Analyzes the historical construction of race as a concept in American society, how and why this concept was institutionalized publicly and privately in various arenas of U.S. public life at different historical junctures, and the progress that has been made in dismantling racialized institutions since the civil rights era.

This course examines the implications of AI, particularly foundation models, for law and public policy. Topics will include how AI affects and reshapes legal doctrine and policy, including: intellectual property law, administrative law, anti-discrimination law, and more. Also covered will be emerging regulatory policies and legislative efforts around AI, as well as the limits of proposed approaches. Emphasis will be placed juxtaposing the legal and policy considerations with technical design decisions, in an interdisciplinary and accessible way. This course is suitable for students of all backgrounds; no technical knowledge is assumed.

National security secrecy presents a conflict of core values: self-government and self-defense. We need information to hold our leaders accountable, but if we know our enemies know too. This course explores that dilemma and the complex relationships that resolve it. Beginning with the traditional rubric of "government versus press," the course maps an increasingly fragmented information marketplace. We will apply competing legal and philosophical models to real-world cases of unauthorized disclosure. Among the subjects: weapons of mass destruction, the "war on terror," the Snowden surveillance disclosures, torture and Wikileaks.

This course offers an experiential examination of conflict resolution theory and practice including negotiation, mediation, and restorative justice. It will focus on an analysis of the impact of emotion, power, culture and other factors on conflict escalation, de-escalation and resolution. Students will learn skills through interactive exercises and simulations.

The Policy Advocacy Clinic provides a unique offering for students to learn about and participate in the policymaking process. This one-year, two semester course includes two core components: a fall semester academic seminar where students study the policymaking process and a spring semester Policy Task Force where students engage in active campaigns to advance public policy. Topics will cover both the academic and practical, ranging from studying public policy theories, the legislative process and administrative law to developing the skills needed to engage in policy analysis, campaign planning, and power-mapping.

To understand American inequality, politics, history, and cities, it is necessary to understand American violence. This course is a mix of criminology, public policy, sociology, and urban history. We'll cover ideas about how to explain violence, moving from theories that focus on individuals to focus on neighborhoods, policing, guns & culture. We'll think about how to explain trends in violence, focusing on the declining violence in the 90s to the recent rise of gun violence since 2020. We'll think about ways cities can respond to violence, from street lighting to summer jobs to hot spot policing & consider the impact & consequences of each.

This course takes a closer look at the debate surrounding the issues of the role of morality and values in U.S. foreign policy from a historical, intellectual, and practical viewpoint. When, how, and why did various U.S. administrations come to emphasize notion of morality as a central dimension of their foreign policy? Have the strategies they have carried out to that end reinforced or detracted from U.S. national interests?

How do we evaluate whether a particular public policy is good or bad? Which goals should public policies serve? From Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to the World Health Organization's pandemic treaty, public policies cannot be properly understood without exploring the political and moral values that underpin them. This course asks what it means to think ethically about public policies. Each week, it introduces a domestic or international public policy, pairing it with relevant scholarship in ethics to better understand what is at stake. Students are invited to consider how they would improve or replace the policies in question.

An introduction to the social bases of American politics and the political forces in the shaping of American society. This year's class will focus on racial, gender, and class divisions in contemporary America.

This course will review and analyze the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to the present. It will emphasize Beijing's relations with the US as well as examine its dealings with the USSR, Asia and the developing world. It will explore the changes and continuities in the PRC's foreign policy during three periods; 1) the era of Mao Zedong's dominance, 2) the reform era begun under Deng Xiaoping and 3) the turn back toward authoritarianism since the advent of Xi Jinping.

This course is about how U.S. constitutional law distributes policy-making power among and within the branches of the federal government; between the federal government and the states; between governing officials and the People they govern. It is not about what substantive policy should be, but about who does and should have the power to settle the answer. The course aims to provide students sufficient fluency in the language of law to excel in the world of U.S. public policy.

This course will examine how institutions develop, vary in design, and shape public policy. Law will be a primary focus because it is central to the development of institutions in modern societies and provides the formal means for expressing and fixing policy. The course will cover a wide range of institutions- social, economic, and political- not only in an American context but also in comparative perspective.

This course covers policing in the United States as it intersects with constitutional rights and racial justice. Topics will include studying the history of police institutions, from slave patrols and night watches to big city police departments; the constitutional framework for policing powers; various theories and tactics of policing, such as broken windows policing; policing practices in the context of schools, drug enforcement and immigration enforcement; and the rise of social movements seeking to change police's role in society, such as the Black Lives Matter movement.

In this intensive seminar, Princeton students have the opportunity to contribute to the exoneration of wrongfully convicted people. A select group of dedicated students will spend the semester as investigators, documentarians, and social justice advocates. The goal is to create a public documentary, website, and social media campaign that makes the case for the innocence of a wrongfully convicted person who is currently languishing in prison and deserves to be free.

This seminar will present a case study of one state's constitutional structure by examining the design and operation of the 1947 New Jersey Constitution. The seminar will explore (1) the Constitution's remarkable history from its modern creation in 1947 and ensuing amendments adopted by the voters; (2) the distribution of state powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and resultant inter-branch tensions; (3) a sampling of individual rights that are afforded greater protection under the NJ Constitution than under federal constitutional law; and (4) the importance of state constitutions co-existing within a federal system.

The European Union (EU) has its own legal system. So does the Council of Europe (COE), another international organization, famous for the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). And so do each of the states that are members of the EU and COE. How do these multiple legal systems coordinate and sometimes clash? In Legal Europe, we will learn EU law, ECHR law and national law from multiple European states to explore how they work together (or not) to handle the toughest issues of our time, including democratic backsliding, violations of human rights, international security, economic policy, mass migration and nationalism.

Considers role of law in gov't: When is a state constrained by law & when it may legitimately change/ignore the law? Use a range of materials from fiction to court cases, legal theory to political history, etc. Proceed by negative example, considering cases from the US: Lincoln's conduct during Civil War, Roosevelt's economic emergency, the Cold War, Nixonian exceptionalism, "war on terror" after 9/11. Also consider comparative examples: Russian Revolution, the collapse of the Weimar constitution, the breaks from communism in the "revolutions" of 1989 & beyond. Also Nuremberg Trials & Kosovar War.

This course will introduce students to contemporary constitutional law in comparative perspective. The emphasis will be on bringing together the main theories of constitutionalism; diverse regions that have been the scene of constitution-making in recent decades (including Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin and South America) in comparison with more 'consolidated' constitutional systems, and some of the main recent trends in constitutionalism (militant democracy, transitional constitutionalism, supranational constitution-making, constitutional populism) but with a firm focus on the question of judicial review and constitutional rights.

This course will explore how women's rights activists, lawyers, and legal scholars have considered legal institutions and law to be arenas and resources for transforming women's lives and gender norms, identities, and roles. Since the early 1970s, feminist legal scholars and lawyers have challenged traditional understandings of law and the core civic values of freedom, justice, and equality. Others have questioned whether litigation-centered approaches to reform have harmed more than helped advance the goal of women's equality and liberation.

The Policy Advocacy Clinic provides a unique offering for students to learn about and participate in the policymaking process. This one-year, two semester program includes two core components: a fall semester academic seminar where students study the policymaking process and a spring semester field program where students engage in active campaigns to advance public policy. Topics will cover both the academic and practical, ranging from studying public policy theories and structures to developing the skills needed to engage in policy analysis, campaign planning, power-mapping, and the legislative process.