Law Commons^™

A Proposal To Improve The Workplace Law Curriculum From A Corporate Compliance Perspective, Nicole B. Porter

Faculty Publications

The goal of this Article is to explore and propose a course [in labor and employment law] that I believe will be very valuable for law students. The goal of the course will be two-fold. The first goal will be to integrate the three areas of workplace law [Employment Discrimination, Labor Law, and Employment Law] into one course, exploring the ways that these areas of the law intersect and interact with one another. The second goal will be to teach non-litigation practical skills that will benefit students when eventually called upon to advise employers on the compliance of our workplace …

The Blame Game: How The Rhetoric Of Choice Blames The Achievement Gap On Women, Nicole B. Porter

Faculty Publications

In 2013, fifty years after the Equal Pay Act guaranteed women equal pay for equal work, almost fifty years since Title VII made discrimination based on sex unlawful, thirty-five years since the Pregnancy Discrimination Act made it unlawful to discriminate against women because of pregnancy, and nineteen years after the Family and Medical Leave Act provided twelve weeks of unpaid leave for some caregiving reasons, there is still a significant achievement gap between men and women in the workplace. Women still make less money, and rise more slowly and not as high in workplace hierarchies. Why? The common narrative states …

Decoding Civility, Kerri Lynn Stone

Faculty Publications

If women outnumber men in graduate schools and are entering professional and other workplaces in unprecedented numbers, and if Title VII has aimed to eradicate workplace discrimination for almost fifty years, why are women still so woefully underrepresented at the highest levels of power, leadership, wealth, and prestige in the contemporary workplace? This Article is about abusive speech in the workplace. It explores how the expression of bias in the workplace has evolved and been shaped by anti-discrimination legislation and jurisprudence. It identifies a category of biased speech that eludes prosecution under Title VII. Moreover, this Article seeks to provide …

Floor To Ceiling: How Setbacks And Challenges To The Anti-Bullying Movement Pose Challenges To Employers Who Wish To Ban Bullying, Kerri Lynn Stone

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Competition Policy And The Great Depression: Lessons Learned And A New Way Forward, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

The recent Great Recession has shaken the nation’s faith in free markets and inspired various forms of actual or proposed regulatory intervention displacing free competition. Proponents of such intervention often claim that such interference with free-market outcomes will help foster economic recovery and thus macroeconomic stability by, for instance, enhancing the “purchasing power” of workers or reducing consumer prices. Such arguments for increased economic centralization echo those made during the Great Depression, when proponents of regulatory intervention claimed that such interference with economic liberty and free competition, including suspension of the antitrust laws, was necessary to foster economic recovery. Indeed, …

Teaching The Post-Sex Generation, Kerri Lynn Stone

Faculty Publications

There is a trend that I have observed in the course of leading my classes in discussions about the kinds of behavior that may constitute unlawful discrimination: the emergence of an attitude among students that society is simply “post-sex,” or no longer in need of most or all anti-sex discrimination jurisprudence. This Article details my own approach to teaching and to raising and conducting discussions about how anti-discrimination legislation and jurisprudence works in theory, in practice, and how it would/could work in an ideal world. I enjoy teaching students with a diversity of viewpoints. However, when I began to encounter …

Weathering Wal-Mart, Joseph Seiner

Faculty Publications

In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2531 (2011), the Supreme Court held that a proposed class of over a million women that had alleged pay and promotion discrimination against the nation’s largest retailer could not be certified. According to the Court, the plaintiffs had failed to establish a common thread in the case sufficient to tie their claims together. The academic response to Wal-Mart was immediate and harsh: the decision will serve as the death knell for mass employment litigation, undermining the workplace protections provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). …

MartinIzing Title I Of The Americans With Disabilities Act, Nicole B. Porter

Faculty Publications

Prior to the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, relatively few cases proceeded past the initial inquiry of whether the plaintiff was covered by the ADA. Consequently, the scope of an employer's obligation to provide a reasonable accommodation to an individual with a disability remains under-developed and under-theorized. Now that the Amendments have made it easier for plaintiffs to prove that they have a disability under the ADA, we can expect to see more courts struggling with many difficult reasonable accommodation issues. The current case law is chaotic, providing little guidance to employers and courts in determining whether an accommodation is …

Teaching Employment Discrimination Law, Virtually, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The process of education, teaching, and learning has ideally been conceived of as a transformative endeavor. Students learn a new way of thinking and asking questions, rather than memorizing or assimilating material verbatim by rote. As curiosity and inquisitiveness are to be valued, students change their mode of analysis and in so doing, the way that they perceive the world. While this is the typical meaning of “transformative” learning, what if learning were actually transformative? In other words, what if what you were learning or the process of learning turned you into someone else (at least for the course …