Equality Concentration

Program Overview

The Equality Concentration examines the meaning of equality, the ways the law promotes or limits equality, and whether the professional role of the lawyer enhances equality for the client and for society. The doctrinal objective is to give a basic familiarity with specific constitutional and statutory sources for civil rights. The substantive areas studied are employment discrimination and Section 1983 actions against governmental entities, including police misconduct claims (Civil Rights Act of 1871). Issues of race and sex, such as racial and sexual harassment in the workplace, are examined in addition to issues of affirmative action, sexual orientation, disability, and age. The basic legal theories of discrimination, disparate impact and disparate treatment are applicable throughout civil rights law and litigation, and public policy and legislative advocacy.

Students engage in this examination through both a classroom seminar, which includes simulated lawyering exercises, "rounds" where the students discuss legal and ethical issues from their placements, and working two days a week in a field placement under the supervision of a staff attorney and consultation with Concentration faculty. The placements provide a variety of opportunities involving litigation and non-litigation lawyering skills, such as drafting court complaints, participating in preparing for and observing depositions or mediations, participation in settlement conferences, and might involve public policy advocacy, depending on the student's learning goals. The field placements include such legal organizations as Center for Constitutional Rights, private civil rights practitioners, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the New York State Attorney General Office, Civil Rights and Labor Bureaus, The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the New York State Division for Human Rights, National Employment Law Project, the National Labor Relations Board, District Council 37 Union, and Latino Justice- PRLDEF (formerly Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund). Some of the past placements have also included related equality issues such as environmental racism, gay rights, low wage and immigrant workers' rights, labor rights, and children's rights.

Highlights of the Equality Concentration

• Lawyering tasks: Students are assigned to "law firms" and collaborate in lawyering exercises representing individuals and organizations that include interviewing clients, factual development of a case, drafting legal memorandum, preparing discovery plans, drafting a court complaint, drafting a motion in limine, the role of expert witnesses, and conducting examinations in a trial setting.
  
  
• Advocacy in various settings, including court and arbitration setting and in roles as judge or attorney, focusing on civil rights matters.
  
  
• Affirmative Action: Law firms present evidence and arguments concerning a claim of race discrimination in a challenge to an alleged affirmative action plan.
  
  
• Qualified Immunity: Plaintiff and city governmental attorneys argue a motion to dismiss based on the defense of qualified immunity in a claim of police misconduct.