This student-focused treatise provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive, and readable overview of the doctrine, policy, history, and theory of civil rights and constitutional litigation under Section 1983 and its Bivens federal counterpart. The book works for dedicated civil rights courses and larger federal courts classes; it can function as a primary assignment, as an assigned or recommended case and statutory supplement to a casebook or case materials, and as a supplemental study guide for students wanting additional background, context, and synthesis of the material.
Q. Why this book, and why now?
This is the third edition of a treatise on civil rights and constitutional litigation. The time was right because of the major changes and arguments around this area of the law since the second edition in 2018. The Supreme Court issued important decisions in several areas, usually making it more difficult for plaintiffs to vindicate constitutional rights when lower courts apply these decisions. At the same time, lower courts, individual justices and judges, members of Congress, and legal scholars have questioned areas of this law and its underlying premises, arguing that the Supreme Court has rendered the possibility of enforcing civil rights illusory. The new edition puts this material together, showing how this area of law has changed and is changing, how it may change in the next five years, and the changes many advocates and decision makers would like to see.
Q. Who should read this book?
I designed the book for students and teachers in courses on civil rights and federal courts. It functions as a primary text, which is how I use it in my Civil Rights Litigation course, or as supplementary reading to master the material. The book is sufficiently comprehensive as to be useful as a primer for attorneys working in this area of law.
Q. What is the most important takeaway you hope your readers gain from this book?
I hope students and faculty members will appreciate and benefit from the book’s combination of doctrinal and theoretical description with problems, drawn from recent lower-court cases, to discuss and apply the legal framework.
Howard M. Wasserman joined the College of Law faculty in 2003. Professor Wasserman teaches civil procedure, evidence, federal courts, civil rights, and First Amendment; he writes about the freedom of speech, the role of procedure and jurisdiction in public-law and civil-rights litigation, and recently on baseball’s Infield Fly Rule. He blogs at PrawfsBlawg, is the Section Editor for the Courts Law Section of JOTWELL, and is a Contributor at SCOTUSBlog. Professor Wasserman graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an associate articles editor of the Law Review and was named to the Order of the Coif. Following law school, he clerked for Chief Judge James T. Giles of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Judge Jane R. Roth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He has been a visiting professor at Saint Louis University School of Law and Florida State University College of Law. Professor Wasserman is a loyal Chicago Cubs fan.