Law Commons^™

Towards A Law Of Inclusive Planning: A Response To “Fair Housing For A Non-Sexist City”, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Noah Kazis’s important article, Fair Housing for a Non-sexist City, shows how law shapes the contours of neighborhoods and embeds forms of inequality, and how fair housing law can provide a remedy. Kazis surfaces two dimensions of housing that generate inequality and that are sometimes invisible. Kazis highlights the role of planning and design rules – the seemingly identity-neutral zoning, code enforcement, and land-use decisions that act as a form of law. Kazis also reveals how gendered norms underlie those rules and policies. These aspects of Kazis’s project link to commentary on the often invisible, gendered norms that shape …

Sex Harassment Training Must Change: The Case For Legal Incentives For Transformative Education And Prevention, Susan Bisom-Rapp

Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of the #MeToo moment, employers, legislators, and human resources professionals have defaulted to a familiar solution to what seems like an epidemic of workplace harassment: mandatory sex harassment training. The chosen antidote, however, begs an important question that this author posed over 15 years ago: Does sex harassment training actually prevent harassment? My review of the social science research in 2001 revealed no convincing evidence that sex harassment training curbs harassment. In fact, the scant research available indicated that training, as typically conducted in American workplaces, may backfire, triggering stereotypes about women and people of color, and …

Evicted: The Socio-Legal Case For The Right To Housing, Lisa T. Alexander

Faculty Scholarship

Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a triumphant work that provides the missing socio-legal data needed to prove why America should recognize housing as a human right. Desmond's masterful study of the effect of evictions on Milwaukee's urban poor in the wake of the 2008 U.S. housing crisis humanizes the evicted, and their landlords, through rich and detailed ethnographies. His intimate portrayals teach Evicted's readers about the agonizingly difficult choices that low-income, unsubsidized tenants must make in the private rental market. Evicted also reveals the contradictions between "law on the books" and "law-in-action." Its most …

Challenging Gender In Single-Sex Spaces: Lessons From A Feminist Softball League, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores transgender inclusion within adult recreational women’s leagues by using the example of the Mary Vazquez Women’s Softball League (MVWSL), in Northampton, Massachusetts. A MVWSL policy addressing transgender inclusion became necessary due to a noticeable increase in gender-identity diversity. The resultant policy respects the league’s core lesbian constituency by providing individuals with the freedom to acknowledge openly a gender identity that has or is evolving from lesbian to something else, and reflects the league’s founding feminist principles by refusing to define for others the suitability of a women’s community.

The Author demonstrates the successful creation of a policy …

Hormone Check: Critique Of Olympic Rules On Sex And Gender, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

Most sports, including all Olympic sports, are divided into two categories: men's and women's. This Article first presents a history of gender testing in Olympic and international sports to illustrate why past attempts to define eligibility for women's sports have proven unfair to women with intersex conditions. It then describes the shortcomings of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) first effort to articulate standards of eligibility for transgender athletes. In its second Part, this Article explains the more recent efforts of the IOC and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to define eligibility for women's sports solely on the basis …

Lifetime Disadvantage, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Malcolm Sargeant

Faculty Scholarship

Lifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce fills a gap in the literature on discrimination and disadvantage suffered by women at work by focusing on the inadequacies of the current law and the need for a new holistic approach. Each stage of the working life cycle for women is examined with a critical consideration of how the law attempts to address the problems that inhibit women's labor force participation. By using their model of lifetime disadvantage, the authors show how the law adopts an incremental and disjointed approach to resolving the challenges, and argue that a more holistic orientation towards …

Convergeing Around The Study Of Gender Violence: The Gender Violence Clinic At The University Of Maryland Carey School Of Law, Leigh S. Goodmark

Faculty Scholarship

Domestic violence clinics have been a staple of law school clinical programs since the 1980s. The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law recently created the nation’s first Gender Violence Clinic, however. This article describes the motivation for taking a broader approach to gender based violence, the types of cases handled by the clinic, the challenges posed by the clinic structure, and the pedagogical goals for the clinic.

The Feminist Case For The Ncaa's Recognition Of Competitive Cheer As An Emerging Sport For Women, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines whether a university can count opportunities in competitive cheer to demonstrate compliance with Title IX. A federal court in Connecticut recently considered this question for the first time. Although it held that the sport as it currently exists is not sufficiently similar to other varsity sports to qualify for Title IX compliance, the decision has mobilized two separate governing bodies to propose more organized and competitive versions of competitive cheer as possible NCAA emerging sports. This Article argues that these proposals would satisfy regulators and the courts. It then discusses how competitive cheer has potential to improve …

Some Thoughts On The State Of Women Lawyers And Why Title Vii Has Not Worked For Them, Theresa M. Beiner

Faculty Scholarship

This essay discusses why women lawyers have not been as successful in large firms in spite of graduating from law school in large numbers over the last twenty years. It begins by giving a snapshot of the state of women lawyers, including women lawyers of color. It includes stories and studies of women’s struggles at these firms. It also describes why Title VII has not worked to solve the problems associated with being a successful woman in a law firm. Finally, it suggests some potential solutions that may help women be more successful in these environments.

Sidelined: Title Ix Retaliation Cases And Women's Leadership In College Athletics, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

Discrimination against women seeking or serving in leadership positions in sport is worthy of analysis, not only for the sake of individual women who desire to self-actualize as a head coach or athletic administrator, but because the unique role of sport in society gives underrepresentation of women in leadership positions additional significance. Due to its high visibility and widespread appeal—its veritable iconic status—sport is a salient site of cultural production. That is, sport operates on a symbolic level, reflecting and transmitting shared cultural values. Among these values, sport helps define the attributes associated with leadership, and thus, derivatively, power. By …

Not All Lawyers Are Equal: Difficulties That Plague Women And Women Of Color, Theresa M. Beiner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reading The Pink Locker Room On Football Culture And Title Ix, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the public controversy that erupted after local media reported on a comment the Author made about the University of Iowa's decision to renovate the football stadium's visiting team locker room entirely in pink. The Author submitted a statement in response to the University Steering Committee on NCAA Certification's request for feedback on a draft report and suggested that the "joke" behind the pink decor traded in sexist and homophobic values. As such, the Author concluded that it belonged in the comprehensive analysis of gender equity that the committee was preparing. The Author immediately received hundreds of hateful …