Law Commons^™

The First (Black) Lady, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Part I examines the role of First Lady, which has been undertheorized in legal scholarship, and how it promotes privileged white femininity, and in so doing, upholds patriarchy. Part II builds upon that discussion, explaining that the gender and racial norms that contribute to the traditional First Lady trope exemplify the intertwined nature of racism and sexism, which have been used to justify Black subordination. This section also examines how African Americans have embraced gender conformance as a way of attaining acceptance and status within the existing social order, specifically through the "Black lady" construct, which the campaign invoked to …

The Heart Of The Game: Putting Race And Educational Equity At The Center Of Title Ix, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article examines how race and educational equity issues shape women's sports experiences.

Misapplying Equity Theories: Dress Codes At Work, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

This Article provides a new perspective on Title VII caselaw concerning employer-mandated, sex-specific dress codes. With few exceptions, courts have held that employer dress codes do not constitute sex discrimination even when they expressly differentiate based solely on an employee's sex. In other contexts, courts readily acknowledge that facially sex-based practices and policies are presumptively unlawful under Title VII. When it comes to dress codes, however, nearly the opposite is true. Courts generally presume a sex-based dress code to be permissible, and the burden falls heavily on the employee to show, beyond the mere fact of differential treatment, some additional …

(E)Racing Jennifer Harris: Sexuality And Race, Law And Discourse In Harris V. Portland, Kristine E. Newhall, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

In 2007 Penn State basketball coach Rene Portland retired shortly after a confidential settlement ended a discrimination lawsuit brought by former player Jennifer Harris against Portland and Penn State. Because of Portland's infamous policy of not allowing lesbians on her team, her departure was celebrated as a victory against homophobia in sports. Yet although Harris's claims of sexual orientation discrimination were validated in the media, her allegations of racial discrimination were ignored or dismissed as implausible. In this Article, the authors examine the omission of race from the discourse surrounding this case and suggest that both legal and cultural factors …

The Failure Of Title Vii As A Rights-Claiming System, Deborah L. Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article takes a comprehensive look at the failure of Title VII as a system for claiming nondiscrimination rights. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007), requiring an employee to assert a Title VII pay discrimination claim within 180 days of when the discriminatory pay decision was first made, marks the tip of the iceberg in this flawed system. In the past decade, Title VII doctrines at both ends of the rights-claiming process have become increasing hostile to employees. At the front end, Title VII imposes strict requirements on …

Instead Of Enda, A Course Correction For Title Vii, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

In September 2008, the D.C. federal court issued a landmark decision holding that discrimination against a transgender person was sex discrimination under Title VII. This decision throws into sharp relief the ongoing debates among supporters of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act about whether the compromise on including protection for gender identity claims. Consideration of ENDA in some form will likely be early on the agenda of the next Congress, especially under a Democratic administration likely to support the bill. This essay proposes an alternative to ENDA that would embrace the theoretical connections between sex, gender, and sexual orientation, with important practical …

Book Review, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

YOUR BLUES AIN’T LIKE MINE is an excellently written, fictionalized account of the lives of several people set in the fifties as a rural Mississippi community reacts to impending school racial desegregation and the killing of a fifteen year old black boy who had the misfortune of speaking French in the direction of a white woman. I’ve used this book to facilitate discussion on issues of race, gender, the law, class, and politics in several of my law school classes such as Race and the Law, Gender and the Law, and Civil Rights.

The Failure Of Title Vii As A Rights-Claiming System, Deborah Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

Articles

This Article takes a comprehensive look at the failure of Title VII as a system for claiming nondiscrimination rights. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007), requiring an employee to assert a Title VII pay discrimination claim within 180 days of when the discriminatory pay decision was first made, marks the tip of the iceberg in this flawed system. In the past decade, Title VII doctrines at both ends of the rights-claiming process have become increasing hostile to employees. At the front end, Title VII imposes strict requirements on …

The Heart Of The Game: Putting Race And Educational Equity At The Center Of Title Ix, Deborah L. Brake, Verna L. Williams

Articles

This article examines how race and educational equity issues shape women's sports experiences, building upon the narrative of Darnellia Russell, a high school basketball player profiled in the documentary The Heart of the Game. Darnellia is a star player who, because of an unintended pregnancy, has to fight to play the game she loves.

This girl's story provides a unique and underutilized lens through which to examine gender and athletics, as well as evaluate the legal framework for gender equality in sport. In focusing on this narrative, we seek to give voice to black female athletes and to express their …

Tax Equity, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

Simply put, this article stands the traditional concept of tax equity on its head. Challenging the notion that tax equity is an unequivocal good, this article deconstructs the concept of tax equity to reveal the subtle, yet pernicious ways in which it shapes tax policy debates and impinges upon contributions to those debates. The article describes how tax equity, with its narrow focus on income - as the sole relevant metric for judging tax fairness, presupposes a population that is homogeneous along all other lines. Through this insidious homogenization, tax equity performs both a sanitizing and a screening function in …

Tax As Urban Legend, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

In this essay, I review UC-Berkeley history professor Robin Einhorn's book, American Taxation, American Slavery. In this provocatively-titled book, Einhorn traces the relationship between democracy, taxation, and slavery from colonial times through the antebellum period. By re-telling some of the most familiar set piece stories of American history through the lens of slavery, Einhorn reveals how the stories that we tell ourselves over and over again about taxation and politics in America are little more than the stuff of urban legend.

In the review, I provide a brief summary of Einhorn's discussion of the relationship between slavery and colonial taxation, …