Paula Franzese

For what it claims to be, this class is not bad, especially if you have good TAs. She absolutely does ramble, preach, and just talk at you and you’re left to doodle since there’s no computers allowed. Still, the material is very interesting. She began the semester cold-calling, but wasn’t particularly mean or anything if you didn’t know the answer. She then introduced a “panel” model where each student has to sign up for one week where they make a group presentation about the readings, (sometimes students would actually present but usually there was no time for that so don’t stress) and that week’s class she will only cold call on the students in that panel. She definitely makes her opinions known and the readings she assigns just back them up. I didn’t see her cutting off or antagonizing anyone who disagreed with her, but my class also did not tend to disagree. She yaps a lot, it’s very TED-talk-esce a someone said, often not on topic, and sometimes she just projects herself typing things onto a blank slideshow. She is clearly a very successful lawyer and well-connected, she brought in a lot of great guest speakers which was especially great because it took up a lot of class time. Enjoy “building the house of tomorrow”!

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. Seriously. If you go are on this page because you want a meaningful education, an easy A, or both, run, because neither is happening. This woman clearly does incredible work as a housing rights attorney, but she is a terrible professor. She speaks like she's giving a TED Talk or indoctrinating you into a cult, and somehow everyone acts like what she says is genuinely inspirational. I am to the left of Franzese on quite literally every single issue we discussed in this class, yet her liberal biases bothered even me. The whole class was basically just a circle jerk of people raising their hands, giving the most shallow Instagram graphic-esque opinion on abortion or police or whatever, and her acting like they just said the most profound thing in the world. I have spent pretty much my entire life advocating for abortion rights, and our abortion discussion was so mind-numbingly shallow and repetitive that I seriously considered pretending to be pro-life. The readings are a bunch of NYT op-eds or news articles with the occasional court case -- no serious political or legal analysis to be found. The midterm and final essay prompts are a vague opinion of hers that you are then supposed to back up, magically knowing exactly what specific examples and arguments you are supposed to cite. Basically no room to disagree, either to the left or the right of her. I rea…

is this a class or a church? Why is she preaching the gospel all day?

Professor Franzese is one of the most incredible professors at Columbia University. You can read below about her style of teaching, which she has improved upon since many of these reviews were written (quicks are actually quick now, better at cutting people off, etc). To the points of not learning anything: absolutely ridiculous. You get as much out of this class as you put into it. It's not the most *content* heavy class in the world, but there is extreme value in fleshing out ideas and articulating them in new ways. Also, exploring the relationships between theory, case law, and normative messages in American society is a worthwhile endeavor. There's a lot to be learned and even more to be gained from taking this class.

MUST TAKE THIS CLASS!!!! The topics are SO interesting and SOOOO relevant to today's political climate. PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO TAKE THIS CLASS!!! Professor Franzese is also WONDERFUL and is so passionate about her work. THIS IS A GEM!!! I am only a political science minor and have never thought about studying law before. But this class, and specifically Prof Franzese actually made me consider law school for a second because she's THAT amazing. TAKE THIS CLASS!!!

i love this woman! she is such a ray of sunshine and a great reminder to be kind to one another. i was always excited to go to class because her lectures are so engaging. and. powerful. this class definitely doesn't go into the nitty gritty stuff about the constitution, but you will delve into several issues (a specific issue is designated for every lecture) surrounding civil rights and civil liberties. the reading load is definitely intense, but it was definitely worth doing. i will say i don't recommend taking this course if you already have a heavy course load that semester because readings are usually 500+ pages a week, and she cold calls so you kind of have to do them. TAs graded my papers way harsher than I expected, but my friends in the class had no problems with grading so it may have just been me. even so, i ended with an a- and i was probs on the lower end of the class.

I have to corroborate everything said by the reviewer before me. Professor Franzese is a natural, but a little over eager. She has a terrible time cutting people off, and indulges everything any student has to say, from the innocuous to the idiotic. I believe I was in a particularly verbose section. As mentioned, the course gives only a cursory glance at actual First Amendment Values, theoretical and practical, and focuses on bias in the media. When you center discussion around the media, you invite distracting and hackneyed commentary on current events. Topical as they may be, Paula allows 'quick' comments to give way to anecdotes which ultimately give way to a 2 hour class during which not a word from the reading (which is substantial) is mentioned. I suppose her style of discussion is worth mentioning. At the beginning of the class Paula makes a queue, and students who have something to say are written down. If someone does not want to introduce a new topic, but comment on the previous one, they express to Paula that they have a 'quick'. Quicks turn into 10 minute rambles, which lead to more 'quicks' on ancillary topics, and 45 minutes later whoever was next on the queue doesn't have a vague idea what they were going to say. For people who are only minimally fond of their own voice, and really only want to speak when they have something meaningful or original to say, this i…

Take this class! Professor Franzese is amazing, passionate, knowledgable, and facilitates excellent discussions. The reading work load is light, but extremely interesting. Most of it is case studies. Professor Franzese challenges you to think about the ethical dimensions of civil rights law. Previous reviewers said that they didn't learn much, but I believe you get what you put in.

Honestly, don't take this class. The content was interesting but it was genuinely only present in the readings. In class we talked about the content for maybe a couple minutes out of the 2 hour class. The rest of the time we talked about nonsense, random life stories of hers, and she would go on about inspirational quotes that had nothing to do with the course content. I enjoyed the readings and assignments but the actual class felt pointless to me and I had pretty much nothing to write down in my notebook.

I thought that she would be an amazing teacher. However, she failed to keep the class engaged. More so, she failed to talk about real life issues that were going on. She always only talked about having hope and whatnot and not the fact that hope wouldn't get us through.