Courses

Course Description

Winter 2025, Spring 2025

Time: MON 1:30-3:30 PM

Instructors: Subini Annamma, Hoang Pham, Ralph Richard Banks

POLICY CLIENT: San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD) and Gunderson High School (Gunderson).

Despite decades of efforts to remediate racial disparities in education, low-income schools serving predominantly students of color continue to face significant challenges that perpetuate unequal educational outcomes. While no single solution can solve these complex issues, insights from the most marginalized students offer an underutilized source of knowledge that can drive more effective policies and practices. This policy lab seeks to directly address persistent disparities in education by elevating at-promise student voices in school and district decision making, reshaping our thinking around and approaches to advancing educational equity.

With over 25,000 students, SJUSD is the largest school district in Santa Clara County, the county where Stanford University is located. District leaders and administrators at Gunderson—a Title I high school in South San Jose—have identified a collective need to better understand how to support “at-promise” students (a positive reframing of “at-risk” that is reflected in California education law), those who may fail to earn a high school diploma for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to low scores on standardized tests, disengagement from school, English language learner status, previous suspension or expulsion, involvement in the foster care system, houselessness, and special education. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated challenges for these students, with metrics of achievement and well-being worsening each year since 2020.

Coined by Tupac Shakur and applied to education by Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade, the “rose that grew from concrete” is a metaphor for young people who often experience the most challenging environments but nonetheless show unmatched resilience and determination to overcome their circumstances. If these “roses” are given opportunities to talk, what would they tell us about what they need from school to succeed? Reaching this student demographic is critical for several reasons. Being the most marginalized, improving their outcomes can often improve outcomes for all students, school quality, and a district’s overall health. These students also bring unique perspectives on schooling because they have benefited the least from it, which may challenge ignorance and certainty around what approaches and programs are most effective in working with them. Most importantly, at-promise students have an exceptionally high potential to make a difference in the world—an ideal that is at the core of the U.S. education system. Our society has a responsibility to help them reach that potential.

In this course, Stanford students will conduct focus groups with Gunderson at-promise students to develop policy recommendations that inform school and district decision making—particularly around how to engage and improve outcomes for the most marginalized students in SJUSD. The course offers a unique opportunity for Stanford students to participate in community-engaged learning and research, apply technical skills and academic knowledge to real-world challenges, and contribute to positive educational outcomes for underserved students. It embodies the principle that higher education institutions can and should play a pivotal role in enhancing the quality of K-12 public education for all students.

TIMELINE AND EXPECTATIONS: The practicum will be completed in two phases. Phase 1, Winter Quarter: Stanford students will be introduced to basic qualitative research methods, relevant literature, best practices, and impactful laws and policies. They will work collaboratively to develop an interview protocol to use for 1-2 focus groups with Gunderson students. Following data collection, students will engage in qualitative analysis and draft preliminary findings to present to SJUSD and Gunderson leaders for oral and written feedback. Phase 2, Spring Quarter: Based on preliminary findings and feedback, students will formulate interview questions and facilitate a final focus group with Gunderson students to clarify and/or confirm preliminary findings. Students will finalize and draw on their findings to conduct policy research and analysis, legal research and analysis (as needed), and develop evidence-based policy recommendations for the school and school district. Their work will culminate in a final report and presentation to Stanford, SJUSD, and Gunderson leaders in late spring. Please note that this timeline is subject to change.

LOGISTICS: Ideally, practicum students would commit to participating in winter and spring quarters. However, students who are only able to participate for winter quarter will also be considered. The winter quarter lab is standard 3-units, while spring quarter lab will be variable 2-3 units to accommodate continuing students. Session meeting times and travel arrangements to/from San Jose will be determined once a final group of practicum students are selected.

ENROLLMENT AND GRADING: This class is open to Stanford Law School students, and available for cross-registration for undergraduate and graduate students from across campus. We highly encourage students from outside the Law School to apply, particularly students from the Graduate School of Education. Ideal students will have strong research, writing, and analytical skills, oral communications skills, and a demonstrated commitment to improving educational outcomes for all students. Students will be working together in small teams. Grading will be based on attendance, class performance and participation, collaboration with peers, engagement with high school students, written assignments, and presentations.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: (1) Increase at-promise student engagement by amplifying their voices in school and district decision making; (2) equip Stanford students with essential qualitative, policy, and legal research skills and apply these skills in collecting and analyzing data to identify challenges and opportunities for at-promise students; (3) collaborate with peers and instructors to develop evidence-based policy recommendations for improving at-promise student engagement and outcomes, culminating in a final report that influences policies and practices at Gunderson and in SJUSD; and (4) promote diverse perspectives and ideologies by challenging existing beliefs about at-promise students and their communities, encouraging open-mindedness, and fostering thought-provoking conversations about contentious issues that appreciate a wide range of viewpoints.

CONSENT APPLICATION AND ADDITIONAL MATERIALS: To apply for this course, students must submit a Consent Application Form at https://law.stanford.edu/education/courses/consent-of-instructor-forms/. See the Consent Application Form for instructions. Additionally, students must submit a resume and writing sample via email to Dionna Rangel at drangel@law.stanford.edu. Please indicate in your email whether you are applying for winter quarter only, or winter and spring quarters. All application materials are due by Sunday, December 15 at 11:59 pm.

Course Description

Spring 2025

Times: MON 10:30-11:20 AM and THU 1:30-2:30 PM

Instructors: Jordan Stark, Hoang Pham

What role does race and bias play in creating, maintaining, and magnifying inequalities in how the law is made, applied, and enforced? In this course, we will examine how racialized perceptions, experiences, and affordances can become entrenched in our customs and institutions in ways that perpetuate racial inequality. This course is offered as a practicum through the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. Over the course of the quarter, students will spend 10 hours in class. Each week, they will spend an additional 3-6 hours (according to the units selected) on research and/or Center initiatives pertaining to racial justice in law and policy. Limited enrollment by permission only. Apply here.

Course Description

Spring 2025

Instructor: Kathleen Tarr

Time: TUE, THU 3:30-4:50 PM

The gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 by the Supreme Court of the United States led to the consequent disenfranchisement of many voters of color. For many citizens who desire a truly representative government, SCOTUS’s decision predicted the collapse of democracy and endorsed White supremacy. In this course, through an examination of jurisprudential racism and misogyny, students will learn to dissect the rhetoric of the U.S. judicial branch and the barriers it constructs to equity and inclusion through caselaw and appellate Opinions. The United States of America long deprived the right to vote to men of color and women of every race, and equal access to justice including at the intersections has been an enduring fight. The history of employment law, criminal justice, access to healthcare, and more includes jurisprudence enforcing racist and misogynist U.S. policies and social dynamics. Students will learn how to read a case, scrutinize court briefings, and contextualize bias as a foundation to erect a more just, equitable, and inclusionary legal system.

The Stanford Center for Racial Justice is a partner for this course’s Community Engagement assignment. Students who enroll will have an opportunity to research complex questions related to the Center’s initiatives and will present findings and recommendations to Center staff as part of their final project.

Course Description

Autumn 2023, Winter 2024

Time: WED 2:00-4:00 PM

Instructors: Ralph Richard Banks, Mitchell Stevens, Hoang Pham, Dan Sutton

The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions has upended nearly a half century of precedent. Universities that had long relied on race-based affirmative action in their admissions policies will no longer be permitted to do so.

This policy lab will take up the question with which universities across the country must now grapple: What next? The orientation of the lab will be forward-looking and inclined toward innovation. New principles. New goals. New ideas.

Rather than merely try to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court has prohibited universities from doing overtly, the practicum aims to treat the Supreme Court’s prohibition of race-based affirmative action as an opportunity to reconsider more broadly the goals of selective college admissions and the ways in which America’s leading educational institutions may reform admissions and associated practices in order to improve higher education broadly. Advanced education is crucially important both to national well-being and to racial justice. There is no path to racial justice that does not entail an educational system that works better for people of all backgrounds. The recent Supreme Court decisions regarding race preferences in admissions, and also student loan forgiveness, create an uncommon opportunity to fairly radically rethink how universities make good on their implicit bargain with the American people: to receive public patronage in exchange for enhancing educational opportunity and social mobility.

Two understandings of the issues inform the scope of work. One is that race-based affirmative action is far from the only aspect of university activity that has been or will be subject to criticism. Thus, we will not limit our focus to the one practice the Supreme Court has already prohibited. Rather, the entire array of marketing, recruitment, admissions and outreach practices and principles should be up for re-examination. The other important point to understand is that a school’s admissions practices are connected to broader questions about the role of prestigious colleges and universities in American society. Only through engaging those broader questions can one think clearly about the normative aims that selective colleges and universities should seek to further, through admissions, financial aid and otherwise.

In considering the issues, the lab will squarely confront a salient feature of American higher education that has received too little attention: the extraordinary stratification of American colleges and universities. The institutions at the apex of the hierarchy are the envy of the world; they are wealthier, more influential, and more sought after than ever before in our history. Yet, they educate a minuscule percentage of all students, most of whom struggle at less well-resourced institutions, which themselves struggle financially among other operational and educational challenges. The lab will consider the extent to which this extreme stratification is incompatible with the educational needs of our nation and will explore and develop strategies to counter it.

The work product of the lab will be a guidance document for universities, policymakers, and stakeholders across the country that serves as a road map for how to promote learning and advance racial justice after Students for Fair Admissions. The report will synthesize and evaluate the most successful higher education reforms and offer robust analysis, innovative policy development and recommendations for how to forge better systems of learning for all students. Accomplishing this goal will require the participants in the lab to understand and assess a wide array of issues concerning the structure and goals of higher education, and to take arguments that emanate from conservatives as seriously as those that emanate from liberals.

Students in this policy lab will research, identify, and design strategies and policy solutions to entrenched racial inequities within our higher education system, particularly at our most elite universities. Students will take a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving in the lab, researching and interacting with a wide range of experts and relevant fields, including but not limited to government, law, business, education, psychology, sociology, health, and technology.

This class is open to Stanford Law School students, and available for cross-registration for undergraduate and graduate students from across campus. We highly encourage students from outside the Law School to apply, particularly students from the Graduate School of Education, the Graduate School of Business, and those interested in developing their design-thinking skills. Students will be working together in small teams. Grading will be based on presentations, class participation, group work, and written assignments, including a final paper. The long-term client for this policy lab is the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. Please note this lab is a fall quarter 3-unit commitment with the option for a winter quarter extension. The winter quarter extension is a variable 1-3 units.

CONSENT APPLICATION: To apply for this course, students must complete a Consent Application Form available at SLS Registrar https://registrar.law.stanford.edu/. Additionally, students must submit a resume, transcript, and brief policy exercise via email to Dionna Rangel at drangel@law.stanford.edu. Applications are due by Sunday, September 17 at 11:59 pm. Directions for the policy exercise are below.

POLICY EXERCISE: You are a senior advisor to the president of a small university that has relied on using race as a factor in their admissions process. The president has expressed major concerns about the implications for the school after the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions. They have asked you to draft a policy memo to help them navigate the uncertainty brought on by this landmark decision, specifically:

• • • Briefly summarize Students for Fair Admissions, including what the decision says is prohibited and what is permitted.
    • Identify potential avenues for the university to respond to the decision that might be worthy of further investigation, including innovative policy ideas and reforms but also anything the administration should be thinking about more broadly as a higher education institution.
    • Include a short bibliography of select readings that can help the president stay informed about the issues, ideas, and responses post-affirmative action. The memo should be no longer than two pages, single-spaced, and use 12-point font.

SKILLS TRAINING: Students who enroll in a Law and Policy Lab practicum for the first time are asked to participate in the full-day methods boot camp typically held on the first Saturday of the term. If you wish to earn course credit for developing your policy analysis skills, you may formally enroll in “Elements of Policy Analysis” (Law 7846) for one unit of additional credit. As you will see from the course description, credit for Law 7846 requires your attendance at the full-day methods boot camp plus at least two additional lunch-hour workshops. If you enroll in a practicum but prefer to audit the supplemental skills class — rather than receive formal credit — please let Policy Lab Program Director Luciana Herman (lherman@law.stanford.edu) know and she will contact you with more details. Elements used in grading: Attendance, performance, class participation, written assignments, and final paper.