Law, Policy, and Social Change

This course examines how policy and law can create social change with a focus on lessons from the modern LGBTQ+ movement in the United States. We look at how movement leaders and organizers have deployed different strategies over time in its quest for equality and justice. The course will examine differences and similarities between early efforts in the 50's and 60's to combat the pervasive discrimination against LGBTQ+ people; the community's response to the AIDS epidemic in the 80's and 90's; efforts to win marriage equality; and the current battles around trans rights. Course materials will include both print and film resources and the instruction will be seminar-style.