This course deals with characteristic arrangements under American law for the creation and transfer of rights to control and exploit property. The relationships of these arrangements to efficient resource use, the pattern of wealth distribution, and other social concerns will be explored as they are reflected in both judicial decision-making and legislative reform. Topics will cover aspects of commercial land transfers such as leases, conveyances, recording, and other methods of title assurance; the role of property law in producing and remedying racial and economic inequality;...

This course will consider one of the newest intellectual currents within American Legal Theory -- Critical Race Theory. Emerging during the 1980s, critical race scholars made many controversial claims about law and legal education -- among them that race and racial inequality suffused American law and society, that structural racial subordination remained endemic, and that both liberal and critical legal theories marginalized the voices of racial minorities. Course readings will be taken from both classic works of Critical Race Theory and newer interventions in the field, as well...