Law Commons^™

Stories Of Rights: Developing Moral Theory And Teaching Law, Patricia A. Cain, Jean C. Love

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Rights, Restitution, & Risk: Essays in Moral Theory by Judith Jarvis Thomson, edited by William Parent

Pornography Is A Civil Rights Issue For Women, Andrea Dworkin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

My name is Andrea Dworkin. I am a citizen of the United States, and in this country where I live, every year millions and millions of pictures are being made of women with our legs spread. We are called beaver, we are called pussy, our genitals are tied up, they are pasted, makeup is put on them to make them pop out of a page at a male viewer. Millions and millions of pictures are made of us in postures of submission and sexual access so that our vaginas are exposed for penetration, our anuses are exposed for penetration, our …

Methodological Issues In The Content Analysis Of Pornography, Daniel Linz, Edward Donnerstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

No scientifically sound analysis of the content of pornography in the United States as a whole currently exists. Dietz and Sears's article takes us a small step closer to quantifying the contents of pornography. Some of the methods employed in the present study, however, prohibit us from making solid generalizations from the findings reported here to the nationwide pornographic marketplace. Our critique of the article will concentrate first on the methods employed in the study and then on the findings obtained through these methods and the authors' interpretation of these findings.

Brief Amici Curiae Of Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, Et Al., In American Booksellers Association V. Hudnut, Nan D. Hunter, Sylvia A. Law

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The document that follows represents both a legal brief and a political statement. It was written for two purposes: to mobilize, in a highly visible way, a broad spectrum of feminist opposition to the enactment of laws expanding state suppression of sexually explicit material; and to place before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit a cogent legal argument for the constitutional invalidity of an Indianapolis municipal ordinance that would have permitted private civil suits to ban such material, purportedly to protect women. Drafting this brief was one of the most demanding and exhilarating assignments either author has yet …

Introduction, Lillian R. Bevier

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Articles in this Symposium vividly demonstrate that the reason that the pornography debate is no longer at the forefront of national consciousness is surely not that the phenomenon itself has disappeared. Nor is it that we have achieved anything approaching consensus, for we cannot seem to agree even about what pornography is, much less about its harms or benefits. Nor is it even that we have suddenly discovered and begun to deploy, from tools long available in our legal arsenal, enforcement strategies promising cures less harmful than the disease. Quite the . contrary. As the editors of this journal …

Hard-Core Pornography: A Proposal For A Per Se Rule, Bruce A. Taylor

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Article discusses the history and pervasiveness of the pornography problem. Part II explains the current legal test for obscenity, as evolved from Miller v. California, with an emphasis on terms commonly used in the definition of obscenity. Part III examines the problems in applying Miller that suggest that the application of a per se hard-core pornography rule may be appropriate. Finally, Part IV presents a proposal for a per se hard-core pornography rule, similar to child pornography laws existing in many jurisdictions and upheld by the Supreme Court in New York v. Ferber. This Article concludes …

The Right To Speak, The Right To Hear, And The Right Not To Hear: The Technological Resolution To The Cable/Pornography Debate, Michael I. Meyerson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article concludes that the power of government to regulate cable pornography is limited to that which is legally obscene. Part I reviews Supreme Court cases delineating the relationship between the rights of privacy in the home and of freedom of speech. Part II demonstrates that the technology of cable television provides the solution to the pornography dilemma. Cable television preserves both privacy and speech interests because individual subscribers can be given the physical means to block out programming they find personally offensive without affecting the ability of others to receive that programming. Where such accommodation of interests is permissible, …

Pornography And Obscenity Sold In "Adult Bookstores": A Survey Of 5132 Books, Magazines, And Films In Four American Cities, Park Elliott Dietz, Alan E. Sears

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

During the eighteen months that the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (the Commission) conducted public hearings, public discussion, and staff research, one of the most common types of inquiry directed to the staff consisted of questions as to the content of pornography currently available in the United States. Critics of the Commission's work asserted that the pornography used as exhibits by witnesses at the public hearings was extreme, not commonly available, or unrepresentative of that sold in pornography retail outlets; The only pertinent, quantitative data available to the Commission appeared in a single report in the American Journal of Psychiatry …

Prurient Interest And Human Dignity: Pornography Regulation In West Germany And The United States, Mathias Reimann

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the regulation of pornography in West Germany and compares it to regulation in the United States. Part I provides an overview of the legal framework- constitutional and statutory-of pornography regulation in West Germany. Part II then traces the evolution of the concept of human dignity as a standard for defining pornography in West Germany, and Part III illustrates the practical impact of the idea in two widely debated recent cases. Part IV argues that West Germany's human dignity approach to pornography regulation raises important questions about how to view pornography, but that cultural and constitutional differences between …

Law And Sex, Christina B. Whitman

Reviews

In Feminism Unmodified, a collection of speeches given between 1981 and 1986, Catharine MacKinnon talks of law from the perspective of feminism. MacKinnon does not approach her topic as a lawyer with a uniquely legal perspective on feminism; she brings, instead, a distinctively feminist approach to law. Nor is the feminism from which she speaks grounded in the standard political theories: MacKinnon disclaims and attacks the Marxist approach to feminism, the socialist approach to feminism, and, most emphatically and repeatedly, the liberal approach to feminism that has been embraced by many lawyers in their effort to use law to eliminate …

Beating Up On Women And Old Men And Other Enormities: A Social Historical Inquiry Into Literary Sources, William I. Miller

Articles

The Icelandic sagas, besides being one of the most impressive literatures existing in any language, preserve detailed accounts of feud and legal action, and describe with intelligence and care the general techniques and strategies of dispute processing. They also contain, incidental to the narrative, information about values and law, marriage and death, householding arrangements and the systems of exchange, naming patterns, and so on, for those who care to coax such information from the texts.

The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

For the moment, the affirmative action wars are over. In a ten-year set of decisions, culminating in five during the last two terms, the Court has now legitimated almost all types of race and gender preferences, even if they benefit nonvictims, including voluntarily adopted preferences in hiring, promotion, university admissions, and government contracting; hiring and promotion preferences in consent decrees; and court-ordered hiring and promotions. It has approved preferences by both public and private bodies, and for both racial-ethnic minorities and women. It has barred only layoffs of white (and presumably male) employees who have more seniority than employees hired …

Where They Are Now: The Story Of The Women Of Harvard Law 1974, Lissa M. Cinat

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Where They Are Now: The Story of the Women of Harvard Law 1974 by Jill Abramson and Barbara Franklin

The Ultimate Violation, Todd Maybrown

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Ultimate Violation by Judith Rowland

Women And The Law Of Property In Early America, David H. Bromfield

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Women and the Law of Property in Early America by Marylynn Salmon

Pay Equity--The Minnesota Experience, Nina Rothchild

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The concept of comparable worth is simple: jobs should be paid according to their value, whether the jobs are performed by men or by women. It says that pay should be based on the level of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions required to do the job. It is hard to believe that such a common sense idea could generate such an emotional reaction.

In this essay I will describe Minnesota's experience with pay equity at the state and local levels. Our experience leads us to believe that the arguments of the opposition are pure conjecture and that the scare …

Comparable Worth -- The Theory, Its Legal Foundation, And The Feasibility Of Implementation, Carin Ann Clauss

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

County of Washington v. Gunther was decided by the Supreme Court over five years ago. In that case, the Court, resolving a conflict among the circuits, ruled that sex-based wage discrimination claims could proceed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 without regard to the limiting "equal work" standard of the Equal Pay Act. Following this decision, it was generally assumed that the courts would become the major forum for redressing sex-based wage discrimination. The anticipated litigation explosion never took place. Few wage discrimination suits have been filed, and even fewer have been successful. What progress has …