▼SYLLABUS

POVERTY LAW

Seattle University School of Law

Prof. Dean Spade

spaded@seattleu.edu

Administrative Assistant: Stephanie Tortorelli

Office Hours: Wednesdays 4-5pm and by appointment (sign up for the Weds slots on Canvas Calendar)

SYLLABUS

Description

This course aims to create a critical dialogue about the role of law in structuring wealth inequality and its potential role in remedying such inequality. The interdisciplinary course materials that we will be using throughout the semester have been selected to assist students in engaging in critical analysis about the roles of settler colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and ableism in structuring law and poverty, as well as law’s role in structuring those systems of meaning, control and distribution. The course will explore both specific questions and histories concerning public benefits, disaster relief, housing, imprisonment, immigration and other legal issues facing low-income populations as well as broad questions about how we might conceptualize governance and the role of law reform in social movements aimed at redistributing wealth and life chances.

Requirements

The readings for this semester will be available on Canvas either as pdfs or as web links and in the required books. (Please note that margin notes that may appear in some pdfs are not necessarily mine.) Students are expected to read all the assigned material for the week in advance of Monday’s class session, attend every class, and participate actively in discussion.

35% of your grade will be based upon class participation which includes the
- participation in live class discussion
- attendance (Attendance is mandatory in this class. More than two unexcused absences will result in a grade reduction.)
- weekly Canvas assignments:
  - Each week except Week 14, you are required to turn in a Reading Analysis on Canvas by 11am on Tuesday (see Course Overview pages for each week for instructions). Note, on the first week of class only this assignment is due on Monday at 9am.
  - Each week except Week 14, you are required to put an additional short post in Canvas by 9am Thursday (see Course Overview pages for each week for instructions).
- You will be evaluated on your mastery of the materials, preparedness, your demonstration of critical analysis, and your active participation.
30% of your grade will be based on the group project described here.
35% of your grade will come from your final exam, which will be a character-limited take home exam.

Zoom Camera Policy: To facilitate a productive “classroom” discussion, you should not disable video without a compelling reason to do so. Just as you would be expected to show your face in class if we were not in a pandemic, I ask that you show your face in our Zoom classroom so that we can see each other's expressions and attention, and to avoid the temptation of distractions. Not everyone has a completely private space to attend class from home. That is okay, we would rather see you and also have the occasional disruption of your space by a pet, child, or roommate than not see you at all. If you would prefer that your home space is not seen by our class, considering using a background.

Required Readings

The required books for this class are The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (Ed. Incite!), Regulating the Poor by Piven and Cloward, Prison By Any Other Name by Maya Schwenar and Vikki Law, Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis, This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein. All other readings will be posted to Canvas.

Reading Questions

When engaging the readings, in addition to your other inquiries it will assist you in preparing for class discussion if you consider the following questions:

How does the writer understand power, social change and the economy?
How does the writer define or explain poverty?
How does the writer understand the relationships between race, disability, indigeneity, gender, and poverty? Is the writer examining the topic of the writing using some or all of these lenses? Are some of these lenses missing, and how would the argument be different if they were engaged?
What does the writer think should be done about the concerns s/he is identifying, both immediately and more broadly? What should the world look like according to this writer?
Who is the writer speaking to? Who is s/he disagreeing with or responding to?

Recommended films (many available in the SU library or free online):

Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?

Life and Debt

¡Palante, Siempre Palante!

Zapatista!

Fight in the Fields

Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation

Bread and Roses

Maxed Out

The End of Poverty?

I.O.U.S.A

Capitalism: A Love Story

The Best Government Money Can Buy

Trouble the Water

When the Levees Broke

Land of Opportunity

Visions of Abolition

South of the Border (Oliver Stone)

Schedule

Week 1, Aug 24, 26

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?Chapters 1, 2, 3.
Daniel Beekman, "Seattle City Council pressed to defund police, move 911 response dispatchers out of department," Seattle Times, July 8, 2020.
Mariame Kaba, "Yes, We Literally Mean Abolish the Police," New York Times, June 12, 2020.
Kwame Holmes, "Why Abolish the Police?," Chronogram, July 1, 2020.
Joel Nudell, Alex Chohlas-Wood and Sharad Goel, "Cities and States Emptied Jails to Prevent Infection. They Should Stay Empty." Washington Post, July 7, 2020.

Week 2, Aug 31, Sept 2

Excerpt of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next)(posted in Files).
Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law, Prison by Any Other Name, Introduction and Chapter 5
Critical Resistance, “Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps Policing,” https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59ead8f9692ebee25b72f17f/t/5b65cd58758d46d34254f22c/1533398363539/CR_NoCops_reform_vs_abolition_CRside.pdf
Optional: This webinar where you get to hear the authors of Prison by Any Other Name in conversation with Mariame Kaba. Abolish Policing, Not Just the Police

Week 3, Sept 9

Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, "The Sentencing of Larry Nassar Was Not Transformative Justice, Here's Why," The Appeal, Feb 5, 2018.
Jessica Pishko, "The Defund Movement Ends to Change the Policing and Prosecution of Domestic Violence," The Appeal, July 28, 2020.
GenerationFIVE, “Ending Child Sexual Abuse: A Transformative Justice Handbook.”
Sign on letter by anti-violence organizations and survivors of gender-based violence, advocating defunding of Seattle Police Department.
Decriminalize Seattle's blueprint for divesting from policing and investing in community. July 16, 2020.
Movement for Black Lives Police Platform, "End the War on Black Women, (Links to an external site.)" and "End the War on Black Trans, Queer, Gender Non-Conforming and Intersex People (Links to an external site.)."
Optional:
- Showing Up for Racial Justice, "White Women for Defunding the Police," August 12, 2020.
- Andrea J. Ritchie, "Invisible No More" lecture video: Andrea Ritchie: Invisible No More Lecture

Week 4, Sept 14, 16

Prison By Any Other Name, Chapter 4.
Dorothy E. Roberts, “Feminism, Race, and Adoption Policy,” in Color of Violence (ed. Incite!) (2006).
Annie Chung Letter to DCYF June 19, 2020.
Sophie Verass, “The Women Fighting against a Rising Tide of Indigenous Child Removals,” NITV, 2018, https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/feature/women-fighting-against-rising-tide-indigenous-child-removals(Links to an external site.).

Week 5, Sept 21, 23

Prison By Any Other Name, Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

Week 6, Sept 28, 30

Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, Chapters 1, 8, 10.
Optional:
- Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970)
- Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (1969)

Week 7, Oct 5, 7

Regulating the Poor, Chapter 11, 12.
Kenneth J. Neubeck and Noel A. Cazenave, Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America’s Poor, Chapter 2, “Conceptualizing Welfare Racism”
Optional:
- Wyman v. James, 400 U.S. 309 (1971) (use pdf on TWEN)
- Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471 (1970) (use pdf on TWEN)

Week 8, Oct 12, 14

Gabriella Coleman, “The Politics of Rationality: Psychiatric Survivors' Challenge to Psychiatry.”
Norma Erevelles, Disability in the New World Order, Chapter 2 of Color of Violence.
Harriet Tubman Collective, “Disability Solidarity: Completing the Vision for Black Lives,” (2016). https://harriettubmancollective.tumblr.com/post/150072319030/htcvision4blacklives
Movement for Black Lives Police Platform 2020, "End the War on Black Health and Black Disabled People."
Look at the website of the Fireweed Collective, fireweedcollective.org.
Watch: “My Body Doesn’t Oppress Me, Society Does,” My Body Doesn't Oppress Me, Society Does
Optional:
- Elliott Fukui, “Disability Justice and Abolition,” Disability Justice and Abolition with Elliott Fukui

Week 9, Oct 19, 21

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded (ed. INCITE!):
- Chapter 1: The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, by Dylan Rodríguez
- Chapter 2: In The Shadow of the Shadow State, by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
- Chapter 4: Democratizing American Philanthropy, by Christine E. Ahn

Week 10, Oct 26, 28

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded (ed. INCITE!):
- Chapter 11: Pursuing a Radical Anti-Violence Agenda Inside/Outside a Non-Profit Structure / Alisa Bierria, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA)
- Chapter 15: Non-Profits and the Autonomous Grassroots, by Eric Tang
Dean Spade and Rickke Mananzala, “Trans Resistance and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.” http://www.deanspade.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/npicresistan.pdf
Sylvia Rivera Law Project, “From the Bottom Up: Strategies and Practices from Membership-Based Organizations.” https://srlp.org/from-the-bottom-up-strategies-and-practices-for-membership-based-organizations/#:~:text=From%20The%20Bottom%20Up%3A%20Strategies,SRLP%20(Sylvia%20Rivera%20Law%20Project)

Week 11, Nov 2, 4

Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything, Introduction and Chapters 1, 2, 3.
Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, “From Banks and Tanks to Cooperation and Caring: A Strategic Framework for a Just Transition.”

Week 12, Nov 9, 11

No New Readings for this week.

Week 13, Nov 16, 18

Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything, Chapters 9, 10, 11.
“How Black & Indigenous Groups Won the Fight to Stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline,” Democracy Now, July 7, 2020, How Black & Indigenous Groups Won the Fight to Stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Week 14, Nov 23, 25

Harsha Walia, Undoing Border Imperialism, “What is Border Imperialism?” p. 36-78.
David Bacon, “Displacement and Migration” in Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants, (Beacon Press) (2008).
Mijente, “Free Our Future: An Immigration Police Platform for Beyond the Trump Era,” https://mijente.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Mijente-Immigration-Policy-Platform_0628.pdf
Movement for Black Lives 2020 Policy Platform, "End the War on Black Migrants."
Jawziya F. Zaman, “Why I Left Immigration Law,” Dissent, July 12, 2017, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/left-immigration-law
Optional:
- Review the websites of Mijente (mijente.net) and La Resistencia (http://laresistencianw.org/).

Week 15, Nov 30, Dec 2

No new readings for this week.