Law Commons^™

Integrated Nonmarital Property Rights, E. Gary Spitko

SMU Law Review

Nonmarital cohabitation has become a mainstream family structure in the United States. Yet despite the increasing prevalence of nonmarital cohabitants, American family property law generally fails to support nonmarital couples. This inequality under the law disproportionately disadvantages persons of color, those with relatively less education, and couples with relatively fewer economic resources. This Article considers the post-Obergefell need for law reform to better support nonmarital families, examines the principles that should ground nonmarital property rights reform, and proposes a novel approach to nonmarital property rights that integrates the law of dissolution with the law of succession, unifies the law …

Biology And Illegitimacy, Douglas Nejaime

SMU Law Review

This symposium Essay examines how biological parenthood, which in the twentieth century served as a mechanism by which to repudiate “illegitimacy” and to protect nonmarital parent–child relationships, today serves to justify new forms of illegitimacy and to separate unmarried parents from their children.

In the second half of the twentieth century, courts and legislatures renounced the discriminatory regime of illegitimacy, in which the children of unmarried parents enjoyed few rights to support or inheritance. They did so by raising the legal status of biological parenthood—extending rights to unmarried biological fathers and their children. Today, though, the vindication of biological ties …

Thoroughly Modern Motherhood, Joanna Grossman

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Curious Parental Right, Margaret Ryznar

SMU Law Review

The United States Supreme Court has not articulated the appropriate level of scrutiny for judicial review of interferences with the parents’ care, custody, and control of their children, despite determining it to be constitutionally fundamental. While some observers have called for the selection of a level of scrutiny to prevent inconsistencies among the lower courts, the complexity of the parental right has made it difficult for courts to use one level of scrutiny in such cases. To accommodate this complexity, this Article begins to build a new framework for conceptualizing the parental right in a way that explains and justifies …

The Changing Tides Of Adoption: Why Marriage, Race, And Family Identity Still Matter, Jessica Dixon Weaver

SMU Law Review

This essay expounds on the shifting motivation for adoption in the United States using a critical race feminist theory lens to explore how adoption remains wedded to marriage, the control of wealth, and family identity. These three elements have been historically and legally tied to race in that the law was intentionally written to exclude certain persons of color from being able to access marriage or wealth, thereby diminishing their ability to establish family identity.

This essay proceeds in three parts. Part II sets forth an overview of the evolution of adoption by exploring the breakdown of formal adoption and …

Shades Of Theology In Suits Affecting The Parent-Child Relationship: A Tribute Honoring The Memory Of Professor Joseph W. Mcknight, Dr. Beverly Caro Dureus

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Family Law: Husband And Wife, Joseph W. Mcknight, Shanin Turner Brevig

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.