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Course Info for PBPL - 206 - 90, January 2026
Class number: 1014 Title: Birthright Citizenship Department: Public Policy & Law
Career: Undergraduate Component: Lecture Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 0.50
Enrollment limited to 25 Current enrollment: 12 Available seats: 13
Start date: Monday, January 5, 2026 End date: Friday, January 16, 2026 Mode of Instruction: Remote
Schedule: TWR: 1:00PM-4:20PM, N/A Instructor(s): Turiano, Evan
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Social Sciences Requirement
Course Description:
This course will examine the past, present, and future of American national citizenship’s most foundational and contested principle. Students will consider the philosophical underpinnings of citizenship and its alternatives alongside the complex history of citizenship in the United States before the Civil War. Students will conduct close readings of the Fourteenth Amendment and will learn about how contests over the exclusion of Chinese immigrants, the sovereignty of Indigenous people, women’s rights, and the fragile equality of African Americans under the law have each shaped the meaning of birthright citizenship. Finally, students will examine how immigration patterns have transformed the national debate over birthright citizenship and how it has come to face its biggest challenge in over a century.