Although the average law student might disagree, civil procedure is not simply a boring morass of technical rules governing litigation. It in fact can touch on some of the nation's most pressing social justice issues. Consider the famous example of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856), the precursor to the Civil War, which clearly was much more than just a diversity of citizenship case; rather, it affected the ability of freed African American slaves to sue in the federal courts.

One of the presenters teaches civil procedure with the popular John J. Cound, Jack H. Friedental, Arthur R. Miller, John E. Sexton, Civil Procedure: Cases and Materials (8th ed. 2001). Many cases in that book allow the instructor to raise issues of race and civil rights.

The important personal jurisdiction case of Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court (1987) permits exploration of whether a Japanese corporation can obtain a fair trial in a California court. Along these lines, xenophobic themes can be detected in Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno (1981), a decision in which the Supreme Court invoked the forum non conveniens doctrine to bar foreign litigants from suing U.S. defendants in the U.S. courts.

A case evaluating the constitutionality of a Florida pre-judgment remedy law, Fuentes v. Shevin (1972) allows the class to imagine what it would be like for a poor Latina (Margarita Fuentes) to have a sheriff come into her home to repossess a stove and stereo. The case also can be used to get students thinking about the strategies employed by civil rights organizations seeking to change the law.

Class actions cases are replete with issues of race and civil rights worthy of discussion. Why, for example, did the Supreme Court's decision in Hansberry v. Lee (1940) focus on abstract due process rights of absent class members (and avoid the serious Equal Protection claims) when the case involved the compelling story of Carl Hansberry, an African American who contended that a racially restrictive covenant should not bar him from purchasing a home in a white Chicago suburb? Why wouldn't the Court allow Mariano Falcon, a Mexican-American allegedly denied promotion by General Telephone, serve as a class representative of class members allegedly not hired on the basis of race? General Telephone v. Falcon (1982).

Consider juries. Is it sensible to always bar a party from striking a prospective juror on account of race? See Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co (1991). Shouldn't an African American plaintiff be able to exercise a peremptory strike against a white juror in an attempt to secure a diverse jury?

A most general question is whether racial minorities can ever expect to receive a fair trial. For example, in a garden variety car accident case, the Mississippi Supreme Court noted that a witness was "a Negro man." Denman v. Spain (1961) (This language was included in the excerpt of the case in the seventh edition of the casebook (at 1011) but edited out of the eighth edition (at 1049)). Why did the Mississippi Supreme Court mention that fact?