Missisippi Project

Students enrolled in the Mississippi Project spend the winter break providing legal support to an organization engaged in human rights work in the U.S. South. Faculty explore with students broader themes that this work implicates such as movement lawyering, health and safety of workers, and applying human rights and corporate accountability principles in the U.S. South. This course is designed to provide rich, immersive experiential experience that will be deeply challenging intellectually and personally transformative. This Project began as a student-led initiative, thus it contemplates co-creation of the curriculum which aims to give all participants the opportunity to contribute to curricular or pedagogical conceptualization, decision-making, implementation, investigation, or analysis of the course to remain true to its originating mission. The broad course goals focus on: (1) a deeper knowledge and understanding of civil rights and other legal doctrine, which may vary; (2) legal research, writing and other skills in the context of an active litigation; (3) a collaborative approach to legal representation; (4) an opportunity to learn about movement lawyering and social movements in the South and Global South; (5) fostering community of support with and for another as personally difficult cases are addressed, which is an essential skill for public interest lawyering; (6) communication with experienced organizers and other guest speakers. The work may potentially include litigation support and legislative, and other, research.