Course Syllabus

SOCIOLOGY OF LAW
University of Colorado Denver
Spring 2016 SOCY 4700 - 11163
Professor: Dr. Esther Sullivan
Office: 1380 Lawrence Street 420-N
Email: esther.sullivan@ucdenver.edu
In Person and Online Office Hours: Tuesday | Thursday 3:30 – 5:30 PM
(All emails will be returned within 36 hours)

Course Overview
Law is part of our everyday lives in both mundane and spectacular ways. The guiding question of this class is: What is law? To answer this question, we will investigate how law is rooted in people’s social experiences and, in turn, how law shapes our lives in many different, complex ways.

Although this is a class on law, we will not be studying legal ideas, concepts, and doctrines as formal rules. This class will not help you fight your way out of a speeding ticket, write a legitimate contract, or lawfully file your taxes. Hopefully, the analytical perspectives you learn will make such activities more interesting! Our focus will be on how law actually works in the world. As John Sutton defines it in his book Law/Society, the sociology of law is an intellectual endeavor that uses empirical data to explain people’s perceptions and behaviors as they engage with law. We will explore topics such as classical and contemporary theories of law, legal symbolism, legal consciousness, the legal profession, inequality and legal institutions, legal pluralism, and law and social change. The class material explores a wide range of specific issues: driving cars, criminal sentencing rules, torture, the death penalty, street harassment, homelessness, affirmative action, the underground economy, the movement for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender equality, and—I hope—the topics and interests you bring to class.

Course Objectives
After engaging in the classroom and successfully completing the assignments, you should be able to:
• Explain a law and society perspective
• Summarize and apply major sociological theories of law
• Define key concepts in the sociology of law and use them to analyze real-life examples and case studies.
• Asses the relationships between law and inequalities such as class, race, and gender.
• Demonstrate skills of public speaking, synthesizing, and presenting complex sociological material, and other teaching techniques.
• Demonstrate improved skills of critical reading and sociological thinking and writing, including the ability to identify the main points in articles and books and to discuss sociological ideas.
• Recognize the relationship of law to social inequality and the potential of law to promote social justice
• Effectively assess social scientific research on law and legal institutions

 
Required Materials:

Kitty Calavita, Invitation to Law & Society: Introduction to the Study of Real Law. University of Chicago Press.

Additional readings are posted on Canvas under "Files" and arranged by week.

See www.law.cornell.edu/wex or www.nolo.com/dictionary for a helpful, reliable legal encyclopedia and dictionary

 

Course Requirements and Grading:

(1) Exams
Exam 1 20%
Exam 2 20%

(2) Assignments
Essays (3) 20%
“Organization of the Law” Summary Assignment 10%
Team teaching project 15%

(3) Class Participation
Discussion board posts 10%
Quizzes 5%
100%

READING ASSIGNMENTS
Read actively! Research shows that we learn best when we read actively. What does this mean? Underline important passages. Write comments on the margins. Think about questions for your weekly discussion board as you read. Take hand-written notes. Identify the key concepts listed in the syllabus and define each one that is relevant to that reading. Try to identify the main argument that runs throughout the reading and some specific examples that support the argument. When readings are shorter, I expect you to read them closely. When they are longer, you should try to skim them and focus on the main points. I will discuss strategies for reading in my lectures as well. In your discussion board posts, you are expected to demonstrate that you have actively read that week’s material. The rubric I use to grade discussion board posts will help you understand how I evaluate your active reading.

EXAMS
The exams are composed of multiple-choice questions. The questions assume that you already have read and understand the course material. These are challenging exams.

ESSAYS
Essays will form the largest single component of your grade. They are meant to facilitate your understanding of materials, provide a space to analyze course topics more deeply, and showcase your ability to apply the subject matter discussed in the class to our contemporary world. See separate instructions.

“ORGANIZATION OF THE LAW” SUMMARY ASSIGNMENT
For this assignment you will work in groups to create a collaborative document that summarizes a portion of the reading materials for Week 3. I will assign you to groups in Week 1. Each group will submit their summary document to the rest of the class on Canvas. These documents will help us to collaboratively understand the materials presented in Steven Vago’s chapter “The Organization of the Law.”

TEAM TEACHING ASSIGNMENT
For this assignment, you will be assigned to a team that will team teach a portion of the materials for that week. This assignment is an opportunity for you to delve more deeply into course material, work collaboratively, and have the experience of teaching and presenting sociological research. See separate instructions.

DISCUSSION BOARD POSTS
EACH WEEK I will pose a question or topic within that week’s video lecture. You will be expected to address that topic in your discussion board post for that week. That’s right, you need to be attentive to weekly lecture in order to get the discussion board assignment for that week. I invite you to also use the discussion board to ask clarifying questions if you are confused, to raise thoughtful questions for discussion, to answer questions to the best of your ability, and to make comments that reflect that you have done the readings and paid attention to the lectures and videos. You might use the discussion board in other ways as well: by sharing materials relevant to that week’s topic - articles in the news, research, documentaries.

Finally, you may feel strongly about what you have read and observed or what we are discussing. Please respect the ideas and opinions of others, especially those with whom you disagree. You can learn a lot from people you disagree with if you listen to what they are saying and thoughtfully consider it.

QUIZZES
Throughout the semester we will have short quizzes on course material. These will be available in Canvas. Together all quizzes will count for 5% of your grade.

 

Evaluation and grading:
Final grades will be determined according to the following grading scheme:
A 94 – 100%
A- 90 – 94%
B+ 87 – 90%
B 84 – 87%
B- 80 – 84%
C+ 77 – 80%
C 74 – 77%
C- 70 – 74%
D+ 67 – 70%
D 64 – 67%
D- 60 – 64%
F < 60%

COMMUNICATION POLICIES

EMAIL You are welcome to e-mail me at any time, day or night. I will do my best to reply to your email within 24 to 48 hours.
OFFICE HOURS I have virtual office hours from 3:30-5:30 on Tuesday and Thursdays via Skype. Feel free to Skype in with me. And don’t forget, you can always come see me in person during those same office hours or by appointment. Please remember that email is an official form of university communication and to check your email account regularly for announcements about the course. Finally, remember all email correspondence is professional correspondence. You are emailing a professor and are expected to use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation and a professional tone in your email correspondence with me.

COURSE OUTLINE & ASSIGNED READINGS

UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION AND CLASSICAL THEORIES

Week 1
Introduction to the course.

o Calavita, Chap, 1 “Introduction,” pp. 1-9
Due: Read over “The Organization of the Law” Assignment and contact your group in preparation for Week 3 (do this by Sunday Jan 24th by midnight)

 

Week 2
o Calavita, Chap. 2 “Types of Society, Types of Law,” pp. 10-29 (skip the section on the legal profession on pp. 26-29)
o Susan Silbey and Ayn Cavicchi. “The Common Place of Law: Transforming Matters of Concern into the Objects of Everyday Life” in Atmospheres of Democracy, pp. 556-565
Due: Submit your rankings for Team Teaching Assignment (Due Sunday Jan 31st by midnight)

Week 3
o Steven Vago “The Organization of the Law” (no need to read Table 3.1 pages 92-107)
Due: Team summary assignment (Due Sunday Feb 7th by midnight, Peer Evaluation form DUE Monday Feb 8th via email to esther.sullivan@ucdenver.edu by midnight)

 
Week 4
o Review Team Summaries on “The Organization of the Law”
o Review Calvavita on Weber, pp. 10-11 of Chap. 2
o John Sutton, “Max Weber’s Sociology of Law,” Law/Society, pp. 99-111
o Wendy Espeland and Berit Vannebo, “Accountability, Quantification, and Law,” Annual Review of Law & Social Science. (Read only highlighted excerpts.)
o As you read Espeland and Vannebo, look at the 2012 Sentencing Table, p. 1, and the 2014 Sentencing Guidelines, pp. 48-51 (or more if you find it interesting)

Week 5
o Review Calavita pp. 16-20 on the relationship between law and the economy
o William Chambliss, “A Sociological Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy,” Social Problems, pp. 67-77

 

                                        UNIT 2: THE IMPACT OF LAW ON SOCIETY
Week 6
DUE: Sunday Feb 21st (by midnight) via Canvas: Essay 1 – What is Law?
Readings
o Calavita Chap. 3, “Law in the Everyday, Everywhere,” pp. 30-45 and paragraph about McCann and Haltom on p. 49
o Michael McCann, William Haltom, and Anne Bloom, “Java Jive: Genealogy of a Juridical Icon,” University of Miami Law Review.

Note: Tort law aims to provide relief (typically, financial compensation) when a person has been injured or harmed and the party that caused the injury is legally responsible under civil law. While doing this reading, focus on the basics of what happened in the main legal case, the dominant narratives, and key themes in the media coverage. Be sure to read the conclusion.

 

Week 7
o Jared Del Rosso, "The Toxicity of Torture: The Cultural Structure of U.S. Political Discourse of Waterboarding." Social Forces. Read the abstract, pp. 385-387 and pp. 389-397

 

Week 8

o Calavita pp. 45-50
o Laura Beth Nielsen, “Situating Legal Consciousness: Experiences and Attitudes of Ordinary Citizens about Law and Street Harassment,” Law & Society Review:
    pp. 1055-1056 (Abstract and Part I)
    pp. 1058-1060 (stop at “But how…”)
    skim pp. 1061-1066 (Part IV, Method), but closely read the chart on p. 1066
    pp. 1067-1086 (stop at “My purpose…”)
Mariana Valverde, Everyday Law on the Street: City Governance in an Age of Diversity
    Chap. 1, “Introduction,” pp. 1-6
    Chap. 2, “The Law of the Street Corner,” pp. 24-47

Week 9
Due: Exam 1
o Mariana Valverde, Everyday Law on the Street: City Governance in an Age of Diversity
    Chap. 6, “Putting Diversity on the Menu,” pp. 141-147, 150-160, 163-164.

 

UNIT 3: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN LAW

Week 10
DUE: March 20th (by midnight) via Canvas: Essay 2 – Everyday Law
Team Teaching Group: The Socio-legal Construction of Race
Key concepts: the social construction of race, biological race, racialization and the law (how the law racializes people)
o Calavita, Chap 4, “The Color of Law,” pp. 51-63
o Ian Haney-López, “The Social Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice,” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, pp. 1-20, 61-62. Focus on the main body of this law review article, and skim the footnotes that have discussion in them.

Week 11
Team Teaching Group: “The New Jim Crow”
Key concepts: critical race theory, colorblindness, “The New Jim Crow,” racial profiling, the War on Drugs, racial inequalities and mass incarceration, (maybe) mandatory minimum sentencing
o Calavita, Chap 4, “The Color of Law,” pp. 63-73
o Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
     Introduction, pp. 1‐19
     Chap. 3, “The Color of Justice,” pp. 95-136

 

Week 12
Team Teaching Group: The Underground Economy and a Local Legal System
Key concepts: legal pluralism, underground economy, the informal urban legal system, the role of gangs in the underground economy and informal legal system in Marquis Park
o Calavita Chap 5, “Many Laws, Many Orders,” pp. 74-77 (stop after the DC paragraph) and 81-83

o Venkatesh, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor,
    Chap. 1 “Living Underground,” pp. 1-14
    Chap. 6, “Our Gang,” pp. 278-281, 290-302, 309-335, 355-365 (focus on community courts theme)

 

Week 13
Team Teaching: Social Control and the Regulation of Space
Key concepts: social control quality of life crimes, consensual crimes, the regulation of space, policing, homelessness, informal economies
o Steven Barkan, Chapter 5 “Law and Social Control”
o Forrest Stuart, “Race, Space, and the Regulation of Surplus Labor: Policing African Americans in Los Angeles’s Skid Row.” Souls, 13:2, 197-212

 

Week 14
Team Teaching: Racial Disparities in the Law – The New Jim Crow Part II
Key concepts: racial inequalities in crime & punishment, the unequal effects of the carceral system, the continued impacts of imprisonment on the lives of ex-offenders
o Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Chap. 4: “The Cruel Hand.” Focus your reading up to page 169.

Week 15
Team Teaching Group: The Law, the Homeless, and the Mile High City
Key concepts: the criminalization of homelessness, vagrancy, quality of life laws, Denver’s “No Camping Ban”
o Tony Robinson and Allison Sickels, No Right to Rest: Criminalizing Homelessness in Colorado

Finals Week

Due: Sunday May 8th (by midnight) via Canvas: Essay 3 – Race and Incarceration Essay

Exam 2

 

Spring 2016 CLAS Academic Policies

The following policies, procedures, and deadlines pertain to all students taking classes in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS). They are aligned with the Official University Academic Calendar:
http://www.ucdenver.edu/student-services/resources/Registrar-dev/CourseListings/Pages/AcademicCalendar.aspx

• Schedule verification: It is each student’s responsibility to verify that their official registration and schedule of classes is correct in their Passport ID portal before classes begin and by the university census date. Failure to verify schedule accuracy is not sufficient reason to justify late adds or drops. Access to a course through Canvas is not evidence of official enrollment.
• E-mail: Students must activate and regularly check their official CU Denver e-mail account for university related messages.
• Administrative Drops: Students may be administratively dropped from a class if they never attended or stopped attending, if the course syllabus indicates that the instructor will do this. Students may be administratively dropped if they do not meet the requisites for the course as detailed in course descriptions.
• Late adds and late withdrawals require a written petition, verifiable documentation, and dean’s approval. CLAS undergraduate students should visit the CLAS Advising Office (NC1030) and graduate students should visit the Graduate School (12th floor LSC) to learn more about the petition process and what they need to do to qualify for dean’s approval.
• Waitlists: The Office of the Registrar notifies students at their CU Denver e-mail account if they are added to a class from a waitlist. Students are not automatically dropped from a class if they never attended, stopped attending, or do not make tuition payments. After waitlists are purged, students must follow late add procedures to be enrolled in a course. Students will have access to Canvas when they are on a waitlist, but this does not mean that a student is enrolled or guaranteed a seat in the course. Students must obtain instructor permission to override a waitlist and this is only possible when there is physical space available in a classroom, according to fire code.

Important Dates and Deadlines
All dates and deadlines are in Mountain Time (MT).
• January 19, 2016: First day of classes.
• January 24, 2016: Last day to add or waitlist a class using the Passport ID portal.
• January 24, 2016: Last day to drop a class without a $100 drop charge--this includes section changes.
• January 25, 2016: All waitlists are purged. Students should check their schedules in their Passport ID portal to confirm in which classes you are officially enrolled.
• January 26-Feburary 3, 2016, 5 PM: To add a course students must obtain instructor permission using the Instructor Permission to Enroll Form and bring it to the CLAS Advising Office (NC 1030) or have their instructor e-mail it to CLAS_Advising@ucdenver.edu .
• February 3, 2016: Census date.
o 2/3/16, 5 PM: Last day to add full term classes with instructor approval. Adding a class after this date (late add) requires a written petition, verifiable documentation, and dean’s approval. After this date, students will be charged the full tuition amount for additional classes added – College Opportunity Fund hours will not be deducted from eligible student’s lifetime hours.
o 2/3/16, 5 PM: Last day to drop full term classes with a financial adjustment on the Passport ID portal. After this date, withdrawing from classes requires instructor signature approval and will appear on student’s transcript with a grade of ‘W’. After this date, a complete withdrawal (dropping all classes) from the term will require the signature of the dean and no tuition adjustment will be made. Students should consult appropriate service offices (e.g. international status, Financial Aid (loans, grants, and/or scholarships) or Veteran’s Student Services) before withdrawing from course(s) to determine any impact for continued enrollment and funding.
o 2/3/16, 5 PM: Last day to apply for Spring 2016 graduation. Undergraduates must make an appointment and see their academic advisor before this date to apply. Graduate students must complete the Intent to Graduate and Candidate for Degree forms.
o 2/3/16, 5 PM: Last day to request No Credit or Pass/Fail grade for a class using a schedule adjustment form.
o 2/3/16, 5 PM: Last day to petition for a reduction in Ph.D. dissertation hours.
• February 4-April 4, 2016, 5 PM: To withdraw from a course, students must obtain instructor permission using the Schedule Adjustment Form and must bring the signed form to the Office of the Registrar. To add a course, students must petition through College/School undergraduate advising offices or the Graduate School, as appropriate.
• March 21-27, 2016: Spring break- no classes, campus open.
• April 5, 2016: The Office of the Registrar now requires both the instructor’s signature and a CLAS advisor’s/dean’s signature on a Schedule Adjustment Form to withdraw from a class. Students should consult their home college advising office for details.
• April 18, 5 PM: Deadline for undergraduate CLAS students to withdraw from a course without filing a late withdrawal petition. Contact CLAS Advising (NC 1030 – 303-556-2555).
• May 14, 2016: End of semester.
• June 24, 2016: Final grades available on the Passport ID portal and on transcripts (tentative).

Please contact an academic advisor if you have questions or concerns.