Law Commons^™

The Civil Rights Movement And The Constitution, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This presentation of March 3, 2012, describes the influence that the Civil Rights Movement has had on the interpretation of the Constitution. The Civil Rights Movement not only broadened our understanding of the principle of equality under Equal Protection, it also expanded opportunities for Freedom of Expression and the Right to Privacy. In addition, the Civil Rights Movement stimulated the courts to recognize the power of Congress to enact legislation under the Commerce Clause and Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. Finally, as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, the Supreme Court has moved to a more realistic, consequentialist …

Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the mid-nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used narratives of women and their involvement with the law of domestic relations to collectivize women. This recognition of a gender class was the first step towards women’s transformation of the law. Stanton’s stories of working-class women, immigrants, Mormon polygamist wives, and privileged white women revealed common realities among women in an effort to form a collective conscious. The parable-like stories were designed to inspire a collective consciousness among women, one capable of arousing them to social and political action. For to Stanton’s consternation, women showed a lack of appreciation of their own …

Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This is the introduction to the book, Feminist Legal History. This edited collection offers new visions of American legal history that reveal women’s engagement with the law over the past two centuries. It integrates the stories of women into the dominant history of the law in what has been called “engendering legal history,” (Batlan 2005) and then seeks to reconstruct the assumed contours of history. The introduction provides the context necessary to appreciate the diverse essays in the book. It starts with an overview of the existing state of women’s legal history, tracing the core events over the past two …

Infinite Hope-- Introduction To The Symposium: The 140th Anniversary Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Elizabeth Reilly

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The Fourteenth Amendment embodies hope. This article introduces the Symposium celebrating the 140th anniversary of its ratification, held at the University of Akron. The symposium was a fruitful occasion to reflect upon the meaning of the Amendment to its Framers in Congress and as it was initially interpreted by the United States Supreme Court and the public, and to examine the lasting impacts of both conceptions. Our participants especially examined three of the Supreme Court's earliest forays into applying the Fourteenth Amendment: The Slaughter House Cases, Bradwell v. Illinois, and Cruikshank v. United States. Those forays succeeded in cramping the …

The New Face Of Women's Legal History: An Introduction To The Symposium, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Women’s legal history is developing as a new and exciting field that provides alternative perspectives on legal issues both past and present. Feminist legal history seeks to examine the ways in which law historically has informed women’s rights and how feminist discourse has shaped the law. This short essay quickly traces the development of women's legal history as a field, and then introduces the papers from a symposium at the University of Akron School of Law. The Akron Constitutional Law Center oranized a conference in October 2007 entitled “The New Face of Women’s Legal History” to showcase many of the …

Elizabeth Cady Stanton On The Federal Marriage Amendment: A Letter To The President, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This essay written from a historical, first-person perspective explores the parallels between the current movement for a Federal Marriage Amendment and that of the nineteenth century through the lens of feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Using the archival sources of Stanton’s articles and speeches from 1880 to 1902, the paper identifies her key arguments opposing a constitutional standard of marriage. The paper then juxtaposes Stanton’s arguments against the 2004 Federal Marriage Amendment to reveal the continued relevance and import of her insights.

Stanton’s analytical platform attacked the core pretexts of federalism and gender that fueled the proposed marriage amendment in her …

The Beecher Sisters As Nineteenth-Century Feminist Icons Of The Sameness-Difference Debate, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This essay reviews the recent book, The Beecher Sisters by Barbara White, through the lens of feminist theory. It argues that each of the three great women chronicled in the book – Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Isabella Beecher Hooker – serve as icons for each of the distinct strands of modern feminist thought. Barbara White, a professor emeritus of women’s studies at the University of New Hampshire, has given the field of women’s legal history a boost with her interdisciplinary contribution to the social and legal history of women. In The Beecher Sisters, White introduces us to each …