Law Commons^™

Through The Looking Glass With Alice: The Current Application And Future Of Title Ix In Athletics, Josephine (Jo) R. Potuto

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article is a snapshot of the past pervasive discriminatory treatment of women in athletics and where women athletes and women’s athletics currently stand. It discusses some of the new challenges for Title IX enforcement—-female transgender athletes and treatment of name, image, and likeness revenues now open to college athletes. It reviews research regarding the physiological, hormonal, metabolic, body size and composition, and brain and neurological differences between men and women and how these factors impact both athletic performance and athletic interest. Finally, this Article concludes that the Title IX three-pronged test to assure gender equity in athletic participation opportunities …

Let's Talk About Gender: Nonbinary Title Vii Plaintiffs Post-Bostock, Meredith R. Severtson

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court held that Title VII’s sex-discrimination prohibition applies to discrimination against gay and transgender employees. This decision, surprising from a conservative Court, has engendered a huge amount of commentary on both its substantive holding and its interpretive method. This Note addresses a single question arising from this discourse: After Bostock, how will courts address allegations of sex discrimination by plaintiffs whose gender identities exist outside of traditional sex and gender binaries? As this Note explores, some have argued that Bostock’s textualist logic precludes sex-discrimination claims by nonbinary plaintiffs. While such arguments fail to …

The Price Is (Not) Right: Mandatory Arbitration Of Claims Arising Out Of Sexual Violence Should Not Be The Price Of Earning A Living, Nicolette Sullivan

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

As demonstrated by the #MeToo movement, current attempts to curtail systemic sexual violence in the workplace have fallen flat: approximately sixty million US workers are subject to mandatory arbitration clauses, which employers tend to bury deep within the fine print of employment contracts. These clauses, often coupled with confidentiality agreements, have provided offenders--and their employers--with a mechanism to escape liability and public scrutiny. Under the existing judicial framework, whether a court will allow victims of workplace sexual violence to escape binding arbitration remains unclear. Congress attempted to address this uncertainty by proposing the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act …

For What It's Worth: The Role Of Race- And Gender-Based Data In Civil Damages Awards, Loren D. Goodman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Following months of behavioral problems, hyperactivity, and intermittent complaints of headache and nausea, five-year-old Kelsey Craig's mother finally takes her to the pediatrician to determine the root of the problem. After multiple consultations, a blood test shows a surprising culprit: there is a dangerously high amount of lead present in Kelsey's blood, suggesting prolonged exposure to the irreversibly toxic substance. Upon returning to their older, prewar apartment building, Kelsey's mother passes a neighboring family in the hallway and woefully relays the tale of her diagnosis. The neighbors' eyes grow wide as they realize their own five-year-old son has been experiencing …

Green Jackets In Men's Sizes Only: Gender Discrimination At Private Country Clubs, Thaddeus M. Lenkiewicz

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On November 3, 2009, the Supreme Court of Ireland held that the Portmarnock Golf Club could maintain its rule prohibiting female membership free from the sanctions of Ireland's antidiscrimination laws. Portmarnock is representative of the numerous private golf clubs that continue to promote discrimination against women. Despite significant advances in gender equality, private country clubs in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland remain bastions of codified gender discrimination. Many of the most prominent golf clubs hold firmly to discriminatory policies established generations ago. Opposition to these policies has come in various forms of protest and litigation, with mixed …

Refining The Meaning And Application Of "Dating Relationship" Language In Domestic Violence Statutes, Devon M. Largio

Vanderbilt Law Review

Many young people date in high school, and Lisa Santoro was no exception.' Her father Tom tells her story:

In January, 1994, Lisa started to date a guy [named "Dan"].... In the five months Lisa dated this guy, I never really understood why she was attracted to him.... Around June, when Lisa started to work at the swimming pool, she met another guy who was in charge of the pool .... Shortly after, Lisa [broke] up with Dan. Dan tried to get Lisa to go back to him, but Lisa had her mind made up.... On July 27th, Dan called …

Banned And Enforced: The Immediate Answer To A Problem Without An Immediate Solution, Alison W. Manhoff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

India has banned the use of ultrasound technology to determine the sex of a fetus for more than a decade. Despite this ban, India's 2001 census showed that for every one thousand boys under the age of six there are only 927 girls. There is speculation that this striking gender imbalance is largely the result of the abortion of fetuses discovered to be female after a sex determination ultrasound or amniocentesis procedure. Traditionally, the desire not to have a female child is viewed as a consequence of the dowry system that is prevalent in India. Commentators often propose efforts to …

United States V. Virginia's New Gender Equal Protection Analysis With Ramifications For Pregnancy, Parenting, And Title Vii, Candace S. Kovacic-Fleischer

Vanderbilt Law Review

In this Article, Professor Kovacic-liTeischer argues that the Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Virginia raises gender equal protection analysis to the level of strict scrutiny. Professor Kovacic-Fleischer asserts that the Court's refusal to accept as immutable VMI's single-sex institutional design, and the Court's requirement that VMT make adjustments and alterations that will enable qualified women to undertake VM's curriculum evidences this shift in gender equal protection analysis. Professor Kovacic-Fleischer then turns to the significance of the Court's citation to California Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Guerra. She asserts that this citation indicates that the Court effectively …

Employer Sexual Harassment Liability Under Agency Principles:A Second Look At Meritor Savingsbank, Fsb V. Vinson, Michael J. Phillips

Vanderbilt Law Review

With its 1986 decision in Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson,the United States Supreme Court put its imprimatur on the Title VII sexual harassment cause of action that had emerged over the preceding decade. Early commentary on the case tended to emphasize this aspect of the Court's decision or to speculate about Meritor's impact on the future course of Title VII sexual harassment litigation. Getting relatively short shrift in this early commentary, however, was the Court's command that "agency principles" --the common law of agency-- be consulted to determine an employer's liability for harassment committed by its employees.' As subsequent …

Economics, Feminism, And The Reinvention Of Alimony: A Reply To Ira Ellman, June Carbone

Vanderbilt Law Review

Divorce reform and gender roles are inextricably linked. When Lenore Weitzman chronicled the devastating consequences of divorce for most women, she described a legal system that, in an effort to be gender neutral in a formal sense, made no allowance for the domestic role women continue to perform. Herma Hill Kay, in reviewing Weitzman-inspired proposals to expand the scope of the financial awards made at divorce, nonetheless warned against encouraging "future couples entering marriage to make choices that will be economically disabling for women, thereby perpetuating their traditional financial dependence upon men and contributing to their inequality with men at …

Gender Discrimination And The Transformation Of Workplace Norms, Kathryn Abrams

Vanderbilt Law Review

Lately when I talk about gender, I am often confronted with the message that women's equality has already been achieved. A colleague may provide this insight, or a complete stranger waiting in a grocery line. But the thought was most succinctly expressed by a student who grew impatient with my activism. "I don't understand," she declared."Women have gotten just about everything they wanted. Don't they see that the time for militancy is over?" Perhaps this response should come as no surprise. The battle for the Equal Rights Amendment has been lost, but in salient ways our society seems to have …

Preferential Economic Treatment For Women: Some Constitutional And Practical Implications Of Kahn V. Shevin, Margaret E. Clark

Vanderbilt Law Review

The apparent willingness on the part of three members of the Supreme Court to sustain legislation granting economic benefits to a selected subgroup of women, while failing to deal with the similar racially suspect classification issue in Defunis, is simultaneously puzzling and disturbing. The key to the result reached in Kahn may be the size of the benefit involved, or the fact that a state tax statute was involved;"' yet the underlying principles in the two cases are logically indistinguishable and the differing approaches taken by certain members of the Court in the two cases are difficult to reconcile...

Thus, …