Law Commons^™

Organizing And Representing Clerical Workers: The Harvard Model, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] The private sector clerical work force is largely nonunion, simultaneously offering the labor movement a major source of potential membership growth and an extremely difficult challenge. Based on December 1990 data, there are eighteen million workers employed in office clerical, administrative support, and related occupations. Eighty percent of these employees are women, accounting for 30 percent of all women in the labor force. Among private sector office workers, 57 percent work in the low-union-density industry groups of services (only 5.7 percent union) and finance, insurance, and real estate (only 2.5 percent union). With barely over ten million total private …

A Name Of One's Own: Gender And Symbolic Legal Personhood In The European Court Of Human Rights, Yofi Tirosh

Yofi Tirosh

Legal regulation of surnames provides a fascinating venue for examining how women negotiate their interests of autonomy and of stable personhood vis a vis a patriarchal naming structure. This is a study of 25 years of adjudication of surnames and personal status at the European Court of Human Rights. It explores the intricate ways in which legal norms governing surnames (and their judicial interpretation) sustain, shape, and reify social institutions such as gender, family, and citizenship.

As a pan European court, the adjudication of the ECHR operates within the framework of human rights. The universal characteristics of human rights principles …

Race, Sex And Genes At Work: Uncovering The Lessons Of Norman-Bloodsaw, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”) is the first federal, uniform protection against the use of genetic information in both the workplace and health insurance. Signed into law on May 21, 2008, GINA prohibits an employer or health insurer from acquiring or using an individual’s genetic information, with some exceptions. One of the goals of GINA is to eradicate actual, or perceived, discrimination based on genetic information in the workplace and in health insurance. Although the threat of genetic discrimination is often discussed in universal terms - as something that could happen to any of us - the …

In Search Of The Reasonable Woman: Anti-Discrimination Rhetoric In The United States, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Scholarly Works

This article emerged from my participation in a Symposium addressing global perspectives on the topic, "Anti-Discrimination Discourse and Practices," sponsored by The Jean Monnet Chair of European Law at Cagliari University, Sardinia. The article examines the rhetorical development of the "reasonable woman" standard of hostile work environment sexual harassment under Title VII. I argue that the rhetorical framing of the standard has unnecessarily limited its impact, perhaps to the point of undermining its potential to radically revise our understanding of gender discrimination. I suggest how the rhetorical power of the standard might be recovered.

Ricci V. Destefano: A Masculinities Theory Analysis, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

This Article applies masculinity theory to explore the aspects Ricci v. Destefano and its political reverberations. Empirical evidence showed that virtually all written tests have a disparate impact on minorities, that a neighboring city had reached less discriminatory results using a different weighting system, and that other fire departments used assessment centers to judge firefighters' qualifications for promotions. While the black male and all female firefighters were made invisible by the case and the testimony, the fact that Ricci's and Vargas' testimony lionized a particularly traditional form of heterosexual masculinity was also invisible. While the command presence required of a …

The Gender Pay Gap In Europe From A Legal Perspective, Ann Numhauser-Henning

Ann Numhauser-Henning

No abstract provided.