Melissa Murray

Courses

• 1L Reading Group: Mothers in Law

  Do all women strive to be mothers? Do all men strive to be fathers? Should they? How does the law imagine mothers and fathers? What expectations does our culture place upon mothers? Are these expectations distinct from that which is expected of fathers? Can motherhood be an act of political resistance? Can professional ambition be reconciled with parental responsibilities? Taking these questions seriously, this reading group will examine the legal, social, and cultural construction of motherhood and parenthood. While we may consider some legal opinions, the principal texts will be novels and memoirs--e.g., Sue Miller, The Good Mother; Ayelet Waldman, Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother; and Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin.

• Constitutional Law

  This course provides an overview of American Constitutional law. It focuses on issues of equality and individual liberty, federalism, judicial review, separation of powers, and the allocation of authority between the federal and state governments. It places questions of doctrine and theory in an historic, social and political context.

• Constitutional Law (for 1Ls)

  This is a 4-unit introductory course on Constitutional Law. Topics covered include judicial review, commerce clause, federalism, separation of powers, equal protection, and substantive due process. The course examines how these concepts have emerged in doctrine, and have been contested through politics and the mobilizations of social movements during transformative periods of American history, such as the Founding, the Civil War, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights Movement. We will also address contemporary constitutional controversies, such as LGBTQ rights, marriage and its alternatives, reproductive rights and justice, affirmative action, and executive power.

• Family Law

  This course examines federal and state laws concerning familial relationships (broadly construed) and the policies and principles that undergird them. The course focuses on legal familial relations between adults, specifically: who can get married; the rights, duties, and obligations of marriage; the state’s interest in marriage; the dissolution of marriages; the distribution of property upon dissolution; various jurisdictional issues relating to marriage and divorce; and the arrangements between divorced parents regarding the custody, support and visitation of children. The course also considers alternatives to marriage and the relationship between, respectively, families and race and families and gender. Special attention will be paid to policy-based and theoretical questions about families.

• Public Law Colloquium

  This colloquium is geared toward students with an interest in reading and critically engaging with legal scholarship in the field of public law (i.e. constitutional law, administrative law, family law, legal history, et. al.). A series of scholars will be invited to present and discuss works in progress with enrolled students and NYU faculty. Workshops will expose students to current scholarship within a range of fields and provide an introduction to the practices and norms of the legal academy.