This seminar explores the legal aspects of reparations for slavery and racial injustices that have taken forms such as Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and wealth gaps between Whites and African Americans. Starting with the foundational issue of steps in reparative processes, the course briefly explores arguments for and forms of reparation for Nazi genocide of Jews, the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans during WW II, and American colonialist and genocidal harms to Native Americans. It then focuses on past and current efforts of descendants of enslaved Americans to obtain reparations for financial and other race-based injuries starting but hardly ending with slavery, caused by both private and public actors, such as exclusion from government programs and discrimination in housing, education, and criminal law and practices. Students will select one area of reparations to research in-depth and write a paper.

The course gives students an understanding of the facts and history that justify reparative remedies for racial injustice, the forms that reparation has taken in various contexts, barriers to implementation, theories to justify various forms of recovery, and possible reparative programs for the future.