Administrative Law

This course addresses fundamental questions of administrative law from a practical perspective. How are administrative agencies organized, and how do they act in ways that affect everyday people? How do various interest groups—agency experts, social movements, political officials (in agencies and elsewhere)—come together to develop, review, comment, lobby, revise, and negotiate over agency “law-making.” It examines the relationship between agencies and Congress, and then considers classical questions of administrative adjudication from a statutory and constitutional perspective. The course examines these classic questions with an emphasis, where possible, on how administrative process plays a role in developing law that affects racial minorities, women, and LGBT individuals, and the past and ongoing judicial review of those areas of law.