Law Commons^™

When Equality Leaves Everyone Worse Off: The Problem Of Leveling Down In Equality Law, Deborah Brake

Articles

This Article addresses the problem of leveling down as a response to discrimination. Existing case law and legal scholarship generally assume that inequality may be remedied in one of two ways: improving the lot of the disfavored group to match that of the most favored group, or worsening the treatment of the favored group until they fare as badly as everyone else. The term "leveling down" refers to the latter response. This Article contends that courts and commentators have overstated the flexibility of equality rights in accepting leveling down as a response to inequality, and proposes a new framework that …

Using An “Incidents Of Marriage” Analysis When Considering Interstate Recognition Of Same-Sex Couples’ Marriages, Civil Unions, And Domestic Partnerships, Barbara Cox

Faculty Scholarship

Despite discussions for over ten years, we still do not have any decisions on interstate or international recognition of marriages by same-sex couples. We do have, however, six cases in the United States on the interstate recognition and validation of Vermont civil unions. In these six cases, same-sex couples from six different states who had entered into Vermont civil unions came to their courts seeking resolution of legal issues that arose in their relationships. The rest of this article now turns to these six decisions and considers how each court dealt with the same-sex couple seeking legal assistance with the …

Welfare Reform And Economic Freedom: Low-Income Mothers' Decisions About Work At Home And In The Market, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Untying The Knot: An Analysis Of The English Divorce And Matrimonial Causes Court Records, 1858-1866, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

Historians of Anglo-American family law consider 1857 as a turning point in the development of modern family law and the first big step in the breakdown of coverture and the recognition of women's legal rights. In 1857, The United Kingdom Parliament ("Parliament") created a new civil court to handle all divorce and matrimonial causes, removing the jurisdiction of: the ecclesiastical courts over marital validity; the Chancery over custody of children and separate estates; the royal courts over marital property; and Parliament over full divorce. The new Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Court, a wing of the admiralty and probate courts, would …

Econometric Analyses Of U.S. Abortion Policy: A Critical Review, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Workplace Mediation: The First-Phase, Private Caucus In Individual Discrimination Disputes, Emily M. Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.

Women Choosing Diverse Workplaces: A Rational Preference With Disturbing Implications For Both Occupational Segregation And Economic Analysis Of Law, Scott A. Moss

Publications

Despite women's dramatic labor market gains, there remains a striking degree of occupational segregation by gender. Analysts typically blame discrimination or women's work/family priorities. This Article offers a different explanation.

It is hard for women choosing jobs or occupations to know where they will face discrimination, particularly since recent judicial decisions eliminated certain employer signals that once differentiated fair and discriminatory firms. One way women can effectuate a preference for nondiscriminatory workplaces is by choosing gender-diverse workplaces. Nondiverse workplaces often are not female-friendly, and discrimination may be the reason they are nondiverse. In economic terms, women rationally use level of …

Dazzling The World: A Study Of India's Constitutional Amendment Mandating Reservations For Women On Rural Panchayats, Eileen Kaufman, Louise Harmon

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Outsider Jurisprudence And The “Unthinkable” Tale: Spousal Abuse And The Doctrine Of Duress, Deborah Waire Post

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Symposium Introduction: Women's Work Is Never Done: Employment, Family, And Activism, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article frames the issues in the Supreme Court case, Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, and introduces the articles making up the inaugural symposium of the Law and Women's Studies Program at the University of Cincinnati. Hibbs involved a husband who was trying to get leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in order to take care of his severely injured wife. The case presents an opportunity to rethink issues of work and family, the legal subordination of women, and the law as an agent for social change, and it was therefore an ideal focus for …

Reform Or Retrenchment: Single Sex Education And The Construction Of Race And Gender, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

As parents, policymakers, and educators search for solutions to the crisis in the nation's public schools, single sex education emerges time and again as a promising strategy, particularly for African American students. This article argues that, in order to comprehend fully the implications of single sex schooling in inner city schools, examining the history of sex-based and race-based segregation in education is essential.

History demonstrates that sex and racial segregation in education has supported gender and hierarchies and the attendant subordination of African Americans and white women. For example, when public education became available for Blacks, its primary purpose was …

Job Security Without Equality: The Family And Medical Leave Act Of 1993, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This piece reevaluates the passage and implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) against the egalitarian ideal described by the Supreme Court in its recent decision in Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs. The Court in Hibbs upheld the FMLA against an Eleventh Amendment challenge, concluding that Congress enacted the law as a congruent and proportional remedy to the longstanding history of state-sponsored discrimination against working women. According to the Court, Congress enacted the FMLA to remedy a longstanding history of discrimination against working women by forcing employers to offer caretaking leave on gender-neutral terms. At least …

Masculinities At Work, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

This article focuses on the study of masculinities, a body of theoretical and empirical work by sociologists, feminist theorists and organization management theorists. This work, much of which employment law scholars have ignored, studies the role of masculinities, which are often invisible, in creating structural barriers to the advancement of many women and some men at work. Masculinities comprise both a structure that reinforces the superiority of men over women and a series of practices, associated with masculine behavior, performed by men or women, that aid men to maintain their superior position over women. In their less visible form, masculinities …

Regulating Teenage Abortion In The United States: Politics And Policy, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Thirty-four US states currently require pregnant minors either to notify their parents or get their consent before having a legal abortion. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of theses statutes provided that minors are also given an alternative mechanism for abortion approval that does not involve parents. The mechanism used is the 'judicial bypass hearing' at which minors persuade judges that they are mature and informed enough to make the abortion decision themselves. While most minors receive judicial approval, the hearings intrude into the most personal aspects of a young woman's life. The hearings, while formally civil in nature, …

Homophobia And The 'Mathew Shepard Effect' In Lawrence V. Texas, Kris Franklin

Articles & Chapters

This paper explores the significance of shifting cultural understandings of gay men and lesbians in the Supreme Court's majority, concurring and dissenting opinions in the landmark sodomy case Lawrence v. Texas. By examining the legal authorities in which the case's various opinions are grounded, the article shows that the differing positions taken by the Court reflect radically diverging views on the significance of homosexuality in contemporary culture.

Beyond the rather easy observation that the Supreme Court justices are speaking different languages in the Lawrence opinion, the article contends that the rhetoric of the majority and dissent converge on at least …

Constitutional Choices: Legal Feminism And The Historical Dynamics Of Change, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Panel Three: Introduction, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

I think some of my colleagues will ask questions about these cases, to ask who is a man or woman, but if the question is legally, what is male or female, and if you think about the questions that you've read, say, in common law out of the Supreme Court – and I'll just talk about discrimination cases, although I think you can talk about other ones, too – think about the sex discrimination cases. The struggle is about, what is discrimination, but the Court in Craig v. Born is talking about different control restrictions for men and women. Or …

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Cases): Gender Stereotypes And Sexual Harassment Since The Passage Of Title Vii, Miriam A. Cherry

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article, which is part of a symposium on the 40th Anniversary of Title VII appearing in the Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal, evaluates the progress of women in the workforce by critically analyzing the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Written in the early 1960s and made into a 1967 movie, How to Succeed follows the adventures of J. Pierrepont Finch, a window washer who, with the aid of a sarcastic self-help book, schemes his way up the corporate ladder. It also includes the sexual exploits of the exclusively male executive corps among the female …

The Gifts Of Mary Dunlap (1949-2003), Wendy Webster Williams

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I guess it never really occurred to me that Mary was mortal. It certainly never crossed my mind that I would somehow be around, alive and kicking, in a world without Mary in it. Mary Cynthia Dunlap, larger than life, a force of nature, who filled up a room with her presence, her tall solid self, her waving arms, her energy, her laugh, her voice, her words and words and more words, her hair that (of course) stood straight up on her head, electrified. Mary who, Saint Frances-like, rescued birds and fed them in her big palms, loved dogs and …

Divorcing Marriage From Procreation – Goodridge V. Department Of Public Health Case, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Public debate about same-sex marriage has spectacularly intensified in the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health. But amid the twisted faces, shouts, and murmurs surrounding that decision, a bit of old-fashioned common-lawmaking has been lost. Some have criticized the Goodridge court for its apparently result-oriented approach to the question of whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the commonwealth may deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Others have defended the decision, both on the court's own rational basis terms and on other grounds, including sex discrimination and substantive due process. This …

The Domesticated Liberty Of Lawrence V. Texas, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

In this Commentary, Professor Franke offers an account of the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas. She concludes that in overruling the earlier Bowers v. Hardwick decision, Justice Kennedy does not rely upon a robust form of freedom made available by the Court's earlier reproductive rights cases, but instead announces a kind of privatized liberty right that affords gay and lesbian couples the right to intimacy in the bedroom. In this sense, the rights-holders in Lawrence are people in relationships and the liberty right those couples enjoy does not extend beyond the domain of the private. Franke expresses …

Are Women More Ethical Lawyers – An Empirical Study, Patricia W. Moore, Kevin M. Simmons

Faculty Articles

We first noticed a possible "gender gap" in attorney discipline when we ran across the Oklahoma Disciplinary Commission's annual report for the year 2000. Women currently constitute 27% of Oklahoma attorneys, but 0% of the disciplined attorneys—none of the seventeen named—were women. Wondering whether the Oklahoma figures were aberrational, we attempted to locate research concerning gender and attorney discipline. But there have been few such studies, although “[p]robably no issue in the social sciences receives more attention than the difference between men and women.”

We thus embarked upon a national study of disciplinary actions decided in 2000. After collecting, coding, …