Transportation syllabus

Professor

1. My name is Bryant Walker Smith, and you are welcome to call me Bryant.
2. My office hours are after class and by appointment.
3. You can contact me by email.
4. My Twitter handle is @bwalkersmith, but this is not a reliable way to reach me.
5. My bio is at here, and my publications are available here. You absolutely need not read these.

Logistics

1. Our class is on Wednesdays from 2:40pm to 4:45pm (except as announced) in room 284, online, or outdoors (as announced).
2. Our course website (which includes weekly assignments) is Racial Discrimination in Transportation.
3. We will read portions of Robert Caro, The Power Broker (1974) (ISBN: 0-394-72024-5). I encourage but, provided you can otherwise access it, do not require you to purchase this book.

Objectives

1. Appreciate the breadth and depth of transportation law.
2. Understand the history of discrimination in the provision and regulation of transportation.
3. Understand the role of law in perpetuating and preventing transportation discrimination.
4. Understand the relationship between transportation and other drivers of (in)equality.
5. Develop specialized knowledge in another specific transportation law topic.
6. Become familiar with a wide range of practice-relevant transportation law topics.
7. Acquire practical skills relevant to public- and private-sector legal work.
8. Navigate legal and factual uncertainty, ambiguity, and inconsistency.

Expectations

1. Try!
2. Prepare.
3. Respect others.
4. Challenge yourself.
5. Comply with the honor code.
6. Behave like the lawyer you will become.
7. If you have concerns (general or specific), talk with me.

Sensitivity of subject matter

1. Recognize and respect that our colleagues’ experiences may be different than your own.
2. Some students may be personally familiar with the kinds of tragedies, biases, and conditions present in our materials.
3. All of us (including me) will make mistakes in what we say and how we say it.
4. If you have concerns about particular topics, I invite you to talk with me.

Multitasking

1. You must be fully prepared prior to class.
2. You may not participate in any class session or other course activity while driving.
3. Use the bathroom and take a break when you need to do so.
4. During class, you may engage in activities conducive to your learning and participation, including communications that are relevant to our discussion.
5. During class, you may not engage in activities that are distracting to you or your classmates, including communications that are irrelevant to our discussion.
6. Familial obligations are an exception to this last rule: While I strongly encourage you to arrange for the care of your dependents during class time, I recognize that this is not always practicable, and I support your efforts to balance these multiple responsibilities.

Grading

1. Participation (1/3 of grade).
2. Community contribution (1/3 of grade).
3. Final exam (1/3 of grade).

Participation

1. Prepare for class by reading and reflecting on the assigned materials. There is a lot of reading in this course. Triaging materials (i.e., deciding what to study, what to read, and what to skim) is an important skill that law students and lawyers struggle with. I encourage you to talk with me about potential strategies.
2. Give our colleagues something to talk about for half an hour each week. This does not mean that you speak for 30 minutes; rather, it means that you contribute information, insights, ideas, or questions that can spark 30 minutes of discussion among our colleagues.
3. Communicate with our colleagues by listening, asking questions, following up, and otherwise engaging.
4. Otherwise: Make arrangements in advance (or, in the case of an emergency, contact me when practicable).

Community contribution

1. Work by yourself, in a team, or as a class to make some transport-related contribution to our community.
2. In 2021, for example, students successfully persuaded the City of Columbia to change traffic signal timings at the Gervais Street / Pickens Street intersection to reduce the danger to people crossing at this intersection.
3. Document your inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts.
4. Share your contribution with our colleagues toward the end of the semester.

Final exam

1. The final exam tests your meaningful engagement with the readings, exercises, and discussions over the entire semester.
2. You may take the final exam over any eight consecutive hours at any point during the approximately two-week exam period. You should use the full time that is available to you.
3. You may freely use assigned readings, recommended readings, classroom discussions, and materials you have personally prepared. You need not cite these sources. You may also use other inanimate (i.e., nonhuman) sources, but you must cite and as appropriate quote any on which you directly rely in completing the exam. Sources include not only materials (e.g., commercial study guides, outside cases, class notes created by others, output from generative AI systems) but also tools (e.g., legal databases, search engines, generative AI systems). For example, if you rely on a case from a Wikipedia article you found through a Google search, you must cite not only the case but also the Wikipedia article and the Google search. Similarly, if you incorporate or consult output from ChatGPT, you must identify not only that output but also the prompts you used to produce that output.
4. You must provide enough information for me to recognize and locate your sources and to understand how you have used them, but you need not follow a specific citation format. For example, “Caro” is a sufficient citation for Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.
5. I am open to alternative formats.
6. Past exams are available.

Community norms

1. Student Handbook Section VIII(B) contains our law school's honor code. Read it, know it, and comply with it.
2. Students who commit to the Carolina Creed "oppose intolerance by promoting integrity within our campus community."

Accommodations

1. You deserve equal access and opportunity.
2. You may, but you need not, speak with me about your SDRC-directed accommodations.

Interpersonal violence and mandatory reporting

1. You deserve to be safe.
2. Confidential reporting officers can provide confidential and anonymous support.
3. All other employees (including faculty) must report incidents of sexual assault, sexual exploitation, and partner or relationship violence to the university’s Title IX Coordinator.

Covid-19 and flu season

1. Covid-19 and the flu could each imperil the successful completion of your semester.
2. We can and should all take common-sense steps to avoid this risk among even more serious risks.
3. Do not come to class if you feel sick.
4. I will use public-health guidance, including indicators of community spread, to decide whether I will mask and on what terms I will interact with others.
5. Regardless, if you mask when closely interacting with me, I will endeavor to reciprocate.

Wellness generally

1. Law school is stressful, and the practice of law is stressful. Your physical, mental, and emotional health matters.
2. If you are lonely, scared, desperate, insecure, or unsure, you are not alone. Please reach out. Every semester I hear from students in crisis.
3. Our law school, university, and community have people who care about you and resources that are available to you. These include:
   1. Our law school's wellness page.
   2. Our in-house counselor, who provides free mental health support services to the law school community.
   3. Our Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Office of Student Affairs.
   4. Food pantries at our law school (room 106), university, and community.
   5. Our university's crisis hotline (+1-803-777-5223) and counseling services.
   6. A specialized team dedicated to helping people you identify as potentially in need.
   7. Lawyers Helping Lawyers (+1-855-321-4384).
   8. An expansive network of creative and connected people throughout the state and country.
   9. And many others.
4. For people in their early 20s, motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death. Aggressive, distracted, drowsy, and intoxicated driving are unlawful and irresponsible. Jokes that trivialize texting-while-driving are not funny. We owe better to each other.
5. Please take care of yourself and others. Prepare now by visiting MyHealthSpace.