Civil Rights Litigation

This course focuses on constitutional litigation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This federal statute allows a person to sue local and state officials for violations of the person’s constitutional rights, and sometimes to sue the governmental entity that employed them. Section 1983 actions range from constitutional tort cases (such as a police officer’s use of excessive force, a prisoner’s suit over cruel and unusual punishment, or the violation of a public employee’s free speech rights by their employer), to suits brought by businesses and individuals that raise challenges to the constitutionality of state and local regulation, taxation, and takings of property. This is a course about how constitutional rights get implemented and remedied in our judicial system. Accordingly, considerable emphasis will be placed on procedural, jurisdictional, and other barriers to relief—especially problems surrounding various kinds of immunities that can shield governments and their officers from certain types of liability.