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.

Students engage in this examination through both a classroom seminar, which includes simulated lawyering exercises, and working two days a week in a field placement. The field placements include such legal organizations as Center for Constitutional Rights, private civil rights practitioners, Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense Fund), the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the New York State Attorney General Office, Civil Rights Bureau, The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the New York State Division for Human Rights and Latino Justice- PRLDEF (formerly Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund).

Highlights of the Equality Concentration

• Lawyering tasks: Students are assigned to firms of five "lawyers" and collaborate in lawyering exercises that include interviewing clients, factual development of a case, drafting legal memorandum, preparing discovery plans, drafting a court complaint,the role of expert witnesses, and conducting examinations in a trial setting.
  
  
• Advocacy in various settings, including court and Arbitration Setting: In roles as judge or attorney, students focus on a case of sexual harassment.
  
  
• 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 gender discrimination.