Law Commons^™

Sffa V. Harvard College: Closing The Doors Of Equality In Education, Ediberto Roman

Seattle University Law Review

The United States Supreme Court’s recent combined decision ending affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina was hailed in conservative circles as the beginning of “the long road” towards racial equality. Others declared that “the opinion may begin the restoration of our nation’s constitutional colorblind legal covenant.” Another writer pronounced, “Affirmative action perpetuated racial discrimination. Its end is a huge step forward.” A Washington-based opinion page even declared: “[T]he demise of race-based affirmative action should inspire renewed commitment to the ideal of equal opportunity in America.” Despite …

The Sffa V. Harvard Trojan Horse Admissions Lawsuit, Kimberly West-Faulcon

Seattle University Law Review

Affirmative-action-hostile admissions lawsuits are modern Trojan horses. The SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case—Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, et. al., decided jointly—is the most effective Trojan horse admissions lawsuit to date. Constructed to have the distractingly appealing exterior façade of a lawsuit seeking greater fairness in college admissions, the SFFA v. Harvard/UNC case is best understood as a deception-driven battle tactic used by forces waging a multi-decade war against the major legislative victories of America’s Civil Rights Movement, specifically Title VI and Title VII …

Steps Toward Equality, Gayatri Buchta

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Giving The Equal Rights Amendment Teeth: A Proposal For Gender Equality Legislation Modeled After The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, Samantha Gagnon

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Contrary to the belief of eighty percent of Americans, the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. The effect of this lack of protection can be seen in every corner of our society, including economic inequalities and a lack of representation in leadership. For almost one hundred years, women’s organizations and activists have attempted to rectify this by advocating for the inclusion of an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the Constitution. In the past few years, there has been a revived push for the ERA due to the amendment’s first congressional hearing in thirty-six years, …

Marriage Or License To Rape? A Socio-Legal Analysis Of Marital Rape In India, Vidhik Kumar

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Rape exposes the failure of society’s institutions which were established to provide better security to an individual in a society. These institutions sometimes not only failed to protect an individual from such grave assaults on their autonomy and privacy, but also sanctioned them by either providing them legitimacy by law or not illegitimating them. States often have either provided legal sanctity to rapes within marriage or have refrained from declaring it a crime, on account of it being a private sphere not open to interference. Rape within marriage or marital rape is a global problem, and it is argued that …

Challenges In Bringing Gender Equity Into The Workplace: Addressing Common Concerns Women Have When Deciding To Hold Employers Accountable For Gender Discrimination, Siobhan Klassen

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Gender Equity From A Marxist And Existentialist Perspective, Alexandria Lopez

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Promoting Gender Equity And Foreign Policy Goals Through Ratifying The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Raj Telwala

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Maybe Law Schools Do Not Oppress Minority Faculty Women: A Critique Of Meera E. Deo’S “Unequal Profession: Race And Gender In Legal Academia” (Stanford University Press 2019), Dan Subotnik

Touro Law Review

This essay tests Professor Meera Deo’s unsettling assertion that “implicit bias” in law schools is holding minority female and, to a lesser extent minority male, faculty back. It then presents her second, and more provocative claim, that minority faculty can generally offer better training in “solving complex problems.”

Regarding the former claim, Deo explains that minority women are not hired according to fair standards, not welcomed when they are hired, and not fairly evaluated for promotion. In addition, she argues that minority women professors are abused by their students. Because Deo barely tries to substantiate the second claim, it is …

Good Initiative, Bad Judgement: The Unintended Consequences Of Title Ix's Proportionality Standard On Ncaa Men's Gymnastics And The Transgender Athlete, Jeffrey Shearer

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

Title IX fails to provide the tools or guidelines necessary to equalize opportunities for all student athletes in the collegiate setting despite the government’s continuous effort to explain the law. This failure is because judicial precedent has largely developed around the binary proportionality test of compliance. Title IX was originally intended to equalize educational opportunities for male and female students in order to remedy past discrimination in our society. However, the application of Title IX has frequently created fewer opportunities in athletics due to the unintended relationship between the proportionality standard and the social phenomenon that is the commercialization of …

The Ground On Which We All Stand: A Conversation About Menstrual Equity Law And Activism, Bridget J. Crawford, Margaret E. Johnson, Marcy L. Karin, Laura Strausfeld, Emily Gold Waldman

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This essay grows out of a panel discussion among five lawyers on the subject of menstrual equity activism. Each of the authors is a scholar, activist, or organizer involved in some form of menstrual equity work. The overall project is both enriched and complicated by an intersectional analysis.

This essay increases awareness of existing menstrual equity and menstrual justice work; it also identifies avenues for further inquiry, next steps for legal action, and opportunities that lie ahead. After describing prior and current work at the junction of law and menstruation, the contributors evaluate the successes and limitations of recent legal …

Esports And Its Reinforcement Of Gender Divides, Kruthika N. S.

Marquette Sports Law Review

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Getting To Equal: Resolving The Judicial Impasse On The Weight Of Non-Monetary Contribution In Kenya's Marital Asset Division, Benedeta Prudence Mutiso

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Marital property law reforms and changing international human rights standards in the late 20th and early 21st century prompted Kenya to end certain discriminatory practices against women, especially in the area of property rights. For 50 years, Kenya relied on England’s century-old law, the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, to regulate property rights. In 2010, Kenya adopted a new Constitution that called for equality between men and women, and in 2013, Kenya enacted independent legislation in the form of the Matrimonial Property Act (MPA). The MPA provides a basis for trial courts to divide marital property upon divorce. Specifically, …

The Parent Trap: Equality, Sex, And Partnership In The Modern Law Firm, Miranda Mcgowan

Marquette Law Review

The fight for women’s equality in law has achieved a lot. Women have

made up nearly half of law students and law firm associates for the last two

decades. Despite this progress, the partnership ranks of law firms are

profoundly and intolerably sex segregated and will remain so for the

foreseeable future. Our profession, which has fought for and helped to achieve

legal equality on behalf of so many, is itself dogged by intractable inequality.

A standard set of solutions, which address structural barriers within law firms

and the effects of cognitive biases, have been urged for decades and yet …

Now We Know Better: A New Legal Framework On Sex To Better Promote Autonomy, Equality, Diversity And Care For The Poor, Helen M. Alvaré

Buffalo Law Review

Over especially the last 50 to 60 years, US laws and policies concerning the sexual relationships between men and women have more consciously articulated a need to pursue social justice according to the categories of autonomy, equality, diversity and care for the poor. These categories are admirable on their face and responsive to the times in which they emerged. They are particularly well-suited to the history of discrimination against women and African Americans in the US. They were strongly influenced, inter alia, by the development of contraceptive technology and an array of social welfare initiatives, the rise of feminism and …

Power In The Age Of In/Equality: Economic Abuse, Masculinities, And The Long Road To Marriage Equality, Arianne Renan Barzilay

Akron Law Review

In an era when women have achieved formal legal equality, patriarchal power endures. In this article I take on a largely neglected subject: economic abuse. While this phenomenon has recently begun to generate awareness as a form of intimate partner violence, it currently lacks a theory and history with which to deeply understand it. A failure to recognize the profound roots enabling economic abuse contributes to its perpetuation, trivialization, and marginalization in legal thought. Such a failure has broad implications for gender equality. This Article offers both a history and a theory with which to understand the phenomenon’s deep roots. …

Rectifying The Tilt: Equality Lessons From Religion, Disability, Sexual Orientation, And Transgender, Chai R. Feldblum

Maine Law Review

The joy and the challenge of being located in an academic setting is that I am also able to engage in forays (albeit intermittent forays) into scholarly analysis. Delivering this lecture, and publishing this piece, provides an excellent opportunity for me to engage in such a foray. This piece, then, is a scholarly reflection on my advocacy experiences. My goal is to use my experiences in advocacy as fertile soil from which to create, I hope, a lovely flower of theory and conceptual thought. Before setting out on this endeavor, however, I would like to offer two postulates. There are …

Lessons From The Fields: Female Farmworkers And The Law, Maria L. Ontiveros

Maine Law Review

In both the fields of labor law and gender studies, we learn the most from experience. The experience of workers coming together to demand equality and respect and the experience of women coming together to share their experiences has led to most of what we study in these fields. Unfortunately, too many times traditional legal doctrine does not fit these experiences. In those cases, we must struggle to change the law to be responsive to the lived experiences of women and workers. This Article explores the lived experiences of one particular group of workers—immigrant farmworking women in California. From their …

On Being A Second: Grace Wambolt, Legal Professionalism And 'Inter-Wave' Feminism In Nova Scotia, Elizabeth Legge

Dalhousie Law Journal

Grace Wambolt was the fifth female graduate of Dalhousie Law School and the second woman to practise law in Nova Scotia. She was one of the relatively few female lawyers in Canada (up to the influx of the nineteen-seventies) who practiced law following the push by the first female lawyers for the elimination of formal barriers to practice. This paper examines the similarities and differences between the "firsts" and those who followed them, primarily by looking at the life of Wambolt and her letters and speeches preserved in the Wambolt fonds located in the Nova Scotia Archives and donated by …

You Can't Remain Neutral On A Moving Train – Marriage Equality In The States & Ireland: Thoughts On Freedom To Marry, Religious Heteronormativity, And Conceptions Of Equality, Kris Mcdaniel-Miccio

DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law

This title, in part, was one of the famous phrases uttered by the brilliant historian Howard Zinn, a wonderful image that applies to advocating social justice. In the United States, the train referenced by Zinn was the Freedom Train, whether it be toward gender, racial or ethnic parity. Now it is the Freedom to Marry Train and it has not only left the station, it is moving at break- neck speed and almost unstoppable. This Train built with the blood, sweat and tears of the LGBTI community, forged by fire and situated on a justified track. There is no difference …

The Constitution And Societal Norms: A Modern Case For Female Breast Equality, Brenna Helppie-Schmieder

DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law

“The Constitution and Societal Norms: A Modern Case for Female Breast Equality” argues that laws prohibiting the public display of the female breast, but not the male breast, are unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. That these laws discriminate against women is obvious, yet courts have historically refused to recognize an Equal Protection Clause violation. However, the primary reasons courts rely upon are ripe for review. Most significantly, courts typically justify female breast censorship laws based on the government interest in protecting public sensibilities, without recognizing that public sensibilities change. Indeed, perceptions of the public female breast have …

Professional Women Silenced By Men-Made Norms, Maritza I. Reyes

Akron Law Review

This Article proceeds in eight Parts. Part I narrates my path to “academic feminism” and the legal academy. In the tradition of feminist scholars before me, I set forth the personal to provide the background for the socio-legal-political views that inform this Article...Part II explains the need for broader perspectives and approaches to legal scholarship. It is important for the legal academy to recognize that, just like the legal market is calling for changes, we have to stop silencing the development of scholarship andperspectives that can bring forth the change we need. The academy has already benefited from the work …

An Introduction To The Women In Law Symposium, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Review

This collected symposium gives context and definition to these continuing problems of sex discrimination. The included articles pull back the curtain to provide examples of how and why sex discrimination still exists. The articles go deeper, fleshing out persistent notions of gender as subordinate, exploring the public perception of gender in appearance of femininity and masculinity. They illustrate the tangible legal results of these gendered notions to legal issues as varied as forced sterilization of the mentally disabled, equal employment, or the criminalization of prostitution.

Do Law Schools Mistreat Women Faculty? Or, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Dan Subotnik

Akron Law Review

How much fire, if any, is there to charges, first leveled more than fifteen years ago and continuing today, that a harsh law school culture oppresses women faculty? As Martha Chamallas, a well-known feminist law critic, writes,—and perhaps professes in class as well—“[f]or both new and senior women law professors, gender bias is still a major fact of life.”... After evaluating the complaints against law schools, which I spell out below—and renouncing any presumption in my favor—I conclude, unindignantly, that the charges are almost entirely unproven...The principal charges leveled against the male establishment in terms of hiring, retention and promotion …

Baker V. Nelson: Flotsam In The Tidal Wave Of Windsor's Wake, David B. Cruz

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

Part I of this Article sketches the virtually unbroken string of pro-marriage decisions in the lower federal and state courts since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in United States v. Windsor to give a sense of the size and magnitude of this “tidal wave” of precedent. Next, Part II briefly explores some of the reasons that might help account for the flood of litigation and overwhelmingly positive outcomes. Part III tentatively suggests one way this flow of decisions in favor of marriage equality might influence the Supreme Court as it returns to the issue. Part II then at some …

Examining Pay Differentials In The Legal Field, Barbara Donn, Christine Cahill, Meghan H. Mihal

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

This study investigates pay discrimination towards women in the legal field. Recent research has shown that a pay gap does exist in the legal field, and we show that this gap widens throughout the lawyers’ early careers. For our analysis, we focus on the pay differentials between associate level men and women at large private law firms in the United States. The data used in this study is provided by the American Bar Association and is a nationally representative data set following lawyers who began their legal career in 2000. We show that women earn less than their male counterparts …

Eliminating Financiers From The Equation: A Call For Court-Mandated Fee Shifting In Divorces, Bibeane Metsch-Garcia

Michigan Law Review

Divorce can be prohibitively costly. Many struggle or simply cannot afford to pay divorce attorneys’ fees, and the economic effects of divorce on women are particularly acute. In the past few years, financing firms have emerged to fund nonmonied spouses, mostly women, who cannot afford to litigate divorces from their wealthy spouses. The services provided come with a hefty price tag: firms take large fees, and their involvement may lead to unethical and potentially damaging practices. This Note explains what third-party divorce finance firms are and why the use of firms is problematic, and offers an alternative, more equitable method …

Critical Race Science And Critical Race Philosophy Of Science, Paul Gowder

Fordham Law Review

Over several decades, feminist philosophy of science has revealed the ways in which much of science has proceeded from “mainstream” assumptions that privilege men and other hierarchically superordinate groups and existing socially constructed conceptions of gender. In doing so, it has produced a research program that, while rooted in the post- Kuhnian philosophy and sociology of science that has been taken up by many students of scientific method more generally, has been used to critique great swathes of modern science and to reveal both the biases of the mainstream, and the transformative potential of a science that proceeds from the …

Foreword: Diversity In The Legal Profession: A Comparative Perspective, Deborah L. Rhode

Fordham Law Review

In principle, the legal profession in the United States and United Kingdom is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion. In practice, it lags behind. This colloquium explores what stands in the way. Leading scholars from both countries look at the gap between aspirations and achievement, and suggest some concrete strategies for change.

Busy Doing Nothing: An Exploration Of The Disconnect Between Gender Equity Issues Faced By Large Law Firms In The United Kingdom And The Diversity Management Initiatives Devised To Address Them, Savita Kumra

Fordham Law Review

The Article has three parts: the first reviews the data showing women’s increased participation in the legal sector and assesses why increased participation has not led to inclusion at senior levels. The main barriers are macro and micro processes of social reproduction, poor access to mentors and influential business networks, and gender bias in society at large.

In the second part, the response by large law firms is assessed. This has largely consisted of “business case” approaches to diversity management. The key characteristics of these approaches are presented, as is an overview of key practices adopted by large law firms. …