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Full-Text Articles in Law
Deboer V. Snyder: A Case Study In Litigation And Social Reform, Wyatt Fore
Deboer V. Snyder: A Case Study In Litigation And Social Reform, Wyatt Fore
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
On April 28, 2015, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for four cases from the Sixth Circuit addressing the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage. This Note examines DeBoer v. Snyder, the Michigan marriage case, with the goal of providing litigators and scholars the proper context for our current historical moment in which (1) the legal status of LGBT people; and (2) the conventional wisdom about the role of impact litigation in social reform movements are rapidly evolving.
The Scarlet Letter: The Supreme Court And The Language Of Abortion Stigma, Paula Abrams
The Scarlet Letter: The Supreme Court And The Language Of Abortion Stigma, Paula Abrams
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Why does the Supreme Court refer to the woman who is seeking an abortion as "mother"? Surely the definition has not escaped the attention of a Court that frequently relies on the dictionary to define important terms or principles. And why does the Court choose to describe the fetus as a child? What message does this language send about abortion and the woman who seeks an abortion? The Court's abortion decisions embody an ongoing debate on the legitimacy of constitutional protection of the right to choose. This debate unfolds most obviously as a discourse on constitutional interpretation; disagreements within the …
Outing The Majority: Gay Rights, Public Debate, And Polarization After Doe V. Reed, Marc Allen
Outing The Majority: Gay Rights, Public Debate, And Polarization After Doe V. Reed, Marc Allen
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
In 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Doe v. Reed that Washington citizens who signed a petition to eliminate legal rights for LGBT couples did not have a right to keep their names secret. A year later, in ProtectMarriage.com v. Bowen, a district court in California partially relied on Reed to reject a similar request from groups who lobbied for California Proposition 8-a constitutional amendment that overturned the California Supreme Court's landmark 2008 gay marriage decision. These holdings are important to election law, feminist, and first amendment scholars for a number of reasons. First, they flip the traditional …
Sex Equality's Unnamed Nemesis, Veronica Percia
Sex Equality's Unnamed Nemesis, Veronica Percia
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Sex inequality still exists. However, its manifestations have evolved since the early sex inequality cases were heard in courts and legislatures first began structuring statutory regimes to combat it. In particular, so-called "facial" discrimination against men and women on the basis of sex has no doubt decreased since the advent of this legal assault on sex inequality. Yet the gendered assumptions that structure our institutions and interactions have proven resilient. With sex discrimination now operating more covertly, the problem of sex inequality looks considerably different than it once did. Courts, however, have failed to successfully respond to the changing contours …
Past As Prologue: Old And New Feminisms, Martha Chamallas
Past As Prologue: Old And New Feminisms, Martha Chamallas
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Each "stage" of feminist legal theory-and each brand or strand of feminism- stays alive and is never completely replaced by newer approaches. When I first attempted to synthesize the field of Feminist Legal Theory for a treatise I was writing at the end of the twentieth century, I thought it would be useful to think chronologically and to analyze the major developments of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I crudely divided feminist legal theory into three stages roughly corresponding to the preceding decades: the equality stage of the 1970s, the difference stage of the 1980s, and the diversity stage of …
Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article uses the term contingent equal protection to describe the constitutional analysis that applies to a range of governmental efforts to ameliorate race and sex hierarchies. "Contingent" refers to the fact that the equal protection analysis is contingent upon the existence of structural, de facto inequality. Contingent equal protection cases include those that involve explicit race and sex classifications, facially neutral efforts to reduce inequality, and accommodation of sex differences to promote equality. Uniting all three kinds of cases under a single conceptual umbrella reveals the implications that developments in one area can have for the other two.
Doma: An Unconstitutional Establishment Of Fundamentalist Christianity, James M. Donovan
Doma: An Unconstitutional Establishment Of Fundamentalist Christianity, James M. Donovan
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
According to the text of the Act, DOMA's purposes are "to define and protect the institution of marriage," where marriage is defined to exclude same-sex partners. To be constitutionally valid under the Establishment Clause, this notion that heterosexual marriages require "protection" from gay and lesbian persons must spring from a secular and not religious source. This Article posits that DOMA has crossed this forbidden line between the secular and the religious. DOMA, motivated and supported by fundamentalist Christian ideology, and lacking any genuine secular goals or justifications, betrays the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Hostile Environent Sexual Harassment Claims And The Unwelcome Influence Of Rape Law, Janine Benedet
Hostile Environent Sexual Harassment Claims And The Unwelcome Influence Of Rape Law, Janine Benedet
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This article considers the unwelcomeness requirement of the plaintiff’s prima facie case. In particular, it examines the discussion of unwelcomeness found in the decision of the Supreme Court in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, and the content given to this element by the subsequent decisions of lower courts. Such an inquiry reveals several parallels between the approach of courts to sexual harassment claims and their traditional treatment of the criminal offense of rape. The same biases and erroneous assumptions that have hampered an effective response to the physical violation of women have permeated the application of the purported remedy …