Law Commons^™

Women In Shareholder Activism, Sarah C. Haan

Scholarly Articles

Even a cursory review of the history of American environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder activism reveals the presence of women leaders. This Article sketches some of this history and interrogates the role of women in the shareholder activism movement. That movement typically has involved claims by minority shareholders to corporate power; activists are nearly always on the margins of power, though minority shareholders may, collectively, represent a majority interest. This Article ascribes women’s leadership in shareholder activism to their longstanding position as outsiders to corporate organization. Women’s participation in shaping corporate policy—even from the margins—has provided women with …

Foreword: A Century Since Suffrage: How Did We Get Here? Where Will We Go? How Will We Get There?, Rona Kaufman

Law Faculty Publications

One hundred years have passed since (white) women attained the right to vote. In the century since the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, American women have transitioned from an existence as mere objects of history to becoming active subjects of history. In 2019 and 2020, many programs and conferences were organized to celebrate the achievements of America's women and commemorate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. The Section on Women in Legal Education hosted a program at the January 2020 American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meeting titled, “A Century Since Suffrage: How Did We Get Here? Where Will We …

More Than The Vote: 16-Year-Old Voting And The Risks Of Legal Adulthood, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

Advocates of 16-year-old voting have not grappled with two significant risks to adolescents of their agenda. First, a right to vote entails a corresponding accessibility to campaigns. Campaign speech is highly protected, and 16-year-old voting invites more unfettered access to minors by commercial, government, and political interests than current law tolerates. Opening 16-year-olds to campaign access undermines a considered legal system of managing the potential exploitation of adolescents, which sometimes includes direct regulation of entities and also gives parents authority in both law and culture to prohibit, manage, or supervise contacts with every kind of person interested in communicating with …

Lessons Learned From The Suffrage Movement, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Sudha Setty

Faculty Scholarship

In November 2019, the Western New England Law Review held its symposium, On Account of Sex: Women’s Suffrage and the Role of Gender in Politics Today. The symposium articles ask us to look at history to see what factors enabled path-breaking activists to secure the right to vote in a time of immense national turmoil. They also ask us to weigh how history should assess the strategic decisions that ultimately gained political rights for some women, but deliberately excluded Black women and other activists.

These historical accounts help us consider how the right to vote is faring, particularly after …

While The Water Is Stirring: Sojourner Truth As Proto-Agonist In The Fight For (Black) Women’S Rights, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

This Essay argues for a greater understanding of Sojourner Truth’s little-discussed role as a proto-agonist (a marginalized, long-suffering forerunner as opposed to a protagonist, a highly celebrated central character) in the process that led up to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Though the Nineteenth Amendment failed to deliver on its promise of suffrage for black women immediately after its enactment, black women were stalwarts in the fight for the Amendment and for women’s rights more broadly, well before the ratification of the Amendment and for many years after its passage. Women’s rights in general, and black women’s rights in …

Youth Suffrage: In Support Of The Second Wave, Mae Quinn, Caridad Dominguez, Chelsey Omega, Abrafi Osei-Kofi, Carlye Owens

Journal Articles

The 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution is an appropriate moment to reflect on the history—and consider the future—of the right to vote in the United States. High school and college classes teach the nation’s suffrage story as integral to our identity, focusing on the enfranchisement of women under the 19th Amendment and African Americans pursuant to the 15th Amendment.1 Constitutional law courses also present the 15th Amendment as foundational knowledge for the legal profession.2 Critical legal theory and women’s legal history texts frequently cover the 19th Amendment as central to understanding the first wave …

Enforcing The Bill Of Rights Against The States: The History And The Future, Richard Aynes

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This article traces, in broad strokes, the history of the disputes about whether or not the Bill of Rights can be enforced against the states.

It begins with pre-Fourteenth Amendment claims and recounts the actions of the 39th Congress: The Freedman’s Bureau, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Several speeches on the Amendment from the Congressional elections of 1866 are utilized, including those of Section 1 author John Bingham, Congressmen Columbus Delano, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Wilson, James Garfield, and Senator John Sherman, as well as Democrats who participated in what has been termed the most …