LAW 1019: Citizenship in Legal and Theoretical Perspective
Spring 2022 • Section 21 • CRN 12225

Course Description

This seminar examines how political communities accept, reject, and expel individual members as citizens, and how citizenship law defines and reflects national identity. The course considers how American citizenship is acquired at birth, and what requirements are imposed on naturalizing aliens. It also considers in what circumstances the government can deprive an individual of citizenship; the special problems of dual nationality; historical racial and gender aspects of citizenship; the special context of terrorism; and the constitutional status of aliens and the extent to which they can be legally disadvantaged, as for instance with respect to welfare and other public benefits eligibility. The course also considers the meaning of territorial, Native American, and state citizenship, and uses comparative and international perspectives to inform the study of U.S. citizenship law. This seminar is not an immigration survey course, and will only tangentially address issues related to immigration law and practice, i.e., law relating to the admission of non€‘citizens to the territory of the United States.

Book List/Materials