Law Commons^™

O Brother Where Art Thou? The Struggles Of African American Men In The Global Economy Of The Information Age, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

As early as the late 1980’s, William Wilson argued that widespread economic transitions had altered the socioeconomic structure of American inner cities to the detriment of African Americans. Wilson identified declines in manufacturing work and its replacement with poorly compensated service sector work as driving racial segregation and leaving African Americans jobless, poor and alienated from American society. These transitions were particularly problematic for African American men since manufacturing work was their primary gateway to middle-class employment while African American women had already focused more on service work.

Since the initial exposition of Wilson’s theory of deindustrialization, Wilson’s framework of …

From Justice To Injustice: Lowering The Threshold Of European Consensus In Oliari And Others Versus Italy, Nazim Ziyadov

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Oliari and Others v. Italy, decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2015, changed its case law. The ECHR changed its position stated in Schalk and Kopf v. Austria (2010) when evaluating an alleged violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It concluded that Italy has a positive obligation under the convention to guarantee alternative legal recognition for same-sex couples. The same conclusion was not reached in Schalk. In Oliari and Others, the ECHR heavily relied on the European consensus doctrine and eventually deepened formalization of two different institutions (marriage and civil unions). …

Dissenting From History: The False Narratives Of The Obergefell Dissents, Christopher R. Leslie

Indiana Law Journal

According to a quote attributed to numerous philosophers and political leaders, “History is written by victors.”1 In the legal battle over same-sex marriage, those opposed to marriage equality have attempted to disprove this age-old adage. In response to the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges—which held that state laws banning same-sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment—each of the four dissenting Justices issued his own dissenting opinion. Every one of these dissents misrepresented the circumstances and precedent leading up to the Obergefell decision. Collectively, the Obergefell dissenters have valiantly tried to rewrite America’s legal, constitutional, and social history, all in an …

Why The State Cannot “Abolish Marriage”: A Partial Defense Of Legal Marriage, Gregg P. Strauss

Indiana Law Journal

Does a liberal state have a legitimate interest in defining the terms of intimate relationships? Recently, several scholars have answered this question with a no and concluded that the state should abolish marriage, along with all other categories of intimate status. While politically infeasible, these proposals offer a powerful thought experiment. In this Article, I use this thought experiment to argue that the law cannot avoid relying on intimate-status norms and has legitimate reasons to retain an intimate status like marriage.

The argument has three parts. The primary lesson of the thought experiment is that the state cannot abolish intimate …

Changing The Marriage Equation, Deborah A. Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article brings together legal, historical, and social science research to analyze how couples allocate income-producing and domestic responsibilities. It develops a framework—what I call the “marriage equation”—that shows how sex-based classifications, (non-sex-specific) substantive marriage law, and gender norms interrelate to shape these choices. The marriage equation has changed over time, both reflecting and engendering societal preferences regarding the optimal allocation of breadwinning and caretaking responsibilities.

Until fifty years ago, sex-based classifications in family and employment law aligned with gender norms to enforce an ideology of separate spheres for men and women. The groundbreaking sex discrimination cases of the 1970s …

Exposing Sex Stereotypes In Recent Same-Sex Marriage Jurisprudence, Deborah A. Widiss, Elizabeth Rosenblatt, Douglas Nejaime

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article examines sex discrimination arguments in recent same-sex marriage cases. Since 1993, when the Hawaii Supreme Court held in Baehr v. Lewin that denying same-sex couples the right to marry could state a claim of sex discrimination, every state high court to consider the issue has rejected the claim. But many recent decisions have in fact relied upon sex-based stereotypes to justify marriage restrictions. These include claims that men and women, simply by virtue of their gender, provide distinct role models for children; that men and women play "opposite" or "complementary" roles within marriage; and that marriage is essential …