Critical Race Studies J.D. Specialization
The Critical Race Studies Specialization attracts top students committed to advancing new ideas for racial and social justice.
The Critical Race Studies J.D. Specialization deepens our understanding of race and provide tools and strategies to further civil rights and human rights across the globe. In particular, the specialization trains students to both analyze how the law and legal institutions erect racial hierarchies and how to dismantle those same hierarchies. The CRS specialization is appropriate for law students who seek further understanding on issues of inequality and race and the law.
Alumni of the Critical Race Studies program have found that the critical analysis skills that they gain through the specialization are applicable to a number of fields. While many alumni work in areas directly related to racial and/or social justice, our graduates’ careers have included work in public interest organizations, corporate law firms, academia, government agencies and more.
Enrolling in the CRS Specialization
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Prospective J.D. Students
Prospective students can apply to the program through the general UCLA Law School admissions process. Under “programmatic contribution,” you may list Critical Race Studies. We recommend that you detail your relevant background in the area as well as how you imagine a Critical Race Studies specialization will impact your law school and professional career. Your statement can include relevant coursework, research, extracurricular activities, personal and professional experiences. As the application form has limited space, you may append additional pages as necessary. Please note that the CRS statement is not the same as a diversity statement.
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Current J.D. Students
If you did not apply to the program through the general admissions process, you may enroll at the end of your first year of law school. In the spring semester, the Critical Race Studies program will hold an information program, where we will discuss the specialization requirements as well as the application form.
You may also contact crs@law.ucla.edu for more information and to be placed on our student mailing list at any time during the school year.
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Transfer Students
To enroll in the CRS Specialization, please email crs@law.ucla.edu as soon as possible. Transfer students are also entitled to priority enrollment in the core courses. However, since transfer admissions decisions are made after UCLA Law first-year students have elected into the specialization, you may not be able to exercise priority enrollment options in the fall semester of your second year. To increase your options, please be as diligent as possible.
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LL.M. Students
Candidates for the Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree at UCLA Law may apply for Specialization in Critical Race Studies. Please contact the CRS program director for more information.
Curriculum
The CRS curriculum provides a unique combination of depth and breadth. In-depth instruction in civil rights and critical race theory are taught by CRS core faculty, including several professors who built the intellectual foundations of the field. In addition, courses addressing specific racial groups and other forms of social hierarchies are part of an overall approach that helps us understand that we live in a multiracial world with intersecting and overlapping forms of inequality and subordination. Please contact the CRS Program Director should you have any questions about these requirements or the ways that you can fulfill them.
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Courses Required for the Critical Race Studies Specialization
Overview: You are required to take five (5) courses to complete the specialization, including two (2) core courses, and one (1) course in each of the three groups described below. In addition, you are required to fulfill the CRS Writing Requirement as described more fully below. Your cumulative GPA within these courses must be a B- or higher to gain the Critical Race Studies certification. You may fulfill any of these course requirements with a course that is graded Pass/NP in which your grade is Pass.
NOTE: For the Class of 2024, you may use any courses listed in our previous set of requirements. See here.
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Core Courses (BOTH courses are required.)
(Note that we highly recommend you take these courses in the 2L year and be taken before or during the semester(s) in which you work actively to fulfill the CRS Writing Requirement.)
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Group A (ONE Course)
These courses provide a range of opportunities to study inequality and subordination in the law. Some of the courses analyze how some people or groups are governed by a body of law that stands apart from the mainstream in ways that may reflect inequality or subordination (e.g., Immigration Law, Federal Indian Law), or how the law may or may not address inequality or subordination (Employment Discrimination Law). You are required to take one course from this list.
NOTE: although not listed below, the following courses will satisfy the group A requirement:
LAW 571: Legal History Workshop [only if taken during spring 2025 semester]
LAW 601: Connecting Art and Law for Liberation
LAW 645: Race Conscious Remedies
LAW 677: Muslims, Race and Law
LAW 690: Race, Social Psychology, and the Legal Process
LAW 926: Rebellious Lawyering
LAW 963: Employment Discrimination
LAW 260Labor Law & Collective Action
LAW 263Employment Discrimination Law
LAW 267Federal Indian Law
LAW 273International Human Rights Law
LAW 287Federal Indian Law II
LAW 301Art and Cultural Property Law
LAW 316Disability Law
LAW 318Law, Gender, and Sexuality
LAW 325Public Benefits Law and Anti-Poverty Policy
LAW 331Immigration Law
LAW 338Islamic Jurisprudence
LAW 383Political Asylum and Refugee Law
LAW 389Prison Law and Policy
LAW 444Indigenous Peoples in International Law
LAW 463Regional Human Rights Protection: The Inter-American System
LAW 487Race, Representation and the Law
LAW 493Housing Law and Policy
LAW 496Race, Racism, and Law
LAW 497Critical Issues in Human Rights
LAW 529Criminal Procedure: Policing Poverty
LAW 533The Philosophy of Prisons and Punishment
LAW 537Low-Wage Workers
LAW 542Race, Sexuality, and the Law
LAW 568Reparations for Black Americans: Legal Issues and Strategies
LAW 584Human Rights and Sexual Politics
LAW 593Preventive Detention
LAW 618Your Professional Identity and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Law
LAW 622Data, Policy & Legal Responses to the Attacks on Critical Race Theory
LAW 632Immigrants' Rights
LAW 653Critical Race Studies Scholarship Workshop
LAW 655Feminist Legal Theory
LAW 656Race, Law and Curriculum
LAW 661Latinx People and the Law
LAW 688Philosophy of Migration Law
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Group B (ONE Course)
These courses provide a basis for applying the central themes in critical race theory to specific areas of the law. Note: you must either take one course in Group B OR you may take a second course from Group A to satisfy this requirement.
NOTE: although not listed below, the following courses will satisfy the group B requirement:
LAW 299: Federal White Collar Crime
LAW 629: Topics in Post-Conviction Law & Policy
LAW 667: Voting Rights
LAW 202Criminal Procedure: Investigations
LAW 260Labor Law & Collective Action
LAW 261Employment Law
LAW 268International Civil Litigation and Dispute Resolution
LAW 270Public International Law
LAW 282Education Law & Policy
LAW 285Local Government Law
LAW 286Land Use
LAW 290Environmental Law and Policy
LAW 295Criminal Procedure: Adjudication
LAW 296Criminal Procedure: Habeas Corpus
LAW 317Family Law
LAW 319Election Law
LAW 325Public Benefits Law and Anti-Poverty Policy
LAW 376Law and Dissent
LAW 429Capital Punishment in America
LAW 443Comparative Environmental Law
LAW 484Information Privacy and Data Protection
LAW 503Current Topics in Criminal Law
LAW 504Law, Technology, and Society
LAW 508Food Law and Policy
LAW 527Natural Resources Law
LAW 534Sentencing Law and Policy
LAW 566Laws of War (International Humanitarian Law)
LAW 609The American Civil Justice Crisis
LAW 612Reproductive Rights and Justice
LAW 617Special Topics in Family Law
LAW 619Environmental Justice Law
LAW 660Cities in Distress
LAW 666The Law and Political Economy of Debt
LAW 668The 8th Amendment Punishments Clause
LAW 671Comparative Education: Law and Policy
LAW 959Los Angeles Housing Law & Policy
LAW 964Comparative Sex Equality
LAW 965Higher Education Law and Policy
LAW 973Designing Real Utopias
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Group C (ONE Course)
These courses provide a basis for applying the central themes in critical race theory in practical legal settings and thus expose you to the practical application of laws and policies to concrete social issues. You are required to take one course from this list, or you can use an externship to fulfill this Applied Practice requirement.
NOTE: although not listed below, the following course will satisfy the group C requirement:
LAW 835: Pay or Stay: An Exploration f the Bail System in America
LAW 541Problem Solving in the Public Interest
LAW 589Successful Strategies for Human Rights Advocacy
LAW 617Special Topics in Family Law
LAW 693Food Litigation: Consumer Protection, Regulation, and Class Actions
LAW 701Prisoners' Rights Clinic
LAW 712Street Law--Youth & Education
LAW 717International Human Rights Clinic
LAW 719Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic
LAW 728Tribal Legal Development Clinic
LAW 730Veterans Justice Clinic: Poverty, Homelessness & Criminalization
LAW 731Community Lawyering in Education Clinic
LAW 738California Environmental Legislation and Policy Clinic
LAW 750Youth & Justice Clinic
LAW 773Immigrants' Rights Policy Clinic
LAW 786Pretrial Justice Clinic
LAW 792Immigrant Family Legal Clinic
LAW 794Human Rights Litigation Clinic
LAW 816Reparations for Black Land Loss
LAW 832Voting Rights Policy and Practice
LAW 834Law, Organizing, and Low-Wage Workers
LAW 837Domestic Violence Prevention Practicum
LAW 838Civil Rights Litigation Practicum
LAW 908Suing the Police
LAW 952Re-envisioning the Lawyer’s Role: Trauma Informed Lawyering and Restorative/ Transformative Justice
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CRS Writing Requirement
Papers used to fulfill the CRS Writing Requirement must be sufficient to meet the law school’s Substantial Analytical Writing (SAW) requirement. Papers used to fulfill the CRS Writing Requirement must engage substantially with race or racism, and they must employ critical race scholarship or concepts typical of critical race scholarship in its analysis. NOTE: You can also use the CRS paper to fulfill the law school's writing requirement (and/or the writing requirement for another specialization). You may meet the CRS Writing Requirement with a paper written for any course or seminar that you use to fulfill a CRS Course Requirement.
You may fulfill the CRS Writing Requirement, as described above, in one of the following ways:
- Any Course or Independent Research with CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty Member.
You may use writing in ANY course taught by a CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty member to fulfill the writing requirement with the approval of that faculty member.
As an alternative to fulfilling this requirement by writing a paper within an approved course or seminar, you may enroll under the supervision of a CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty member in a minimum of three (3) units of Independent Research (Law 340) or a Law Review Comment (Law 341) and produce a paper that meets the same standards. You MUST inform the CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty Member when you register for academic credit for the paper that you intend to use the paper to fulfill the CRS Writing Requirement.
If in the view of the CRS Core or Affiliated faculty member that the paper fulfills the CRS Writing Requirement, no other approval is necessary. List of CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty Members.
- Course or Independent Research with non-CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty Members.
For courses or independent research with non-CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty, you may petition for pre-approval by submitting a description of the writing project to the CRS Executive Director. To fulfill the CRS writing requirement, the paper must engage with race or racism and employ critical race scholarship or concepts typical of critical race scholarship in its analysis. You should note that we may decide that pre-approval cannot be given and that a decision will be made once you submit a completed paper. Please contact the CRS Executive Director for any questions.
- Any Course or Independent Research with CRS Core or Affiliated Faculty Member.
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Notes
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Please refer to the Course List to determine which of the courses listed above will be offered during the current school year.
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The course requirements list is reviewed and updated on a periodic basis by the CRS faculty.
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In limited instances, the CRS Faculty Director(s) will consider a student’s petition to have a course count towards certification even if it is not on the relevant course list in these requirements. You should send an email to the Program Director, citing the language of the relevant requirement, describing how the course meets the requirement, and attaching course syllabi or other relevant materials.
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Any course or paper used to fulfill a CRS Specialization Requirement may also be used to fulfill another requirement imposed by the law school or another specialization. (For example, the same course may count towards a CRS Course Requirement as well as a Public Interest Law and Policy requirement.)
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