August 5, 2010
Teaching Social Justice in the Property Curriculum
Written by Kathleen A. Bergin
It’s the end of summer, which means that most of us are turning our attention to class prep. For me there’s plenty left to do, but I’m glad for the opportunity to connect with the good folks at SALT as a guest blogger this month. Thanks for the invitation!
It’s exciting to be part of a community that shares a mission of "enhancing social justice within the curriculum." This obviously brings to mind the typical "law and . . ." courses that tackle issues of social justice head-on, courses like Race and the Law, Women and the Law, Sexuality and the Law, etc., or the genre’s more "radical offspring," as I once heard someone describe it, Critical Race Theory. But those of us who teach these classes also know there’s plenty of opportunity to address social justice issues in the core curriculum, where questions about fairness, equality, and subordination, are too often brushed aside.
Take the first year Property course, for example. Most Property Profs cover the circumstances under which courts are able to force the sale of real property. In July, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA), which places conditions on a court’s ability to force a sale when multiple owners share an interest in the land. These sales typically occur when the owners disagree on how to use the land, and there’s no practicable way to partition the land into functional plots. The only way to resolve the dispute, conventional jurisprudence says, is to sell the land and distribute the proceeds proportionally to each owner according to their respective share.
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