Legal Responses to COVID-19

Legal Respones to COVID-19 - Professor Paul Diller

• Course Number: LAW-241
• Course Type: Highly Specialized
• Credits: 2
• Enrollment Limit: 20
• Description: This course examines prominent legal issues that have arisen since early 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on the mechanics of and legal challenges to emergency rule frameworks. The foundation of the course will be an exploration of the international, national, and state public health response framework, with an emphasis on the latter two. This section of the course will examine separation of powers and conflicts over the vertical division of governmental authority, both at the federal and state levels. The course will also analyze conflicts between individual constitutional rights and pandemic restrictions on movement and assembly, as well as legal disputes regarding vaccination requirements. In addition, the course will explore the structural inequalities exposed by the pandemic and legal issues that have arisen in government responses thereto.
• Prerequisite: none
• Evaluation Method: This class will be assessed based on class attendance and participation, including the possibility of at least one presentation, as well as a final research paper on any topic reasonably related to the course’s subject matter.
• Capstone: no
• WIE: no