New Law School Courses Explore Nietzsche, Guns and Bible :: 08/01/2015

A trip to a shooting range, a deep dive into Nietzsche and an exploration into what’s ailing American cities. These are among the adventures that law school students can look forward to this fall.

The law school curricula is always evolving. There will always be courses on torts, property, civil procedure and other core subjects. But other offerings reflect the passions and problems of the day. Law Blog takes a look at some of the more unorthodox ones on the schedule this coming academic year.

New York University’s Barry Friedman is teaching a new course called “Democratic Policing” that looks at the “deep difficulties with policing in the United States” and the “failure of democratic processes and accountability.”

Students will “draft model rules for policing agencies” and work with social scientists to develop tools to conduct cost-benefit analysis of policing practices.

Guns are the focus of a new seminar at West Virginia University Law School taught by professor William Rhee, who will “explore often volatile ‘right to bear arms’ issues in a safe, respectful, professional environment where all viewpoints are encouraged and examined.” Students will take field trips to a shooting range “to familiarize you with the way different firearms work” and to a gun show “to see personally one of the most controversial places to buy guns.”
A seminar at Yale Law School will take students on a journey into the Byzantine world of municipal finance and budget-making. “This seminar will review the role of law and lawyers in causing, and potentially solving, the state and local budget crisis,” the course description says. “Doing so will involve analyzing everything from municipal bankruptcy to state constitutional law to federal tax deductions.”

It will be taught by Yale Law professor David Schleicher and municipal finance expert and, naturally, former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch.

A course at Stanford Law School focuses on one city, San Francisco. The issue worthy of study isn’t a shortage of revenue but a surfeit of yuppies. Students will work with the mayor’s office on how the city can better manage gentrification.

“Fancy wine bars, chic clothing shops, gourmet restaurants and trendy coffee houses selling $5 drip coffee is not in crisis, but a city with only such neighborhoods arguably is,” the course guide says.

Other courses ponder questions like why jury trials in civil cases are vanishing, the subject of a new course at New York University Law School.
University of Chicago’s Eric Posner is teaching a class that asks “whether plutocracy really exists, and if it does, why, and what can be done about.”
Students at NYU Law can search for answers by taking a course called “Reading the Wall Street Journal,” focusing “on current topics, transactions and scandals as reported” by WSJ journalists. This one isn’t for credit but part of NYU’s optional “reading group” program, which includes another course on the hit podcast “Serial.”
At Pepperdine Law School in California, students will search for answers to contemporary problems in the Bible. “Law and the Bible” will explore “how the Bible addresses the challenging legal issues of our day—the breakdown of the family, the death penalty, abortion, poverty, climate change, gay marriage, human trafficking, immigration, and the separation of church and state.”
At Harvard, students will be seeking advice from Friedrich Nietzsche.

“The premise is that provocation by this Master Provocateur may be just the therapy that law students need,” says the description of “Nietzsche for Lawyers,” taught by criminal law professor Richard Parker. There’s no exam, but “soft drinks, wine and snacks will be provided.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/07/31/new-law-school-courses-explore-nietzsche-guns-and-bible/