Apart from their assigned mod courses, 1L students may only enroll in courses offered as 1L electives. A complete list of these courses can be found on the 1L Elective Listings page. 1L students must use the 1L class number listed on the course description when enrolling.
224.23 sec. 001 - Public Health Law (Spring 2025)
Instructor: Marice Ashe (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only)
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
MW 11:20 AM - 12:35 PM
Location: Law 111
From January 13, 2025
To April 29, 2025
Course End: April 29, 2025
Class Number: 32838
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 18
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 23
As of: 04/02 01:35 AM
How best to protect the public’s health is at the forefront of the massive changes to governance we are likely to experience in the U.S. over the next several years. The reelection of Donald Trump, combined with the already activist Supreme Court, clearly portend huge changes to reproductive and LGBTQI rights, racial and environmental justice movements, privacy and due process norms, and so much more. Further, the ability of state and local health agencies to utilize their 10th Amendment “police powers” to regulate the health, safety, and welfare within our federalist system has now been called into question by the Supreme Court. Even the most basic scientific foundations of disease prevention and control may well be questioned or jettisoned by new federal health agency leadership, and even by some state legislatures and courts, affecting local governments as well.
Public Health Law 224.23 focuses on the legal, policy, and ethical issues raised by evolving notions of governmental powers in our highly pluralistic and now-fractured society. Using a case study approach, the course examines the complex interplay between the government’s fundamental role in promoting population health and competing demands and controversies related to the use of those powers.
Students will explore the basics of the U.S. public health system, learn how to integrate core legal theory with fundamental public health principles, and identify laws and policies that further the public’s health. Students do not need a background in health law but should bring passion and commitment both to redressing structural discrimination and to employing creative approaches to solving seemingly intractable problems.
This course is housed at Berkeley Law but also welcomes public health and public policy graduate students (though with limited enrollment). It is organized into three major sections:
1. The Public Health Perspective: We start the class focusing on the social, political and economic determinants of health and on racism as a public health crisis. We utilize public health data and stress-test various models of public health practice to understand how to build a rationale for legal and policy strategies to protect health and prevent disease.
2. Case Studies of Public Health Law in Action: Core legal theories, shifting legal standards, and specific legal tools are explored through a wide range of case studies related to how the law applies to infectious and chronic disease prevention, access to care, nuisance abatement, emergency response and more. Special emphasis is placed on the authority of federal, state and local governments to take action.
3. Constitutional Standards for Protecting Public Health: We close the course with an exploration of due process and equal protection, and the limits to governmental authority through the lens of the eugenics movement, sexual and reproductive freedoms, parental rights, religious liberties, and free speech in commercial transactions. This subject in particular is a very dynamic one, given changes in courts and political balances.
Public Health Law 224.23 is not an abstract exploration – it is specifically designed to simulate responses to real-world problems. Educational materials include both traditional and non-traditional resources, and the course supports a student-led research and writing project on any issue related to community and population health. Class time includes short lectures, student-led discussions, and frequent small group exercises. We will learn about transdisciplinary law – i.e., how health and community-based leaders, lawyers and allied professionals partner across areas of expertise to achieve public health’s primary goal – to ensure that everyone has the ability to live a healthy and prosperous life.
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Requirements Satisfaction:
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Submit teaching evaluations for this course between 14-APR-25 and 29-APR-25
Exam Notes: (P) Final Paper
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Social Justice and Public Interest
This course is listed in the following sub-categories:
Public Law and Policy
Race and Law
If you are the instructor or their FSU, you may add a file like a syllabus or a first assignment to this page.
Readers:
No reader.
Books:
Required Books are in blue
- The New Public Health Law: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Practice and Advocacy
Professor of Law and Public Health Scott Burris, Scott Burris, Associate Professor of Public Health and Law Micah L Berman, Micah L. Berman, Director of the Public Health Law Program Matthew Penn, Matthew Penn, Tara Ramanathan Holiday
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780197615973
e-Book Available: unknown
Price: To Be Determined