Law Commons^™

2017 Newsletter, Golden Gate University School Of Law

Women’s Employment Rights Clinic

No abstract provided.

Dean's Desk: Past And Present, Women Play Key Roles At Iu Maurer, Austen L. Parrish

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

Under first lady Laurie Burns McRobbie’s leadership, Indiana University founded Women’s Philanthropy as one way to celebrate alumnae leadership and to make the achievements of our most talented and trailblazing women graduates more visible. As the IU Maurer School of Law’s 175th year draws to a close, consistent with these larger University efforts, it’s an opportune time to celebrate some of the law school’s extraordinary women graduates. Their stories are powerful and inspiring, and I’m pleased to share just a few.

Equality, Sovereignty, And The Family In Morales-Santana, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

In Sessions v. Morales-Santana, ³ the Supreme Court encountered a body of citizenship law that has long relied on family membership in the construction of the nation’s borders and the composition of the polity.⁴ The particular statute at issue in the case regulates the transmission of citizenship from American parents to their foreign-born children at birth, a form of citizenship known today as derivative citizenship.⁵ When those children are born outside marriage, the derivative citizenship statute makes it more difficult for American fathers, as compared with American mothers, to transmit citizenship to their foreign-born children.⁶ Over …

Left Behind: How The Absence Of A Federal Vacatur Law Disadvantages Survivors Of Human Trafficking, Jessica Emerson, Alison Aminzadeh

All Faculty Scholarship

After a hamstring injury in October of 2004 forced her to surrender her athletic scholarship at St. John's University, Shamere McKenzie chose to spend her winter break working in order to save the money she needed to pay the remainder of her tuition. In January of 2005, Shamere met a man named Corey Davis, who expressed an interest in dating her. After getting to know him for several weeks, she eventually shared with him the challenges she was having earning the money she needed to continue her enrollment in college. Davis encouraged her to consider exotic dancing as a way …

The Violent State: Black Women's Invisible Struggle Against Police Violence, Michelle S. Jacobs

UF Law Faculty Publications

Black women have a very specific history with the state and law enforcement that is not replicated among other women’s communities, and it is that unique situation that is the focus of this Article. Part I of this Article explores the historical roots of Black women’s interaction with the state. Part II of this Article is broken into two sections. The first will cover police killings of Black women. The second part of the section will explore the conditions under which Black women are physically assaulted by the police. Part III of the Article seeks to highlight when the police …

Reinvigorating Commonality: Gender And Class Actions, Brooke D. Coleman, Elizabeth G. Porter

Articles

In this Article, we examine the interplay of Rule 23(b)(2) class actions, feminism, and Title VII sex discrimination doctrine over the past fifty years to show that the theoretical concept of commonality—cohesion, unity—in the women’s movement has had a significant impact on the ability of women to seek collective redress for workplace discrimination through class actions. We describe how the four "waves” of feminism since the 1960s find corresponding analogues in the development of Title VII class action law. Beginning in the civil rights era, feminism became an entrenched part of mainstream America Over time, however, feminism’s influence waned as …

Newsroom: Representing Private Manning 09-18-2017, Edward Fitzpatrick, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Trending @ Rwu Law: Dean Yelnosky's Post: Chelsea Manning, Professor David Coombs, And The "Wikileaks Trial" 08-28-2017, Edward Fitzpatrick, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Tragedy, Outrage & Reform: Crimes That Changed Our World: 1983 – Thurman Beating - Domestic Violence, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah M. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Can a crime make our world better? Crimes are the worst of humanity’s wrongs but, oddly, they sometimes do more than anything else to improve our lives. As it turns out, it is often the outrageousness itself that does the work. Ordinary crimes are accepted as the background noise of our everyday existence but some crimes make people stop and take notice – because they are so outrageous, or so curious, or so heart-wrenching. These “trigger crimes” are the cases that this book is about.

They offer some incredible stories about how people, good and bad, change the world around …

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Jared A. Goldstein's Blog: Ri's Conversion Therapy Ban Protects Lgbtq Youth And It's Constitutional 08-09-2017, Jared A. Goldstein

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Compensatory Women's Rights Legal Education In Eastern Europe: The Women's Human Rights Training Institute, Isabel Marcus

Journal Articles

To compensate for the absence/minimization of women's rights in the law faculty curriculum in post-socialist states, in 2002 a coalition of women's rights NGOs, funded by OSI, developed a Women's Human Rights Training Institute (WHRTI) in Sofia, Bulgaria. Now embarking on its sixth cycle and having graduated more than 100 lawyers (mostly working in NGOs in post-socialist states), WHRTI has developed a women's rights legal education and training program triad consisting of feminist legal theory, women's rights legal practice, and feminist legal pedagogy. The goal of the program is to educate and train lawyers to understand and use various domestic, …

Criminalizing Pregnancy, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The state of Tennessee arrested a woman two days after she gave birth and charged her with assault of her newborn child based on her use of narcotics during her pregnancy. Tennessee's 2014 assault statute was the first to explicitly criminalize the use of drugs by a pregnant woman. But this law, along with others like it being considered by legislatures across the country, is only the most recent manifestation of a long history of using criminal law to punish poor mothers and mothers of color for their behavior while pregnant. The purported motivation for such laws is the harm …

The Polarization Of Reproductive And Parental Decision-Making, Jamie Abrams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Women’s abortion decision-making and parental decision-making in child rearing are constructed as polarized methods of decision-making. Women’s abortion decision-making is understood as myopic and individualistic. Parental decision-making is understood as sacrificial and selfless. This polarization leaves reproductive decision-making isolated, marginalized, and vulnerable while parental decision-making is essentialized, protected, and revered. Both framings are inaccurate and problematic. A unified family decision-making framework that aligns abortion decision-making and parental decision-making reveals that both forms of decision-making are more multi-dimensional, relational, and family-centered than currently understood. This article exposes the ground to be gained by crossing longstanding boundaries in family law and reproductive …

The Doctor Requirement: Griswold, Privacy, And At-Home Reproductive Care, Yvonne F. Lindgren

Faculty Works

Supreme Court privacy jurisprudence has traditionally offered greater protection to activities when exercised within the home. This is true in common law as well as across a broad range of constitutional claims. For example, common law privacy identifies the home as a location of solitude and repose, often conceptualized as the “right to be let alone.” Speech, or the right to be free of unwanted messages, is enhanced when the claimant is within the confines of her or his home. Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure and the notion of the reasonable expectation of privacy are enhanced when the …

Newsroom: As Manning Released, Trial Attorney Coombs Looks Back On Case, Looks Forward To Teaching Again At Rwu Law 05-17-2017, Edward Fitzpatrick

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Amicus Curiae Brief Of Equality Ohio In Support Of Intervenor Urging Reversal, Doron M. Kalir, Kenneth J. Kowalski

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

Title VII’s plain language bars discharge of “any individual”—whether transgender or not—“because of such individual’s . . . sex.” It applies whenever employers take gender into account in making employment decisions. It is undisputed that the employer in this case based his decision to terminate Ms. Stephens solely on sex-based considerations. To be sure, he could have terminated Ms. Stephens for a wide array of reasons—tardiness, failure to perform, disciplinary issues—or for no reason at all. Under those circumstances, such termination—even of a transgender person—would not be “because of such individual’s sex.” But that is not the case here. Here, …

Female Autonomy: An Analysis Of Privacy And Equality Doctrine For Reproductive Rights, Elizabeth Levi

Political Science Honors Projects

What is the constitutional basis for women’s equality? Recently, scholars have suggested that as the right to privacy has floundered against the political undoing of women's access to abortion, equal protection arguments have grown stronger. This thesis investigates the feminist utility and limits of the equality and privacy arguments. Taking liberal feminism and feminist legal theory as analytical lenses, I offer interpretations of gender discrimination, reproductive rights, and marriage equality case law. By this framework, I argue that while an equality argument is less inherently oppressive towards women than the privacy doctrine, equality doctrine has been constructed thus far to …

The Tension Between Equal Protection And Religious Freedom, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "The Constitution did not become our basic law at a single point in time. We ratified its first seven articles in 1788 but have since amended it 27 times. Many of these amendments memorialize fundamental shifts in values. Thus, it should come as no surprise to learn that the Constitution is not an internally consistent document."

…

"Other constitutional provisions -- even provisions that were simultaneously enacted -- protect freedoms that can come into conflict with one another. The First Amendment, for example, promises both freedom from governmental endorsement of religion and freedom from governmental interference with religious practice. …

The French Veil Ban: A Transnational Legal Feminist Approach, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

After the gruesome terrorist attack that killed eighty-four people in Nice, many beach towns in France began to ban Muslim women from wearing the "burkini" on beaches. The burkini, which was created by an Australian designer, is modest swimwear that covers the body and hair. The Nice attack occurred on the heels of a series of attacks in France. The timing of the French burkini ban suggests it was targeting Muslims due to the anger over the attacks. The argument that burkinis are not hygienic is a fig leaf for other more pernicious justifications. Others argue that religious garb generally …

If It Walks Like Systematic Exclusion And Quacks Like Systematic Exclusion: Follow-Up On Removal Of Women And African-Americans In Jury Selection In South Carolina Capital Cases, 1997-2014, Ann M. Eisenberg, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, John H. Blume

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article builds on an earlier study analyzing bases and rates of removal of women and African-American jurors in a set of South Carolina capital cases decided between 1997 and 2012. We examine and assess additional data from new perspectives in order to establish a more robust, statistically strengthened response to the original research question: whether, and if so, why, prospective women and African-American jurors were disproportionately removed in different stages of jury selection in a set of South Carolina capital cases.

The study and the article it builds on add to decades of empirical research exploring the impacts (or …

Potential Life In The Doctrine, Leah Litman

Articles

In their article, Abortion: A Woman’s Private Choice, Erwin Chemerinsky and Michele Goodwin seek to shore up the doctrinal basis for a woman’s constitutional right to end her pregnancy. While Chemerinsky and Goodwin are partly concerned about the status of abortion rights in the United States because of President Donald Trump’s promise prior to taking office to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade, they also maintain that some of the threat to abortion rights arises from an uncomfortable tension in the doctrine that recognizes states’ interest in potential life. I agree with Chemerinsky and …

Gloucester County School Board V. G.G. : Brief Of Amicus Curiae In Support Of Respondent, Terry S. Kogan

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The sex-segregated public restroom, first man- dated by laws in the late nineteenth century, has be- come a pervasive architectural feature of contemporary America that is unlikely to disappear any time soon. Title IX and its implementing regulations recognize, and do not seek to alter, this arrangement. Understanding the origins of this social convention in the United States, however, illustrates that separating such facilities by sex was not simply a natural, neutral response to anatomical differences, but rather an ideological cultural response that reflected and reinforced the prevailing gender norms of the time.

Paternity Un(Certainty): How The Law Surrounding Paternity Challenges Negatively Impacts Family Relationships And Women's Sexuality, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

It is popularly believed that false paternity rates are 10-30%, and that thousands of unsuspecting men are supporting children who are not theirs. These reported rates of false paternity have become urban legend, demonizing women as over-sexualized partners who shouldn’t be trusted. This in turn has influenced laws regarding paternity, which have evolved to allow men to dis-establish paternity years after a child’s birth, even when there has been an adjudication or acknowledgment of paternity. This article argues that society should be cautious about elevating science as the highest consideration in truth claims about paternity. It examines the incoherent and …

Understanding The Department Of Defense's Policy Regarding Transgender Servicemembers, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

In June 2016, the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) issued Directive-type Memorandum (DTM) 16-005, "Military Service of Transgender Service Members." This DTM announced that, based on the premise that the "military should be open to all who can meet the rigorous standards for military service and readiness," "transgender individuals shall be allowed to serve in the military." The attachment to the memo declared that servicemembers could no longer be "involuntarily separated, discharged or denied reenlistment or continuation of service, solely on the basis of their gender identity." The core purpose of the new policy was to ensure that transgender persons would …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Gonzalez's Post: Why I Marched... 1-25-2017, Deborah Gonzalez

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Working Sex Words, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reproducing Gender And Race Inequality In The Blawgosphere, Jane C. Murphy, Solangel Maldonado

All Faculty Scholarship

The use of the Internet and other digital media to disseminate scholarship has great potential for expanding the range of voices in legal scholarship. Legal blogging, in particular, with its shorter, more informal form, seems ideal for encouraging commentary from a diverse group of scholars. This Chapter tests this idea by exploring the role of blogging in legal scholarship and the level of participation of women and scholars of color on the most visible academic legal blogs. After noting the predominance of white male scholars as regular contributors on these blogs, we analyze the relative lack of diversity in this …

Bullying And The Laws Pertaining To It, Jennifer Levi

Faculty Scholarship

This Article describes the climate of anti-gay sentiment and fear that has made it difficult for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students to come out or to seek support within school communities. The 1970s Miami - Dade Gay Rights Ordinance (the so-called Save Our Children campaign) fostered a climate of silence and invisibility that eventually morphed into overt hostility toward LGBT students across most student populations in the country.

The Author cites contemporary data showing dramatically high rates of hostility, including bullying and harassment, toward LBGT students. She summarizes the steps taken by the U.S. Department of Education to …

Blatt V. Cabela's Retail, Inc. And A New Path For Transgender Rights, Kevin M. Barry, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

Since the Supreme Court recognized marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges, civil rights advocates have increasingly set their sights on transgender rights as the next legal frontier. Sex discrimination law, though an essential statutory tool, is not the only potential avenue for securing rights for transgender individuals. Another important federal source of protection for transgender people is disability rights law—in particular, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Disability rights law, unlike sex discrimination law, applies to public accommodations and government services, and also mandates reasonable accommodations. A transgender litigant successfully invoked the protections of the ADA for the first time …

Transsexual, Transgender, Trans: Reading Judicial Nomenclature In Title Vii Cases, Kris Franklin, Sarah Chinn

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.