Introduction
Diversity issues are not restricted to specialized courses like Civil Rights, Feminist Jurisprudence, or Disability Law & Policy. They are present throughout the curriculum, including in foundational courses like Contracts and Civil Procedure. To assist students and faculty who want to explore these areas, the Dean's Advisory Committee on Diversity (now the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee) requested a list of readings to highlight how issues of race, class, sex, and sexuality can arise in traditional first-year courses.
Separate pages in this guide address different courses, such as Civil Procedure and Torts. See the navigation bar on the left.
Many articles will be available in several places
- Papers on SSRN can generally be downloaded free. See our guide.
- HeinOnline is available to all UW users.
- Westlaw Campus Research is licensed for most UW users. It has the same law reviews that are in Westlaw.
- Bloomberg Law, Lexis Advance, and Westlaw are licensed for UW Law users only.
None of these lists is comprehensive. If you would like to suggest another reading, please send a note to whisner [at] uw.edu.
Photo: books on four shelves in the law library. To browse the books in person, start at KF4755 in the Classified Stacks.
Related Guides
- Critical Perspectives Reading List: 1L Curriculum [Seattle University]List curated by 1L faculty.
- Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse [AALS]
Ideas for how law schools can lead in anti-racism, resources (articles, books, videos, music), and law school statements. - Racial Justice Resources (Georgia State Univ. Coll. of Law)Includes general anti-racism materials (articles, books, multi-media) and material related to 1L courses.
- Recommended Reads for EquityRecommendations from UW students, faculty, and staff for books about equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Books & Articles with Overviews
Critical Race Theory: A Primer by Publication Date: 2019Also available as an ebook here and in West Academic Study Aids
Diversity Judgments: Democratizing Judicial Legitimacy by Publication Date: 2022EBook
From publisher: The US Supreme Court's legitimacy-its diminishing integrity and contribution to the good of society-is being questioned today like no other time in recent memory. Criticisms reflect the perspectives of both 'insiders' (straight white males) and 'outsiders' (mainly people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community). Neither perspective digs deep enough to get at the root of the Court's legitimacy problem, which is one of process. The Court's process of decision-making is antiquated and out of sync with a society that looks and thinks nothing like the America of the eighteenth century, when the process was first implemented. The current process marginalizes many Americans who have a right to feel disenfranchised. Leading scholar of jurisprudence Roy L. Brooks demonstrates how the Court can modernize and democratize its deliberative process, to be more inclusive of the values and life experiences of Americans who are not straight white males.
Feminist Legal Theory: A Primer, 2d Ed. by Publication Date: 2016
Introduction to Feminist Legal Theory, 3d ed. by Publication Date: 2013
Elizabeth A. Reese, The Other American Law, 73 Stan. L. Rev. 555 (2021), [journal site]
Ignoring or siloing the laws and experiences that come from tribal governments presents an incomplete and incorrect picture of America and its laws. If American legal scholars want to understand, learn from, and evaluate American law, we must include all of America’s laws.
Id. at 559 (footnote omitted).
A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law by Publication Date: 2018From the publisher: "This blisteringly candid discussion of the American dilemma in the age of Trump brings together the head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the former attorney general of the United States, a bestselling author and death penalty lawyer, and a star professor for an honest conversation the country desperately needs to hear."
Collections of Readings
After Identity by
Publication Date: 1995
The Ashgate Research Companion to Feminist Legal Theory by Publication Date: 2013Also available as ebook
Carving out a Humanity: Race, Rights, Redemption by Call Number: (online)Publication Date: 2020"Carving Out a Humanity gathers some of our country's brightest progressive legal stars in a volume that illuminates the facets of the law that have continued to perpetuate racial inequality and to confound our nation at the start of a new millennium. Originally delivered as Derrick Bell Lectures in a series at NYU School of Law, begun in 1995 and running up through 2019, Carving Out a Humanity offers an unprecedented array of today's most creative and brilliant thinking on race and the law." - publisher.
Contributions by Charles Ogletree, Charles Lawrence, Patricia J. Williams, Richard Delgado, Lani Guinier, Anita Allen, Mari Matsuda, Cheryl I. Harris, Kendall Thomas, Derrick Bell, John Calmore, Robert A. Williams, Paul Butler, Emma Coleman Jordan, Devon W. Carbado, Ian Haney López, Annette Gordon-Reed, William Carter Jr., Stephen Bright, Sherrilyn Ifill, Michelle Alexander, Theodore M. Shaw, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Kenneth W. Mack
Critical Race Feminism, 2d ed. by Publication Date: 1997
Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement by Publication Date: 1996Note: This is only available in print. Click to catalog record to see table of contents: you can look up the articles in the journals where they originally appeared.
Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror by Publication Date: 1997Part IV is "Whiteness: Law's Role."
Also available as ebook.
Discussions on Disability Law and Policy by Publication Date: 2014
Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations by Publication Date: 2009
Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court by Publication Date: 2016Feminist Legal Theory - v. 69 of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society by
Publication Date: 2016
Feminist Legal Theory: An Anti-Essentialist Reader by Publication Date: 2003
Gender Justice and the Law: Theoretical Practices of Intersectional Identity by Call Number: (online)Publication Date: 2021
Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader by Publication Date: 2000
Integrating Doctrine and Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom by Publication Date: 2021"collection of essays with practical advice, written by faculty for faculty, on specific ways to integrate diversity, equity and inclusion into the law school curriculum." (provided by publisher)
Law and Class in America: Trends Since the Cold War by Publication Date: 2006
Masculinities and the Law: A Multidimensional Approach by Publication Date: 2012Also available as ebook
The Oxford Handbook of Feminism and Law in the United States by Publication Date: 2021-Ebook.
Handbook in development, with articles publishing online in advance of print publication. As of Feb. 2022, chapters related to first-year classes include:- Leigh Goodmark, The Anti-Rape and Battered Women’s Movements of the 1970s and 1980s
- Katharine K. Baker and Michelle Oberman, Consent, Rape, and the Criminal Law
- Sarah L. Swan, Tort Law and Feminism
- Martha M. Ertman, Contract’s Influence on Feminism and Vice Versa
- The Oxford Handbook of Race and Law in the United States by Publication Date: 2022-Ebook
Handbook is in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. As of Feb. 2022, chapters include:
- Cynthia Lee, Race and the Criminal Law Curriculum
- Martha Chamallas, Race and Tort Law
- Dorothy A. Brown, Race and Tax Law
- Jasmine Gonzales Rose, Race and Evidence
- Jonathan Kahn, Rethinking Implicit Bias: The Limits to Science as a Tool of Racial Justice
- Sha-Shana Crichton, Intentionally Incorporating Race into the First-Year Legal Research and Writing Curriculum
The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique by Publication Date: 1998
Research Handbook on Critical Legal Theory by Call Number: onlinePublication Date: 2019Available online through Elgar
Transcending the Boundaries of Law: Generations of Feminism and Legal Theory by Publication Date: 2011
Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching by Call Number: Gallagher Law Library Classified Stacks (KF336 .V85 2011)Publication Date: 2011
Law Stories
The Law Stories series provides context for and commentary on cases (and other developments) often studied in law school courses. Most contributors are law professors.
The series is available online to UW Law students via the West Academic Study Aids package.
Volumes specifically addressing topics related to diversity are listed here. But almost any volume—whether Corporate Law Stories or Civil Procedure Stories—will have at least some chapters that explore how the law affects race, sex, class, sexual identity, or religion.
Interviews
Legal Intellectuals in Conversation: Reflections on the Construction of Contemporary American Legal Theory by Publication Date: 2012Also available as ebook.
Other Books
Black and Blue: How African Americans Judge the U.S. Legal System by Call Number: onlinePublication Date: 2018Also available in Oxford University Press.
Annotated Bibliographies
Annette Demers, Cultural Competence and the Legal Profession: An Annotated Bibliography of Materials Published between 2000 and 2011, 39 Int'l J. Legal Info. 22 (2011), HeinOnline.