Rural Lands Seminar: Law at the Boundary of Public and Private Space
Selected Topics in Property and Natural Resources Law
Jessica A. Shoemaker
University of Nebraska College of Law
This seminar examines the contested boundary between public and private space. Together, through a range of interdisciplinary texts and critical discussion, we will explore how the law shapes ongoing struggles over land and resource governance, with a particular focus on where valid public claims of access exist and where private rights of exclusion prevail. Representative topics will include recent climate litigation evoking the public trust doctrine; takings cases balancing the demands of union organizers, farmworkers, and farm owners; disputes over the future of national parks and public lands; conflicts over private access to beaches, waterways, and federal properties; the constitutionality of so-called “ag gag” trespass laws; and even legal challenges to where people without housing can sleep—if anywhere. Specific topics may be adjusted to reflect student interests and could include international comparisons, including the right to roam in many European nations, Scotland’s recent enactment of a community right to buy certain private lands, and Ecuador’s constitutional amendment to recognize legal personhood for nature itself. Final assessment will be based on both a writing and presentation assignment.