• Students sit in front of a bookcase at a table in a classroom.

    Law and Social Change

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    Office of Admission
    Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts
    79 Fifth Avenue, 5th floor 
    New York, NY 10003 
    Phone: 212.229.5150 or 
    800.292.3040
    Fax: 212.229.5355
    [email protected]

    Program Contact
    Sandipto Dasgupta
    Assistant Professor, Politics
    Program Director, Law and Social Change
    [email protected]

     

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    Launch Experience

  • In the Law and Social Change minor, you learn how law can be employed as an instrument of social change. You examine how law and legal institutions exert power and control, how the law produces systemic forms of harm, and how law can be a mode of democratic transformation.

    • Study Options Minor

    Moving beyond the technical jargon typical of legal education, the Law and Social Change minor is designed to demystify the law. Students are introduced to the world of law in the context of a socially and critical conscious liberal arts education. Learn how the law is relevant to your real life experiences and other scholarly interests, and deepen your understanding of how law can be challenged and used to address and undo harm. Law and Social Change minors have the opportunity to engage with activist legal practices in New York City.

    Minor requirements

    Connecting to New York City

    While it offers the atmosphere and intimacy of a small college, Eugene Lang College is part of The New School, a major progressive university in New York City. Our location in the heart of Greenwich Village allows Law and Social Change minors opportunities to engage with legal activist practices in New York City. The city and The New School become your laboratories in which you examine and address contemporary legal challenges. 

    Career Paths

    Law and Social Change minors learn concepts in key domains upon which they can build as they pursue careers with nonprofit organizations and advanced study in fields such as constitutional law, criminal justice, and property law. They become familiar with practitioners and organizations pursuing legal strategies in the context of contemporary social movements.

    Discover more outcomes of a Lang education.

  • Courses

    Explore a selection of courses available to you in this program.

    • LLAW 2015

      Constitutional Law

      This course provides an introduction to U.S. constitutional law and theory. Through a close reading of the text of the Constitution as well as landmark Supreme Court decisions, it explores the origins and evolution of the constitutional system, with a particular focus on how constitutional doctrine ...

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    • LPOL 2052

      International Theory: A Historical Introduction

      Political units, be they kingdoms, empires or states, have never existed in isolation; they have always had to deal with some type of ‘outside’. The nature of these relations constitutes the subject matter of international theory. This course is concerned with various strands of international theory...

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    • ULEC 2862

      Law & Social Change

      This course is an introduction to the world of law from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective. Law is a central political and social institution that structures our world. At the same, its knowledge is generally restricted to specialists who are trained in its particular technicalities and ja...

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  • Noteworthy

    A selection of news and announcements about the Law and Social Change program and Eugene Lang College

  • Upcoming Events

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Submit your application

Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.