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    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

    Program Director, Law and Social Change
    Quentin Bruneau
    Assistant Professor, Politics
    [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. Consult our 4-Year Lang Career Pathways Map (PDF) for helpful steps and resources to link your academic journey to your future plans. 

    Outcomes at Lang

  • Courses

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

    • LINA 2056

      Performance and Property

      How do dance and performance studies imagine property — a thing which belongs to someone (a possession), and an inherent or essential quality (an attribute) — as made and reproduced? Examining key texts across disciplines including critical race theory, contract law, gender studies, and decolonial c...

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    • LLAW 3010

      Free Speech Ancient and Modern

      We often hear that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy.” In this statement, we recognize a popular conception of free speech as the positive right to express one’s opinion in public, and the idea that a democratic society is characterized by and benefits from the totality of opini...

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    • LLSJ 2010

      Ethics and History of Journalism

      Starting with the publication of its very first colonial newspaper, U.S. journalism has actively promoted -- and even organized and led -- identity-based discrimination and violence in our country. This reading-intensive course outlines this history, and situates contemporary U.S. journalism within ...

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  • Noteworthy

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

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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.