LEGL 295 - Topics in Law and Legal Studies

Credits: 2-4

Prerequisites: Junior or Senior class standing. instructor consent, and approval by application at go.wlu.edu/app-ugr-to-law.pdf. Courses available for credit include seminars and upper-level electives, but excludes all first-year courses, Constitutional Law, Evidence, clinics, practica, and externships.

Winter 2018, LEGL 295-01: Abortion Controversy Seminar (2). Prerequisite: Instructor consent. This seminar (also taught as LAW 202) will broadly examine the abortion controversy. Specific topics depend in large part upon student choice, but you can expect the course to range well beyond Supreme Court cases. Past offerings have covered such issues as fetal personhood; the use and relevance of demonstrative evidence, including fetal ultrasound requirements; partial-birth abortion; the proper scope of health and safety regulations for abortion clinics; the appropriate role, if any, of males in the debate; Planned Parenthood; and the proper role, if any, of religious values. Students will lead a class discussion and write a research paper structured to satisfy the upper-level writing requirement. Calhoun.

Winter 2018, LEGL 295-02: Mass Media Law (3). Prerequisite: Instructor consent. Not open to students who have taken Contemporary Problems in Law and Journalism or the First Amendment Seminar. A study (also taught as LAW 222) of legal issues involving First Amendment protection of the mass media. Issues include prior restraint, the libel tort and current legislative reform efforts, the torts of invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress, press access to government proceedings, reporter’s privilege, and selected problems relating especially to the electronic media, particularly the regulatory role of the Federal Communications Commission. Murchison. Staff.