This course focuses on the definition, protection and conflicts of identity, gender, sexuality, race, religion, and ethnic, in law and policy in the United States. The course considers the historical and philosophical justifications that have been used to broaden the definition and protection of identity and engages in an analysis of how these efforts continue today. From desegregation of the past to race conscious admissions of today, the way we define and remedy racial discrimination involves complicated considerations of our legal definition of equality and the institutionalization of policy in the public and private sectors with Constitutional limits in mind. Similarly, policy guarantees against gender discrimination and the broadening of LBGTQIA+ rights once relied on biological justifications, but now claims of gender fluidity alter the kinds of legal and policy protections we are able to seek. The landscape of expanding legal and policy accommodation of emerging forms of identity also includes a consideration of conflicts and intersectionalities with other existing protections for identity. Religious exercise and practice, for example, can clash with those seeking accommodation of LBGTQIA+ rights, while law and policy struggles to strike a balance. This course will engage legal analysis, case based examples and structured student debates on emerging policy issues involving identity and its place in American society today.