LAW4129 Discrimination Law
Faculty of Law
LAW4129 Discrimination Law is a level 4, 6-credit-point, undergraduate unit from the Faculty of Law, offered in 2025 in Semester 1 at Clayton. It has no prerequisites.
- Credit points
- 6
- Offered in 2025
- Semester 1
- Clayton
- Assessment
- No exam
- 2 tasks
- Workload
- 144 hours
- per semester
This is the 2025 handbook entry. See the 2027 entry.
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Requisites
Before LAW4129
Prohibitions
You can't enrol if you have passed any of these.
After LAW4129
No unit lists LAW4129 as a prerequisite in the 2025 handbook.
Enrolment rules
You must have completed at least 60 credit points of law study
Overview
This unit examines discrimination as a social and legal phenomenon, as one of the main areas in which Australia has sought to explicitly enshrine human rights protection. Discrimination law prohibits a range of direct and indirect conduct that perpetrates inequality on the basis of protected attributes, such as sex, race and disability. However, Australian discrimination law retains significant flaws and lags behind contemporary developments in comparable jurisdictions such as Canada, New Zealand, and the UK - especially regarding systemic, preventative measures.
This unit explores the key features and framework of discrimination law in Australia: its social context, underlying concepts and theories, federal and state/territory interactions, prohibitions of unlawful discrimination, protection of particular attributes, and use of exceptions and exemptions. Throughout, the focus will be on the following: to what extent is discrimination law an effective system in addressing, redressing, and preventing discrimination? Could it be improved and reformed, and if so how?
Offerings in 2025
| Teaching period | Campus | Mode |
|---|---|---|
| First semester | Clayton | On campus |
Assessment
- Research assignmentWritten40%
- Law reform assessmentWritten60%
Learning outcomes
When you finish this unit, you should be able to:
- 1
Demonstrate knowledge of the problem of unjustifiable discrimination and its Australian social context, and of applicable discrimination laws.
- 2
Identify, research and evaluate legal and policy issues in discrimination law
- 3
Apply critical thinking to concepts of equality, discrimination, and the capacity and limits of law and policy as mechanisms of social change
- 4
Communicate appropriately and persuasively on issues of discrimination law
- 5
Develop law reform proposals in order to evaluate discrimination law and improve its effectiveness
Workload and teaching
- Seminars36 hours
- Teaching approachActive learning
Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.
Learning resources
Required resources
See the Moodle unit page for prescribed and recommended resources. Prescribed texts are usually available for purchase through the University Bookstore and are sometimes available for short-term loan or as eBooks through the library.
Contacts
- Chief Examiners
- Mr Liam Elphick
Common questions
What are the prerequisites for LAW4129?
LAW4129 has no prerequisites, but enrolment rules apply.
When is LAW4129 offered?
In 2025, LAW4129 runs in Semester 1 at Clayton.
How much work is LAW4129?
The handbook expects about 144 hours of study across the semester. No students have rated its difficulty yet.
Does LAW4129 have an exam?
No. LAW4129 has 2 assessment tasks and no exam.