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Centering The Teenage "Siren": Adolescent Workers, Sexual Harassment, And The Legal Construction Of Race And Gender, Anastasia M. Boles Jan 2015

Centering The Teenage "Siren": Adolescent Workers, Sexual Harassment, And The Legal Construction Of Race And Gender, Anastasia M. Boles

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Recent scholarship and media attention has focused on the prevalence of sexually harassing behavior directed at working teenagers, and the emergence of sexual harassment lawsuits by these minors against their employers. Although many of the legal issues concerning workplace sexual harassment and adult workers (and the various state and federal jurisprudence prohibiting it) have been widely discussed, there is surprisingly little discourse, research, and precedent addressing the problem of workplace sexual harassment and teen workers. Currently, most sexual harassment cases brought by adolescent workers are litigated using the doctrinal framework for adult workers. Only the Seventh Circuit has developed an …


Teen Pregnancy In Charter Schools: Pregnancy Discrimination Challenges Under The Equal Protection Clause And Title Ix, Kaylee Niemasik Jan 2015

Teen Pregnancy In Charter Schools: Pregnancy Discrimination Challenges Under The Equal Protection Clause And Title Ix, Kaylee Niemasik

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Until three years ago, a policy at Delhi Charter School in Louisiana required that any pregnant student be effectively expelled. A pregnant sixteen-year-old student’s expulsion caught the attention of national media in 2012. The ACLU sued and the school quickly rescinded the policy. Although the policy was revoked, the un-adjudicated nature of the resolution leaves teen girls at the school and nationwide without any final court order to protect them against the (re)enactment of similar discriminatory policies. This Article analyzes the Delhi Charter School policy in order to make three related arguments. First, the Court should adopt a rebuttable presumption …


A Joyful Heart Is Good Medicine: Sexuality Conversion Bans In The Courts, Wyatt Fore Oct 2014

A Joyful Heart Is Good Medicine: Sexuality Conversion Bans In The Courts, Wyatt Fore

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Led by California and New Jersey, states have begun to ban Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) for minors. States have targeted SOCE, also called ‘gay conversion therapy,’ by regulating state licensure requirements for mental health professionals. Conservative legal groups have challenged these bans in federal court, alleging a variety of constitutional violations sounding in the First and Fourteenth Amendments. More specifically, these legal groups propose theories claiming that the bans infringe upon individuals’ freedom of speech, free exercise, and parental rights. In this Note, I survey the history of these bans, as well as court decisions that have rejected constitutional …


Stopping Steubenville: Reducing Cases Of Adolescent Sexual Assault Involving Alcohol, Alexandra Schiffrin Jan 2013

Stopping Steubenville: Reducing Cases Of Adolescent Sexual Assault Involving Alcohol, Alexandra Schiffrin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

While the Steubenville Rape Case garnered much attention for the role that social media played in initiating the prosecution and inciting national outrage, the underlying legal issue was the victim’s incapacity to consent because of self-induced intoxication. The case surrounded the August 12, 2012 sexual assault of an intoxicated sixteen-year-old girl by two high school football players, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, after a party in Steubenville, Ohio. Following the prominent coverage of the incident across social media channels and in the news, Mays and Richmond—who were charged with raping the sixteen-year-old girl—were often portrayed as the real victims; observers …


Exploring The First Amendment Rights Of Teens In Relationship To Sexting And Censorship, Julia Halloran Mclaughlin Feb 2012

Exploring The First Amendment Rights Of Teens In Relationship To Sexting And Censorship, Julia Halloran Mclaughlin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article explores child pornography law in relation to teen sexting conduct. Recently, some teens who engaged in teen sexting have been convicted under child pornography laws and have been required to register as sexual predators. The criminalization of teens for developmentally typical behavior, mimicking the conduct of adults, can result in grave harm to most teens. Furthermore, the application of child pornography laws to teen sexting conduct demonstrates the constitutional overbreadth of the current definition of child pornography. Photographs have an emblematic role in society-capturing and celebrating youth. Moreover, the creation of teen sexting images accompanies a teen's developmental …


When Sixteen Ain't So Sweet: Rethinking The Regulation Of Adolescent Sexuality, Nicole Phillis Jan 2011

When Sixteen Ain't So Sweet: Rethinking The Regulation Of Adolescent Sexuality, Nicole Phillis

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Legally speaking, sexual maturity poses a significant enough liberty interest for a minor to make medical decisions regarding contraceptive medicine or to choose motherhood without parental involvement, but not quite enough for her to obtain an abortion independently. The law incentivizes teenage motherhood by only granting decisional autonomy to those minors who choose to have a child; the minor female's right to procreate vests regardless of her individual maturity. The law discourages teenage abortions by using the choice to terminate a pregnancy to trigger a presumption of immaturity; the minor female's abortion right is pitted against personal autonomy via parental …


Parenting And Pregnant Students: An Evaluation Of The Implementation Of The Other Title Ix, Michelle Gough Jan 2011

Parenting And Pregnant Students: An Evaluation Of The Implementation Of The Other Title Ix, Michelle Gough

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits gender discrimination. Although pregnancy has been described as the "quintessential sex difference," Title IX's prohibition of gender discrimination in the context of parenting and pregnant students has often been left out of the discussion, and therefore the understanding, of the implementation of Title IX Regulations. The scholarship discussing the topic shows general agreement that the language and spirit of Title IX has not been given effect thus far by our schools or by some courts. This Article begins by looking to the Title IX regulations themselves and then to the research …


Sex Education And Rape, Michelle J. Anderson Jan 2010

Sex Education And Rape, Michelle J. Anderson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In the law of rape, consent has been and remains a gendered concept. Consent presumes female acquiescence to male sexual initiation. It presumes a man desires to penetrate a woman sexually. It presumes the woman willingly yields to the man's desires. It does not presume, and of course does not require, female sexual desire. Consent is what the law calls it when he advances and she does not put up a fight. I have argued elsewhere that the kind of thin consent that the law focuses on is not enough ethically and it should not be enough legally to justify …


The Failure Of Sexting Criminalization: A Plea For The Exercise Of Prosecutorial Restraint, Robert H. Wood Jan 2009

The Failure Of Sexting Criminalization: A Plea For The Exercise Of Prosecutorial Restraint, Robert H. Wood

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The purpose of this Essay is to explore the various legal approaches to the sexting phenomenon through an analysis of a decision by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, which granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the prosecution of sexting teens on constitutional grounds, and an examination of current and pending legislative attempts to deal with the sexting phenomenon. Section I describes the facts leading up to the district court decision and its subsequent holding. Section II examines the approaches to sexting prosecution and legislation taken by other states. Section III analyzes the legal issues …


Minors As Medical Decision Makers: The Pretextual Reasoning Of The Court In The Abortion Cases, J. Shoshanna Ehrlich Jan 2000

Minors As Medical Decision Makers: The Pretextual Reasoning Of The Court In The Abortion Cases, J. Shoshanna Ehrlich

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

By examining the Court's failure to consider the allocation of authority between parents and children in the critical realm of medical decision making, this article exposes the irrationality of the Court's acceptance of limitations on the abortion rights of minors and reveals the pronatalist thrust of the parental involvement decisions. The article begins by looking at how the Roe Court characterized abortion as a medical decision, followed by a discussion about the medical decision-making rights of minors. Rooted in this medical paradigm, the article then turns to the parental involvement cases to examine the Court's failure to consider the medical …


Judging Girls: Decision Making In Parental Consent To Abortion Cases, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Julie Kunce Field Jan 1995

Judging Girls: Decision Making In Parental Consent To Abortion Cases, Suellyn Scarnecchia, Julie Kunce Field

Articles

Judges make determinations on a daily basis that profoundly affect people's lives. On March 28, 1991, the Michigan legislature enacted a statute entitled The Parental Rights Restoration Act (hereinafter "the Michigan Act" or "the Act"). This statute delegated to probate court judges the extraordinary task of deciding whether a minor girl may have an abortion without the consent of a parent. Nothing in law school and little in an average judge's experience provide a meaningful framework for making such a decision. Although many commentators, including the authors, argue that decisions about abortion should be left to the woman regardless of …


The Learning Years: A Review Of The Changing Legal World Of Adolescence, Bruce C. Hafen Mar 1983

The Learning Years: A Review Of The Changing Legal World Of Adolescence, Bruce C. Hafen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Changing Legal World of Adolescence by Franklin E. Zimring