University of South Carolina School of Law

University of South Carolina School of Law
701 Main Street, Columbia, SC 29208, USA
Phone: 803.777.6605
Email: usclaw@law.sc.edu | Website: www.law.sc.edu

Does your law school have a nondiscrimination policy that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

The University of South Carolina School of Law is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, handicap, or disability. Accordingly, the law school’s facilities are available only to employers whose practices are consistent with this policy. The University of South Carolina and the School of Law provide equal opportunity and affirmative action in education and employment for all qualified persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, or veteran status. The University of South Carolina has designated as the ADA Title II, Section 504, and Title IX coordinator the Executive Assistant to the President for Equal Opportunity Programs, 1600 Hampton Street, Columbia, SC; telephone: 803.777.3854.

Does your law school have a nondiscrimination policy that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity?

Does your law school provide gender-neutral restrooms?

Yes

Does your law school have a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender student organization?

Carolina Equality Alliance

Carolina Equality Alliance (CEA) is the student organization dedicated to focusing on the legal issues facing the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, and Allied (LGBTQA) Community. CEA seeks to create a community of harmony, understanding, and respect between all students and citizens through creating meaningful discourse intended to increase awareness of the prominence, importance, and relevance of LGBTQA issues in the legal field and in society in general. CEA is dedicated to building a law school & legal community of full equality & respect.

President 2018 – 2019: Matt Turk mmturk@email.sc.edu

Student Diversity and Inclusion Task Force

The Task Force is composed of student leaders from other organizations to collaborate, share information, and establish initiatives to advance a diverse and inclusive law school.

President 2018 – 2019: Elaine Yap eyap@email.sc.edu

Does your school have any openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender faculty members?

Yes

Does your school have any openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender administrators?

Yes

Does your law school offer any academic courses primarily focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender legal issues?

Family Law

Analysis of legal requirements and limitations on creation, maintenance and dissolution of family relationships.

Advanced Family Law

This course takes students beyond the issues covered in the basic Family Law course and offers an opportunity for in-depth study of contemporary issues in Family Law. The class will explore the legal, ethical, social and psychological aspects of the family. Topics covered may include parental rights and responsibilities in reproductive technology cases, medical decision-making, adoption, termination of parental rights, gender and sexuality, and special laws unique to Native Americans.

Women and the Law

This course will address how the legal system has constructed and applied notions of gender and gender equality. It will introduce students to significant contemporary legal scholarship on the status of women in modern America, and will explore how gender affects legal relationships including some consideration of employment. The materials will include sexual harassment, domestic violence, and domestic relations disputes.

Law and Social Justice Seminar

This course explores whether and to what extent our legal system, including its law schools, perpetuates or counteracts social injustice. Many of the readings derive from modern critical legal theory, particularly critical race theory and radical feminism, and from liberal and non-liberal responses thereto. These readings primarily address the subordination of particular groups in our society and ways in which taken-for-granted legal categories – such as objective/subjective, public/private, and negative rights/positive rights – serve to entrench hierarchies of power and wealth. Other readings include foundational political theories and classic texts on topics such as civil disobedience and justified revolution.

Parents, Children and the Law

This course addresses issues related to the legal status of minority and the parent-child relationship, including: paternity, adoption, abuse and neglect, termination of parental rights, basic principles for determining custody, children’s rights, and the allocation of authority to make decisions concerning minors. The course will also cover issues relating to reproduction, including the legal status of the fetus and issues raised by advanced reproductive technology.

Constitutional Issues in Public Education

Survey of historical and contemporary civil liberties issues arising in the operation of the American public-school system. Topics addressed will include religious activities in schools, the regulation of student and teacher speech, student privacy, school safety and student discipline.

Constitutional Law

A study of the structure of the Federal Government, the function of the Supreme Court in constitutional government, and the provisions of the United States Constitution that guarantee and protect individual rights against governmental encroachment. Topics include judicial review, sources and limits of congressional power, presidential power, equal protection, substantive due process and identification of unenumerated fundamental rights, freedom of speech, and the religion clauses.

Civil Rights Seminar

This course focuses on federal civil rights relating to employment, education, housing, voting, and affirmative action. The course will survey the major issues and legal protections in each of these substantive areas, which includes laws relating to discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language status, and familial status. Students will examine the constitutional and statutory frameworks for addressing these issues, as well scholarly theories by which to critique them.

Employment Discrimination

This course is designed to provide a broad overview of the federal legislation which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, and disability. The course also examines the prohibitions against retaliation in the workplace. The course explores the basic frameworks for how claims of intentional and unintentional discrimination are analyzed. The course also examines how employment discrimination statutes are enforced, and the remedies available in these types of cases.

Liberty Seminar

This seminar examines a difficulty at the heart of the Constitution’s commitment to liberty: how can we reconcile majority rule with individual rights? How can we curtail our ability to govern ourselves as part of a community or our right to be free of interference in how we choose to live our own lives without sacrificing an important part of our freedom? To see whether there is any principled basis for limiting either collective judgment or individual liberty, students will review some of the more prominent arguments of political philosophy, paying particularly close attention to the writings of two great champions of liberty, John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin. They will then examine competing conceptions of liberty as they relate to several specific legal topics, which may include the following: whether a patient has a right to assisted suicide; the ability of the majority to regulate or forbid certain sexual practices; the arguments for and against campaign finance reform; and the role of the business corporation in a free society.

Gender Based Violence Seminar

This course will explore U.S. and international legal responses to gender-based violence. Through classroom discussion, assigned readings and multi-media materials, and in-depth exploration of student-selected paper topics, the course will examine social constructions of gender and their relationship to violence, as well as the historical and contemporary treatment of multiple forms of gender-based violence under the law, such as trafficking, forced marriage, intimate partner violence, rape, sexual harassment, sexual violence within armed conflict, and ritualized practices.

Does your law school offer the same benefits to faculty, staff, or student same-sex spouses as they do opposite-sex spouses?

Yes