Law Commons^™

Consent Engendered: A Feminist Critique Of Consensual Fourth Amendment Searches, Dana Raigrodski

Articles

As I will argue, the Court's consent-to-search cases are driven by this patriarchal ideology to maintain social structures of power disparities and to perpetuate the subordination of women, minorities, and other disempowered members of society.

We need to acknowledge the power and submission paradigm that underlies police-citizen encounters and to scrutinize the entire notion of consent. In order to confront both power and consent, I will turn to feminist critique of consent, particularly in the area of rape, and to feminist writings about choice and agency. Based on these writings I will argue that by distinguishing coerced consent to a …

Tax Protest, A Homosexual, And Frivolity: A Deconstructionist Meditation, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

In this contribution to a symposium entitled Out of the Closet and Into the Light: The Legal Issues of Sexual Orientation, I recount and then ponder the story of Robert Mueller. Mueller, a gay man, spent more than a decade protesting the discriminatory treatment of gays and lesbians under the Internal Revenue Code. As a result of his tax protest, Mueller was jailed for more than a year, and then was twice pursued by the IRS for taxes and penalties. In pondering Mueller's story, I consider it both as a telling example of the forcible closeting of gay and lesbian …

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 …

Revisiting Title Ix's Feminist Legacy: Moving Beyond The Three-Part Test, Deborah Brake

Articles

This essay addresses three issues surrounding Title IX's application to women's sports that have been largely eclipsed by the recent controversy over Title IX's three-part test: the increasingly male composition of athletic leadership positions; the focus on cutting men's sports as a remedy to discrimination against women; and the role of revenue and massive spending on men's elite sports in justifying gender inequality in sports. The essay links each of these issues to broader questions and concerns in discrimination law more generally, and concludes that deeper cultural change is needed to fulfill Title IX's promise.

Capitalism And Freedom -- For Whom? Feminist Legal Theory And Progressive Corporate Law,, Kellye Y. Testy

Articles

Beginning at least in the 1980s, the version of corporate law and governance prevailing in the U.S. (as well as widely exported to other nations) was a radically privatized one, treating the corporation as a contractual arrangement for maximizing shortterm share price in a laissez faire global marketplace. Though many robust and varied social movements, many of which were bolstered by the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, have been and are engaged in challenging this hegemony from many angles, few have found their way into corporate law reform. That is not to say, however, that there are no progressive legal …

The Politics Of Infertility: Recognizing Coverage Exclusions As Discrimination, Elizabeth Pendo

Articles

Infertility affects approximately ten percent of the reproductive-age population in the United States, and strikes people of every race, ethnicity and socio-economic level. It is recognized by the medical community as a disease, one with devastating physical, psychological, and financial effects. Nonetheless, comprehensive coverage of infertility treatments under employer-sponsored plans - where, like Jane, most Americans get health insurance - appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Can Jane sue for disability discrimination, sex discrimination, or both? While the answer - "it depends" - should not be surprising to anyone who has survived even a semester of law …