RACE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE LAW
(LAWI-4255) - 2 UNITS

This course examines the role of race in the development of new technologies and the laws the govern them. From social media and AI chatbots to facial recognition and automated decision systems, emerging technologies are increasingly central to the human experience. These tools shape how we relate to one another, the way we understand problems, and how we approach solutions. While marketed as neutral and data-driven, emerging technologies reflect a set of judgements and assumptions that can work to maintain racial stratification. The dominant law and policy approaches that govern emerging technologies can fail to address these racial harms, leaving impacted communities without adequate remedy.

We will engage with an interdisciplinary set of perspectives from law, computer science, philosophy, literature, and the social sciences to develop our analytic lens. We will then apply this critical framework to the study of public and private law approaches to regulating emerging technology, reading texts ranging from judicial opinions to statutory law to proposed reforms. Finally, we will work together to develop our own arguments and solutions to address the growing problem of tech-driven social stratification.

Pass/Fail:
No

Prerequisites:
None