Liberty & Equality: LGBTQ & Reproductive Rights

In recent years, LGBTQ and reproductive rights have been at the center of American politics and the regulation of gender and sexuality has become a highly salient issue for all three branches of government, at the federal and state level. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 fundamentally altered the constitutional framework governing all these areas, and lawmakers have passed thousands of new laws remaking the legal landscape surrounding LGBTQ and reproductive rights.

This course will examine the regulation of sexual orientation and gender identity, with an eye toward understanding how this regulation has changed over time and the momentous court decisions and recent acts of government that have brought us to where we are today. This course will also examine the ongoing battle over reproductive rights, both inside and outside the courts, to try to understand both the dramatic changes in this area of law in the last few years and where this area of law is headed in the future.

This course will focus on the key precedents and central debates in LGBTQ and reproductive rights law, as well as broader debates about what counts as discrimination, the meaning of liberty and equality in American law, and the implications of the Court’s recent turn toward history and tradition to determine the scope of constitutional rights.