Spring 2027

Ethnicity, Race, and Justice

Examines ethnicity, race, and justice with a specific emphasis on US Latinx/e peoples, analyzing racial disparities in crime, legal treatment, and mass incarceration through social science theory and empirical data.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 7

Past student reviews · Michael Light

Grades relied on five components, with article evaluations carrying the highest weight. A student found the fast lecture pace made note-taking difficult and described the overall course as hard.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Discuss ethnic and racial differences in crime and criminal justice outcomes and analyze these patterns through the application of theory and empirical data in the social sciences.

  • Engage major theoretical debates in social and legal scholarship. Why are there racial/ethnic disparities in crime and violence? How and why have these disparities changed over time? Are minorities treated differently by legal officials? Has mass incarceration mitigated or exacerbated racial and ethnic inequality? How has the Supreme Court viewed issues of ethnicity, race, and the law?

  • Competently interpret representations of data and critically analyze study design in published research on ethnicity, race, and justice.

  • Critically assess the often-controversial issues surrounding ethnicity, race, crime, and the law in society, drawing on readings and class discussion.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2 UW Guide 3

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

C&E SOC/​SOC 140, 210, 211,SOC 181,AMER IND/​AFROAMER/​ASIAN AM/​CHICLA 102,CHICLA 201, 210,POLI SCI/​CHICLA 231,HISTORY/​CHICLA/​GEN&WS 245,LEGAL ST/​SOC 131, or POLI SCI/​LEGAL ST 217(or FOLKLORE 102 prior to Fall 2026)

CHICLA/LEGALST/SOC 440

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

MICHAEL LIGHT is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Michael Light

Past students found Michael Light's lectures engaging and valuable, though some noted he spoke quickly. One student described him as a favorite professor who cared deeply about education.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2022: 3.29 GPA, 66.2% A/AB (n=77 letter grades); Fall 2023: 3.10 GPA, 54.2% A/AB (n=72 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.43 GPA, 76.9% A/AB (n=65 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Michael Light

Grades relied on five components, with article evaluations carrying the highest weight. A student found the fast lecture pace made note-taking difficult and described the overall course as hard.

Past student reviews · Michael Light

One student appreciated the reflective thinking required but found the instructor's ego distracting. They noted that the assignments and exams were straightforward, despite mixed feelings about the teaching style.

Topics

  • Ethnicity, race, and justice with an emphasis on US Latinx/e peoples.
  • Racial/ethnic disparities in crime, legal treatment by officials, mass incarceration, and Supreme Court views on race and law.

Skills

  • Analyze ethnic and racial differences in crime and criminal justice outcomes using social science theory and empirical data.
  • Engage with theoretical debates regarding racial/ethnic disparities, legal treatment, mass incarceration, and Supreme Court jurisprudence.
  • Interpret data representations and critically analyze study designs in published research on ethnicity, race, and justice.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2024— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2024

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2024 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1330 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "7df5cba8b4aada7857eea8c3a0ce42065bbedd0d07ec90e69d4199623f386091",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}