The purpose of this book is to provide students with an understanding of the long trajectory of civil rights work and litigation, the hope inherent in that long history, and the ongoing struggles embedded within it. The book achieves this by equipping students with a survey of foundational, current, and emerging issues in American civil rights litigation. In doing so, it defines civil rights broadly and incorporates issues related to food justice as well as traditional doctrines addressing discrimination based on race, gender, and other categories. The foundational framework for our civil rights laws is directly related to our racially discriminatory laws. For that reason, the textbook starts with landmark cases and historical developments impacting the social and legal treatment of blacks and other communities of color. Additionally, it asks students to think about what law is, what law is doing, and what it should be. To this end, the book is divided into three parts: the first part deals with foundational and historical issues that impact today's jurisprudence. Chapters in this first section examine the road to Brown and the struggle for desegregation in school systems nationally.

It also discusses pre- and post-Reconstruction cases and statutes still relevant today. The second part examines in detail the cases and laws that make up the modern civil rights landscape. As such, it starts with the Civil Rights Act and a close examination of Title VII, Tile IX, and Title VI. This section also includes cases that make up the voting rights canon as well as chapters on disability law, language minorities, Section 1983, and gender discrimination. Finally, the third section delves into a study of persistent and emerging twenty-first century issues. In these chapters, relevant issues include food rights, common spaces, and the struggle for sustainability as civil rights issues, climate migration, gender identity, and sexual orientation, as well as litigation and models for educational equality beyond affirmative action.