Testing the Rule of Law – No Truth Left to Tell, William & Mary Law School

This seminar will challenge students to evaluate critical legal concepts using a novel as the shared narrative. The topics addressed include police brutality, prosecutorial power, bigotry, free speech, and violent white extremism in America. The country grapples with a history of slavery and inequality, and it relies on the "rule of law" to make progress on race, civil rights and justice system reforms. In fact, the principle of "rule of law" acts as the foundation for most of the nation’s democratic traditions and norms. This course tests some of the inherent assumptions we are taught to accept as law students, lawyers, and educators about the rule of law, using literature as the means of inquiry. Pass/fail. This information has been collected for the Post-Discipline Online Syllabus Database. The database explores the use of literature by schools of professional education in North America. It forms part of a larger project titled Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, led by Dr Merve Emre with the assistance of Dr Hayley G. Toth. You can find more information about the project at https://postdiscipline.english.ox.ac.uk/. Data was collected and accurate in 2021/22.