patrick Corcoran). New York, NY: Berghahn Books.
Morse, Stephen J. & Roskies, Adina L. (2013). A primer on criminal law and neuroscience: A contribution of the law and neuroscience project. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Nadel, Lynn (et al., Eds.). (2012). Memory and law. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Nadelhoffer, Thomas A. (2013). The future of punishment. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Tancredi, Lawrence. (2005). Hardwired behavior: What neuroscience reveals about morality. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Tyler, Tom. (2011). Why people cooperate: The role of social motivations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
----- (2007). Psychology and the design of legal institutions. Nijmegen, Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers.
van den Berg, Bibi & Klaming, Laura. (2011). Technologies on the stand: Legal and ethical questions in neuroscience and robotics. Nijmegen, Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers.
Vincent, Nicole A. (2013). Neuroscience and legal responsibility. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Image: Hieronymus Bosch [ca 1450-1516], "Removing the stone from the brain." Courtesy of Yale Image Collection.
Strategies for Publishing Your Article
Please join us for pizza and a panel discussion intended to provide practical tips to consider when submitting your article to scholarly journals. Our panel will include:
-Andrew Verstein, YLS '09, Associate Research Scholar and John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Executive Director for the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law. Andrew will speak from a legal author's perspective about strategically submitting your law review article for publication, taking into consideration factors such as submission timing, journal selection, and managing offers;
-Sarah Ryan, Empirical Research Librarian, Lillian Goldman Law Library. Sarah will discuss issues unique to submission to non-legal journals. Sarah has published more than 25 scholarly articles in various empirical and social science journals;
-Ben Eidelson, YLS '13, Editor with the Yale Law Journal, who will speak about the factors YLJ considers when selecting articles for publication; and
-Fred Shapiro, Associate Librarian for Collections and Access Services, who will offer insight on journal ranking and ExpressO.
For further information about using the ExpressO subsmission service, please follow this link: http://library.law.yale.edu/instructions-submitting-articles-law-journals-expresso
*Today's workshop is co-sponsored by the Lillian Goldman Law Library and the Law Teaching Series at Yale Law School.
Reference Desk Closing 6 pm Today, March 6, 2013
Apologies for the inconvenience, the Reference Desk will close today, March 6, 2013 at 6 pm.
Should you need help, please visit the Circulation Desk or email us at lawref@pantheon.yale.edu and expect a response on Thursday morning.
Thanks! And happy researching.
How to Leave YLS Prepared for an Innovative Career: Advice from Entrepreneurial Alums
This afternoon, Jonathan Ng, Global Legal Director of Ashoka (a renowned social entrepreneurship organization), gave YLS students this advice: You can learn what you need to know to lead a new organization or sector during your time at Yale. The advice was echoed by social entrepreneurship scholar and YLS fellow Zachary D. Kaufman (Yale College ’00, YLS ’09) and Generation Rwanda Executive Director Jamie Hodari (YLS ’09).
The three had gathered to discuss Kaufman’s new book, Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities, a project to which each had contributed. While the event commenced with a presentation on the emerging field of systems-changing social ventures, it ended with a lengthy discussion of how the presenters had forged meaningful careers in nascent legal fields. Hodari encouraged YLS students to follow their passions immediately following law school, rather than spending years “opening doors…” In that vein, consider how the law library and Yale University can help you prepare for your post-graduation ventures. Below are 10 exemplary resources from each. For further information, come see a librarian.
From the law library
1. Learn how to be a social entrepreneur
2. Learn how to run a nonprofit organization
3. Learn how to budget for your organization
4. Learn how to build strong public relations for your organization
5. Learn how to market your invention
6. Learn how to write environmental and natural resource management policies
7. Learn how to mediate, arbitrate, and resolve labor disputes
8. Learn how to manage human emergencies and natural disasters
9. Learn how to manage a law office
10. Learn how to have a career in the foreign service
Learning Opportunities via Yale College
1. Economics events, education, and professional development opportunities
2. Program in Agrarian Studies
3. Center for American Studies/American Politics and Public Policy Workshop
4. Center for Business and the Environment
5. Center for Environmental Law & Policy
6. Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics
7. Center for Industrial Ecology
8. Hixon Center for Urban Ecology
Book Talk -- Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities
Meet the editor and co-author, Zachary D. Kaufman ’09, and listen to a conversation about his new book, along with contributor Jamie Hodari ’09 and Ashoka’s Global Legal Director Jonathan Ng. Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Changing Our World provides reflections on social entrepreneurship from visionaries, practitioners, and theorists. The contributors to this book address the clear need for further examination of social entrepreneurship. The book aims to clarify and illustrate the concept of social entrepreneurship. In addition, the book examines challenges, obstacles, and opportunities in the field and lends new insight to the phenomenon, history, and methodologies of social entrepreneurship. The book features case studies profiling some of the most innovative and impactful social enterprises, including Americans for Informed Democracy, Asylum Access, Children of Abraham, Generation Rwanda, Indego Africa, the Kigali Public Library, the National Vision for Sierra Leone, and Orphans Against AIDS. While these organizations focus on genocide and other atrocities, their experiences yield lessons for those seeking to tackle a broad range of social, economic, legal, and political problems, such as healthcare, development, education, and literacy. Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities will inform, instruct, and help build the community of social entrepreneurs. This unique, essential collection of first-hand accounts is an inspiring and informative addition to the evolving social entrepreneurship literature. It will be of particular interest to social entrepreneurs; students, scholars, and practitioners of business, management, public policy, social policy, and development studies; anyone with a philanthropic mindset; and all those who are invested in creating and maintaining a socially responsible, accountable world.
A light lunch will be provided.
Critical Race Theory & Practice: The Dialogue Continues at YLS
“The curse of racism continues to haunt the Nation,” observed Robert C. Post in the opening line of his 1991 article “Racist Speech, Democracy, and the First Amendment.” In that article and in subsequent work, Dean Post argued for coherent antidiscrimination doctrine. Such doctrine would attend to existing social practices, uphold first amendment values, examine the influence of context, and move us toward more robust self-determination. This semester, the doctrinal dialogue continues at YLS with a number of key events.
On February 4, 2013 at 4:30pm in the Faculty Lounge, Clifford Alexander, past Chairman of the EEOC, will present the 2012-13 Dean’s Lecture, “Post Racial: An American Delusion.” On February 8-9th, YLS will host the 2013 Critical Race Theory Conference, with speakers such as Devon Carbado, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Lani Guinier, Cheryl Harris, Tanya Hernandez, Charles Lawrence, and Gerald Torres. Throughout the semester, presenters ranging from the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to distinguished YLS faculty will discuss a wide range of domestic and international racial justice issues. Before they start, here is a brief introduction to Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory is a movement and series of writings that address issues of racial discrimination, institutional racism, unequal treatment in employment and housing, and more. CRT scholars debate about the law’s ability to resolve social inequality (i.e., via formal equality). While the seeds of the movement are evident in court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the scholarship of CRT took root in articles such as “Serving Two Masters: Integration Ideals and Client Interests in School Desegregation Litigation,” authored by Derrick Bell and published by the Yale Law Review in 1976. Bell’s essay and other foundational writings are collected in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement (YLS call # KF4755.A75C7 1995).
If you have time to (re)read one CRT essay, consider Kimberlé Crenshaw’s “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” It is a complex article that resists reduction. In it, professor Crenshaw addresses one of the thorniest challenges of CRT scholarship and praxis: defining the plaintiffs/targets/recipients/intended beneficiaries of antidiscrimination law. “Mapping the Margins” adeptly unpacks the identity issues at the heart of CRT debates, and the problems inherent in identifying individuals via their complex social positions. It exposes the multi-faceted nature of discrimination as concomitantly racialized, gendered, aged, geographical, temporal, etc. Professor Crenshaw’s metaphor of the “intersections” at which we live is a touchstone for thinking about race in the United States and beyond. To explore “intersectionality” in a global context, see Mahmood Mamdani’s When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (YLS call# DT450.435.M35 2001). It is a kaleidoscopic account of post-colonial racialized violence presented via a case study of modern Rwanda. Professor Mamdani criticizes United States foreign policy in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, arguing that U.S. policymakers’ binary constructions of good and evil prevented them from serving a productive role in peacebuilding. When Victims Become Killers invites us to consider whether the moral fallacies that contribute to racism domestically also inform our international relations.
Beyond those texts, the YLS library maintains an extensive collection of Critical Race Theory volumes, as well as holdings in African American studies, feminist jurisprudence, human rights, queer theory, and more. The following 135 books are but a sampling of what you’ll find:
Amar, Akhil Reed. America’s Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By. YLS call# KF4541.A875 2012
Anderson, Margaret & Collins, Patricia Hill (eds.). Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology. YLS call#: HN59.2.R32 1998
Arsanjani, Mahnoush et al. Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of W. Michael Reisman. YLS call# Z3410.L66 2011
Asante, Molefi Kete & Mazama, Ama (eds.). Encyclopedia of Black Studies. YLS call# E185.E554 2005 oversize
Ayres, Ian & Brown, Jennifer Gerarda. Straightforward: How to Mobilize Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights. YLS call# HQ76.8.U5A97 2005
Balkin, Jack (ed.). What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said: The Nation’s Top Legal Experts Rewrite America’s Landmark Civil Rights Decision. YLS call#: KF228.B76W48 2001
Bell, Derrick. And We are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice. YLS call# KF4757.B349 1989
-----. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. YLS call# E185.615.B395 1992
-----. Race, Racism, and American Law (6th ed.). YLS call# KF4757.B35 2008
-----. Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform. YLS call# KF4155.B34 2004
Benhabib, Seyla & Post, Robert et al. Another Cosmopolitanism. YLS call# JZ1308.B48 2006
----- & Resnik (eds.). Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender. YLS call# K3324.M54 2009
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. YLS call# E184.A1B597 2006
Bosworth, Mary & Flavin, Jeanne (eds.). Race, Gender, and Punishment: From Colonialism to the War on Terror. YLS call# HV9950.R333 2007
Brooks, Richard & Rose, Carol. Saving the Neighborhood: Racially Restrictive Covenants, Law, and Social Norms. Copies of this 2013 book are on order.
Brooks, Roy, et al. Civil Rights Litigation: Cases and Perspectives. YLS call# KF4748.B76 1995
Brown, David & Webb, Clive. Race in the American South: From Slavery to Civil Rights. YLS call# E185.92.B76X 2007
Brown, Kevin. Race, Law and Education in the Post-Desegregation Era. YLS call# KF4155.B678 2005
Browne-Marshall, Gloria. Race, Law, and American Society: 1607 to Present. YLS call# KF4755.B76X 2007
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. YLS call# HQ1075.B89 2004
----- & Scott, Joan (eds.). Feminists Theorize the Political. YLS call# HQ1190.F48 1992
Bynum, Cornelius. A. Philip Randolph and the Struggle for Civil Rights. YLS call# E185.97.R27B97X 2010
Carter, Stephen. The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty. YLS call# JC328.C27 1998
-----. Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby. HF5549.5.A34C37 1991
Chang, David. The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Land Ownership in Oklahoma, 1832-1929. YLS call# E99.C9C428X 2010
Chapman, John & Shapiro, Ian (eds.). Democratic Community. YLS call# JC423.D465 1993
Chua, Amy. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. HF1359.C524 2003
Collins, Patricia Hill. Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. YLS call# E185.86.C5817 1998
Cotran, Eugene & Mallat, Chibli (eds.). The Arab-Israeli Accords: Legal Perspectives. YLS call# KZ4282.A73 1996
Dalton, Harlon. Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear Between Blacks and Whites. YLS call# E185.615.D35 1995
Daugherity, Brian & Bolton, Charles (eds.). With All Deliberate Speed: Implementing Brown v. Board of Education. YLS call# KF4155.W58X 2008
Delgado, Richard & Stefanic, Jean. (eds.). Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge (2nd ed.). YLS call# KF4755.C75 2000
Dembour, Marie-Bénédicte & Kelly, Tobias (eds.). Are Human Rights for Migrants?: Critical Reflections on the Status of Irregular Migrants in Europe and the United States. YLS call# K3275.A94X 2011
D’Emilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970. YLS call# HQ76.8.U5D45 1983
----- et al. (eds.). Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights. YLS call# HQ76.8.U5C74 2000
Eisenberg, Ellen. The First to Cry Down Injustice: Western Jews and Japanese Removal During WWII. YLS call# F596.3.J5E57X 2008
Engel, David & McCann, Michael. Fault Lines: Tort Law as Cultural Practice. YLS call# K923.F37X 2009
Eskidge Jr., William, & Spedale, Darren. Gay Marriage: For Better or For Worse?: What We’ve Learned from the Evidence. YLS call# K699.E85 2006
Finkelman, Paul. African Americans and the Law [vol. 1-10]. YLS call# KF4757.R33 1992
Fiss, Owen. The Dictates of Justice: Essays on Law and Human Rights. YLS call# JC585.F47 2011
García, Igancio. White but Not Equal: Mexican Americans, Jury Discrimination, and the Supreme Court. YLS call# KF224.H468G37X 2009
Gates, E. Nathaniel (ed.). Critical Race Theory: The Judicial Isolation of the ‘Racially’ Oppressed. YLS call# KF4733.J83 1997
Gillespie, Andra. The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark, and Post-Racial America. YLS call# F144.N653B664 2012
Goldstein, Eduardo. La Discriminación Racial por Origen Nacional y Etnia en las Relaciones Laborales. YLS call# HD4903.5.U8G65 2008
Grewal, David Singh. Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization. YLS call# JZ1318.G792X 2008
Griffiths, Gareth & Tiffin, Helen (eds.). The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. YLS call# PR9080.P57X 2006
Grimm, Dieter. Die Verfassung und die Politik: Einsprüche in Störfällen. YLS call# KK4455.G75 2001
Gross, Ariela. What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America. YLS call# KF4755.G76X 2008
Hansen, Randall & Weil, Patrick. Dual Nationality, Social Rights, and Federal Citizenship in the U.S. and Europe: The Reinvention of Citizenship. YLS call #: K7128.D8H36 2002
Harvey, Jennifer. Whiteness and Morality: Pursuing Racial Justice through Reparations and Sovereignty. YLS call# E184.A1H3528X 2007
Hathaway, Oona, & Koh, Harold Hongju (eds.). Foundations of International Law and Politics [see section IV: Applications: Human Rights]. YLS call# KZ3410.F68 2005
Herr, Stanley & Gostin, Lawrence & Koh, Harold Hongju. The Human Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Different but Equal. YLS call# K637.H86 2003
Higginbotham, F. Michael. Race Law: Cases, Commentary, and Questions. YLS call# KF4755.A7H54 2010
Hill, Mike (ed.). Whiteness: A Critical Reader. YLS call# E184.A1W398 1997
Huo, Yuen & Tyler, Tom. How Different Ethnic Groups React to Legal Authority. YLS call# KFC950.H86 2000
Irons, Jenny. Reconstituting Whiteness: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. YLS call# F350.A1I76X 2010
Jacobson, Matthew. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. YLS call# E184.E95J33 1998
Johnson, Kevin (ed.). Mixed Race America and the Law: A Reader. YLS call# KF4755.M59 2003
Jones, Cecily. Engendering Whiteness: White Women and Colonialism in Barbados and North Carolina, 1627-1865. YLS call# HQ1233.J73 2007
Kahn, Paul. The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstructing Legal Scholarship. YLS call# KF382.K33 1999
-----. Out of Eden: Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil. YLS call# BJ1401.K34 2007
Kennedy, Randall. The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency. YLS call# E185.615.K376X 2011
-----. Race, Crime, and the Law. YLS call# KF9223.K43 1997
Kofler, Georg & Maduro, Miguel Poiares, et al. (eds.). Human Rights and Taxation in Europe and the World. YLS call# K4466.H86 2011
Koh, Harold Hongju & Slye, Ronald. Deliberative Democracy and Human Rights. YLS call# JC423.D3894 1999
Krikorian, Gaëlle, & Kapczynski, Amy (eds.). Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property. YLS call# K1401.A929X 2010
Krysan, Maria & Lewis, Amanda. The Changing Terrain of Race and Ethnicity. YLS call# E184.A1C444 2004
Lawrence, Charles & Matsuda, Mari. We Won’t Go Back: Making the Case for Affirmative Action. HF5549.5.A34L38 1997
Lee, Francis Graham. Equal Protection: Rights and Liberties under the Law. YLS call# KF4755.L438 2003
Legomsky, Stephen & Rodríguez, Cristina. Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy. YLS call# KF4818.L43 2009
López, Ian Haney (ed.). Race, Law and Society. YLS call# KF4755.R35X 2007
Lukens, Patrick. A Quiet Victory for Latino Rights: FDR and the Controversy over Whiteness. YLS call# E184.S75L85X 2012
Mallampalli, Chandra. Race, Religion, and Law in Colonial India: Trials of an Interracial Family. YLS call# KNS46.A27M35X 2011
Marable, Manning et al. The New Black History: Revisiting the Second Reconstruction. YLS call# E185.615.N37 2011
----- et al. (eds.). Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives: The Racism, Criminal Justice, and Law Reader. YLS call# HV9950.R34X 2007
----- et al. (eds.). Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race, and Public Policy Reader. YLS call# HV6362005.N4S44X 2008
Martin, Gordon. Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote. YLS call# JK1929.M7M37 2010
Meares, Tracey, & Kahan, Dan. Urgent Times: Policing and Rights in Inner-City Communities. YLS call# HV7936.C83M42 1999
Mitchell, Koritha. Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930. YLS call# PS338.N4M455X 2011
Mohnhaupt, Begriffs, & Grimm, Dieter. Verfassung: Zur Geschichte des Begriffs von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart: Zwei Studien. YLS call# K3161.M64 2002
Moloney, Deirdre. National Insecurities: Immigrants and U.S. Deportation Policy since 1882. YLS call# JV6483.M645X 2012
Moran, Peter. Race, Law, and the Desegregation of the Public Schools. YLS call# KFX1591.S34M67 2005
Moran, Rachel & Carbado, Devon. Race Law Stories. YLS call# KF4755 .R355 2008
Moyn, Samuel. The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. YLS call# JC571.M86 2010
Myers, Verna. Moving Diversity Forward: How to Go From Well-Meaning to Well-Doing. YLS call# KF300.M94 2011
Olivas, Michael. (ed.). ‘Colored Men’ and ‘Hombres Aquí’: Hernández v. Texas and the Emergence of Mexican American Lawyering. YLS call# KF224.H468C65 2006
-----. No Undocumented Child Left Behind: Plyer v. Doe and the Education of Undocumented Schoolchildren. YLS call# KF4217.I46O45X 2012
Parks, Gregory, et al. (eds.). Critical Race Realism: Intersections of Psychology, Race, and Law. YLS call# KF4755.C749X 2008
Pencak, William & Richter, Daniel (eds.). Friends and Enemies in Penn’s Woods: Indians, Colonists, and the Racial Construction of Pennsylvania. YLS call# F152.F865 2004
Perea, Juan et al. Race and Races: Cases and Resources for a Diverse America. YLS call# KF4755.A7R33 2007
Phelan, Shane. Identity Politics: Lesbian Feminism and the Limits of Community. YLS call# HQ75.5.P48 1989
-----. Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and Dilemmas of Citizenship. YLS call# HQ76.8.U5P48 2001
Pierce, Jennifer. Racing for Innocence: Whiteness, Gender, and the Backlash against Affirmative Action. YLS call# HF5549.5.A34P54X 2012
Pogge, Thomas. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms. YLS call# JC571.P577 2008
----- & Moellendorf, Darrel. Global Responsibilities/Global Justice: Seminal Essays. YLS call# JC578.P62X 2008
Post, Robert & Hesse, Carla (eds.). Human Rights in Political Transitions: Gettysburg to Bosnia. YLS call# JC571.H769526 1999
----- & Rogin, Michael (eds.). Race and Representation: Affirmative Action. YLS call# HF5549.5.A34R32 1996
----- & Rosenblum, Nancy. Civil Society and Government. YLS call# JC336.C5667 2002
----- & Siegel, Reva, et al. Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law. YLS call# KF4755.P67 2001
Rana, Aziz. The Two Faces of American Freedom. YLS call# E183.R27 2010
Reisman, W. Michael. The Quest for World Order and Human Dignity in the Twenty-First Century: Constitutive Process and Individual Commitment.
Resnik, Judith, & Curtis, Dennis. Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms. YLS call# N8219.L3R47 2011 oversize
Rohrleitner, Marion & Ryan, Sarah (eds.). Dialogues across Diasporas: Women Writers, Scholars, and Activists of Africana and Latina Descent in Conversation. Copies of this 2013 book are on order.
Rose-Ackerman, Susan. Rethinking the Progressive Agenda: The Reform of the American Regulatory State [see chapter 7, “Social Services: Proxy Shopping”]. YLS call# KF5402.R665 1992
Rubenfeld, Jed. Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law. YLS call# KF4550.R83 2005
Rubenstein, Michael. Discrimination: A Guide to the Relevant Case Law. YLS call# KD3102.A59R83 2007 oversize
Ruger, Jennifer Prah. Health and Social Justice. YLS call# RA418.R84 2010
Said, Edward & Viswanathan, Gauri. Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said. YLS call# CB18.S25A3 2001
Sarat, Austin (ed.). Race, Law, and Culture: Reflections on Brown v. Board of Education. YLS call# KF4155.A2R33 1997
Schuck, Peter. Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance. YLS call# E184.A1S37 2003
----- & Wilson, James (eds.). Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation. YLS call# E169.12.U479 2007
SenGupta, Gunja. From Slavery to Poverty: The Racial Origins of Welfare in New York, 1840-1918. YLS call# HV99.N59S43X 2009
Shapiro, Ian & Kymlicka, Will. Ethnicity and Group Rights.
Sharfstein, Daniel. The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White. YLS call# E184.A1S5724 2011
Siegel, Reva & Greenhouse, Linda. Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate before the Supreme Court’s Ruling.
Silber, Norman. With All Deliberate Speed: The Life of Philip Elman. YLS call# KF373.E455A3 2004
Sklar, Kathryn & Stewart, James (eds.). Women’s Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation. YLS call# E449.W895X 2007
Southern Education Reporting Service & Shoemaker, Don. With All Deliberate Speed: Segregation-Desegration in Southern Schools. YLS call# LB3062.S6
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty & Landry, Donna & MacLean, Gerald. The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. YLS # HM101.S7733 1996
Tuitt, Patricia. Race, Law, Resistance. YLS call# K3242.T85 2004
Tyler, Tom. Social Justice in a Diverse Society. YLS call# HM216.S553 1997
-----. & Meares, Tracey, et al. (eds). Legitimacy and Criminal Justice: International Perspectives. YLS call# HV7419.L45X 2007
Webb, Clive. Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights. YLS call# E184.36.A34W43 2001
-----. Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction. YLS call# E185.61.M374 2005
Weil, Patrick. How to be French: Nationality in the Making Since 1789. YLS call# KJV4184.W45X 2008
Weiler-Harwell, Nina. Discrimination Against Atheists: A New Legal Hierarchy among Religious Beliefs. YLS call# KF4868.A84W45X 2011
Whitman, James. Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide between America and Europe. YLS call# K5103.W48 2003
Wiener, Richard et al. Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making: Psychological Perspectives. YLS call# K376.S58 2007
Wildhaber, Luzius. The European Court of Human Rights, 1998-2006: History, Achievements, Reform. YLS call# KJC5138.W55 2006
Williams, Patricia. The Alchemy of Race and Rights. YLS call# KF4757.W53 1991
-----. Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race. YLS call# E185.615.W493 1998
Winter, Ralph & Fiss, Owen et al. Affirmative Action: The Answer to Discrimination? An AEI Round Table held on May 28, 1975. YLS call# JC578.A44
Witt, John. Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History. YLS call# KF7210.W58 2012
-----. Patriots and Cosmopolitans: Hidden Histories of American Law [see section 2: “Exits”]. YLS call# KF353.W58X 2007
Young, Iris. Responsibility for Justice. YLS call# BJ1451.Y68X 2011
Coming Soon!
Ackerman, Bruce. We the People, Vol. 3: The Civil Rights Revolution, Harvard University Press.
Image: Romare Howard Bearden (1911-1988), Morning of Red Bird. Courtesy of Yale Image Collection.
Research Courses: Spring 2013
Are you still mulling over your Spring course schedule? Although legal research is not a required course here at Yale Law School, we offer several electives for your consideration. Research courses range from 1-3 credits, with some meeting over the whole term and others meeting over half of the term, before or after spring break.
Here are the research courses offered this Spring. Please contact Julie Graves Krishnaswami, if you have any questions.
ADVANCED LEGAL RESEARCH: METHODS AND SOURCES
Credit: 2 or 3 Units (varible course).
Offered: Fall and Spring semester (full semester)
Target Audience: All levels. Students writing a substantial paper or who plan on clerking.
Course Description: An advanced exploration of the specialized methods and sources of legal research in some of the following areas: administrative law; case finding; computer-assisted research; constitutional law and history; court rules and practice materials; international law; legislative history; and statutory research. Class sessions will integrate the use of online, print, and other research sources. Laptop computer recommended. Research problems or paper required. Excellent completion of course work for honors eligibility. Course satisfies the skills requirement.
EFFICIENT TECHNIQUES IN LEGAL RESEARCH
Credit: 1 Unit
Offered: Spring semester (first seven weeks of the semester, before Spring Break)
Target Audience: All levels. Students who haven’t taken a legal research course before and who need a basic understanding of legal research principles.
Course Description: This course will instruct students in basic legal research skills, including researching and updating federal case law, legislation, administrative law and secondary sources, using both print and online resources, with an emphasis on online resources. Students will be required to complete a series of short research tutorials. The course will meet once a week for the first seven weeks of the term. The skills requirement will be satisfied by taking this course with another 1-unit legal research course.
RESEARCH METHODS IN AMERICAN LEGAL HISTORY
Credit: 2-3 units
Offered: Spring semester (full semester)
Target Audience: 2L’s, 3L’s and Second semester 1L’s who are interested in legal history.
Course Description: This seminar will examine the methods and major materials used in American historical legal research, whether for scholarly pursuits or professional advocacy. It will cover early judicial, statutory, and constitutional sources; crime literature; court records; government documents; biographical materials and personal papers of lawyers and judges; other manuscript collections; and early sources of American international law and civil law. Paper required. This course satisfies the skills requirement.
LEGAL RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY IN PRACTICE
Credit: 1 unit
Offered: Spring semester (offered after Spring Break)
Target Audience: 2L’s, 3L’s and second semester 1L's interested in legal technology, knowledge management and social media.
Course Description: This course will introduce students to technological tools of the trade with each class covering in-depth a topic of law technology in practice. Topics may include e-discovery tools and techniques, knowledge management, law practice management technology, virtual law offices, social media & marketing, courtroom technology and more. This class will not focus on the legal issues created by technology. Classes may include guest speakers from law firms, the courts, as well as knowledge management, marketing, and IT experts to speak about technological issues. Students will take turns monitoring and leading short discussions of legal technology news every week. This course will meet weekly for seven weeks in the second half of the term. Minimum enrollment of five required. The skills requirement will be satisfied by taking this course with another 1-unit legal research course.
SPECIALIZED LEGAL RESEARCH IN CORPORATE LAW
Credit: 1 Unit
Offered: Spring Semester (offered first half of semester, before Spring Break)
Target Audience: 2L’s, 3L’s and second semester 1L's interested in corporate law.
Course Description: This course will include both lecture and discussion on methods and sources in corporate law, including securities law and criminal prosecutions of corporate fraud. Secondary sources will be emphasize, but basic finding-skills will also e address: case-finding, statutes-finding, locating legislative histories, and locating administrative materials. Online, print, and other resources will be considered throughout. Three guest speakers are scheduled: one who will present non-law business databases, another who will provide an introduction to reading a financial report, and a third guest (an Assistant U.S. Attorney and YLS alumnus) who will address the use of secondary sources in legal research generally, and with special attention to securities law and corporate fraud. This course will meet weekly in the first half of the term. The skills requirement will be satisfied by taking this course with another 1-unit legal research course.
Snacks for Finals
Snacks -- while they last -- will be in the Student Lounge throughout the day. Good luck with your final exams.
- The Lillian Goldman Law Libary
Faculty Publications - The Dangerous Thirteenth Amendment
What's dangerous about the Thirteenth Amendment's bar of slavery and involuntary servitude? In a Columbia Law Review essay YLS Prof. Jack Balkin and UT's Sanford Levinson argue that at the time of its prohibition in the Northwest Ordinance (from which the 13th Amendment is an almost verbatim copy) and as understood by the founders, "slavery" commonly referred not only to chattel slavery but encompased a broad range of forms of social domination. And unlike the 14th Amendenment, the 13th included no state action requirement. Dear lawyers, think of the possibilities!
In their review of why the 13th Amendment has come to be read more narrowly than the 14th Amendment and Bill of Rights, Balkin and Levinson discuss how the concept of slavery was limited during abolition to avoid comparisons to economic and political domination. Once chattel slavery was abolished, defenders of the status quo declared society "free" so that even today, labelling an injustice "slavery" is viewed as off the wall and even insulting to the memory of African-American slaves. The authors conclude by asking how our history might have been different if we hadn't lost the founding generation's conception of "slavery."
Further reading:
Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation (1998).
Eric Foner, Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983).
Jack M. Balkin, Corporations and the Thirteenth Amendment, Balkinization (Jan. 28, 2012).
Jack M. Balkin, More on Corporations as Slaves, Balkinization (Jan. 29, 2012).
Top 5 Library Services to be aware of during break
Many students may not be aware of the Yale Law Library services and benefits they can take advantage of while on their break, even if they are far from school. Here are the top 5:
- Some professors have made previous exams available to law students as study aids. You can access them through the library.
- The law library's scan on demand service can help you access library material while off site.
- The library is open during the break and for extended hours during exams.
- Reference Librarians will be available by email during the break.
- Your Yale Law School ID can get you access to most law school libraries across the country. Students should check the list of ABA accredited law schools and call ahead, but most libraries will allow access to Yale Law students.
Happy Holidays!
