Law Commons^™

Introduction (Excerpt) In Justice Bertha Wilson: One Woman's Difference, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Bertha Wilson was the first woman to be appointed to Canada's Supreme Court in 1982. Her appointment capped off a career of firsts. She had been the first woman lawyer and partner at a prominent Toronto law firm and the first woman appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Her career and passing in 2007 have provoked reflection on her contributions to Canadian society and caused many to reflect on the question she herself posed: what difference do women judges make? What follows is an excerpt from the introduction to the book. The chapters of the book explore a broad …

Batson, Empowerment And New Jury Models: The Case For ‘Open Inquiry’, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

This 2009 article recommends the practice technique of “open inquiry,” which encourages attorneys and courts to ask jurors to openly identify their race, gender, and ethnicity during voir dire for purposes of appellate review under Batson v. Kentucky and related holdings. An open inquiry helps protect the rights of all jurors to sit. It thus creates a greater chance that juries are more diverse and promotes more voices and experiences during deliberation. The open inquiry method also promotes individual juror participation and increases the group's receptiveness toward individual voices during deliberations. Most importantly, open inquiry forces practitioners to rethink how …

Marriage Equality For Same-Sex Couples: Where We Are And Where We Are Going, Jennifer Levi

Faculty Scholarship

The legal landscape for same-sex couples seeking to marry has shifted dramatically over the last five years. On October 10, 2008, the Connecticut Supreme Court became the third state high court to rule that its state constitution could not sustain a statutory framework that excludes same-sex couples from marrying, following the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on November 18, 2003, and the California Supreme Court on May 15, 2008. Same-sex couples throughout the country have gotten married in Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, and in other countries throughout the world that provide full marriage equality, including in Canada. The Author discusses the developments …

Imagine All The Women: Power, Gender And The Transformative Possibilities Of The South African Constitution, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

This chapter will explore the South African Constitution, and more particularly, the Bill of Rights, as a vehicle for social and economic transformation. By analyzing the provisions relating to gender equality in South Africa's Constitution, as well as decisions of the Constitutional Court, this chapter will examine whether theconstitutional rights framework in South Africa contains within it the transformative possibilities that will lead to gender equality in all spheres of South African society, and particularly in the economic sphere.

Who's Afraid Of Polygamy? Exploring The Boundaries Of Family, Equality And Custom In South Africa, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

South Africa's post-apartheid constitution has been widely admired and constantly referenced by international scholars, and especially international human rights scholars, for its comprehensive embrace of gender equality. But the commitment to gender equality has been tested by other liberatory discourses, including African nationalism and cultural and religious autonomy. This Article examines the evolution of South African legislation and constitutional jurisprudence in the face of competing imperatives, for example, between equality, legal pluralism, customary law/religious law, and the recognition of polygamy. In particular, it focuses on the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, a statute that purports to regulate customary marriages, including …

Not Our Mother's Law School?: A Third-Wave Feminist Study Of Women's Experiences In Law School (With Kelly Hradsky, Kristen Jeschke, Lavonne Meyer & Jill Roberts), Felice J. Batlan, Kelly Hradsky, Kristen Jeschke, Lavonne Meyer, Jill Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Women's Protocol To The African Charter And Sexual Violence In The Context Of Armed Conflict Or Other Mass Atrocity, Susana Sacouto, Katherine A. Cleary

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Book Chapters

Our book Critical Tax Theory: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press 2009) highlights and explains the major themes and methodologies of a group of scholars who challenge the traditional claim that tax law is neutral and unbiased. The contributors to this volume include pioneers in the field of critical tax theory, as well as key thinkers who have sustained and expanded the investigation into why the tax laws are the way they are and what impact tax laws have on historically disempowered groups. This volume will provide an accessible introduction to this new and growing body of scholarship. It will be …

A 'Ho New World: Raced And Gendered Insult As Ersatz Carnival And The Corruption Of Freedom Of Expression Norms, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

Carnivalization, a concept developed by literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin and later employed in broad social and cultural contexts, is the tearing down of social norms, the elimination of boundaries, and the inversion of established hierarchies. It is the world turned upside down. Ersatz carnival is a pernicious, inverted form of carnival, one wherein counter-discourses propounded by outsiders are appropriated by elites and frequently redeployed to silence and exclude those same outsiders. The use of the slur "'ho" by gangsta' rappers in the performance of songs that articulate a vision of urban culture is an example of carnivalization. Thus, when words …

Remarks: Neuroscience, Gender, And The Law, Stacey A. Tovino

Scholarly Works

These remarks, delivered at the Neuroscience, Law, and Government Symposium held at the University of Akron School of Law in 2009, explore how stakeholders are using advances in the neuroscience of three gender-specific and gender-prevalent conditions (the postpartum mood disorders, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and eating disorders) to secure health care benefits under group health plans and individual health insurance policies and to push for the inclusion of these conditions in mental health parity legislation.

The One-Size-Fits-All Family, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock

Journal Articles

Family policy and the law based on it assume universals. That is, if marriage improves the welfare of the majority of couples and their children, it is worth pushing as a policy initiative. Further, laws will be written (or kept on the books) that privilege marriage over other family forms. Similarly, research that tells us that divorce harms children except following the relatively small number of highly conflicted marriages, spawns efforts to preserve troubled marriages or even to roll back liberal or relatively inexpensive divorce laws. With yet another example, since adopted children mostly do better than children left either …

Internet Defamation As Profit Center: The Monetization Of Online Harassment, Ann Bartow

Law Faculty Scholarship

Efforts to decrease the sexist aspects of online fora have been largely ineffective, and in some instances seemingly counterproductive, in the sense that they have provoked even greater amounts of abuse and harassment with a gendered aspect. And so, in the wake of a series of high profile episodes of cyber sexual harassment, and a grotesque abundance of low profile ones, a new business model was launched. Promising to clean up and monitor online information to defuse the visible impact of coordinated harassment campaigns, a number of entities began to market themselves as knights in cyber shining armor, ready to …

Gender Segregation In The Public Schools; Opportunity, Inequality, Or Both?, Bill Piatt

Faculty Articles

Should the public schools be allowed to segregate girls from boys in the classroom? There is a history of single-sex education in this country, but there are concerns about single gender classrooms. In recent decades, researchers have begun to assert that requiring boys and girls to be taught together has a negative impact on the educational progress because of inherent differences in boy/girl learning behavior, or even in the development of their brains. Proponents of gender exclusive classrooms point out the voluntary nature of the programs, and the explicit findings of the Department of Education justifying such programs. Opponents argue …

Social Factoring The Numbers With Assisted Reproduction, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In late winter 2009, the airwaves came alive with stories about Nadya Suleman, the California mother who gave birth to octuplets conceived via assisted reproductive technology. Nadya Suleman and her octuplets are the vehicles through which Americans express their anxiety about race, class and gender. Expressions of concern for the health of children, the mother’s well-being, the future of reproductive medicine or the financial drain on taxpayers barely conceal deep impulses towards racism, sexism and classism. It is true that the public has had a longstanding fascination with multiple births and with large families. This is evidenced by a long …

Social Factoring The Numbers With Assisted Reproduction, Bridget J. Crawford, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

In early 2009 the airwaves came alive with sensational stories about Nadya Suleman, the California mother who gave birth to octuplets conceived via assisted reproductive technology. Nadya Suleman and her octuplets are vehicles through which Americans express their anxiety about race, class and gender. Expressions of concern for the health of children, the mother's well-being, the future of reproductive medicine or the financial drain on taxpayers barely conceal deep impulses towards racism, sexism and classism. It is true that the public has had a longstanding fascination with multiple births and with large families. This is evidenced by a long history …

Men And Women Of The Bar: The Impact Of Gender On Legal Careers, Kenneth Glenn Dau-Schmidt, Marc Galanter, Kaushik Mukhopadhaya, Kathleen E. Hull

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this study, we use the University of Michigan Law School Alumni Data Set to undertake an empirical analysis of the impact of gender on the legal profession and the differences that gender makes in the careers and lives of attorneys. With regular survey responses from Michigan alumni from 1967 until the present, the University of Michigan Law School Alumni Data Set provides a unique opportunity to examine these questions from the days when female attorneys were rare, to the arrival of the first generation of women to achieve significant presence in the legal profession.

Foreword: After Guantanamo, Michael P. Scharf, Sonia Vohra

Faculty Publications

“Guantanamo Bay.” To many around the world those two words conjure up haunting images of orange jumpsuit-clad detainees imprisoned behind barbed-wire fences, subjected to the cruelest imaginable interrogation techniques, and held indefinitely without trial, or awaiting trial before military commissions whose procedures violate international law. It is no surprise, then, that the new U.S. administration perceived the Guantanamo Bay detention center and associated detainee policies as an indelible stain on America's moral authority and an impediment to the success of future U.S. foreign policy.

Social Factoring The Numbers With Assisted Reproduction, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Bridget J. Crawford

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In early 2009 the airwaves came alive with sensational stories about Nadya Suleman, the California mother who gave birth to octuplets conceived via assisted reproductive technology. Nadya Suleman and her octuplets are vehicles through which Americans express their anxiety about race, class and gender. Expressions of concern for the health of children, the mother's well-being, the future of reproductive medicine or the financial drain on taxpayers barely conceal deep impulses towards racism, sexism and classism. It is true that the public has had a longstanding fascination with multiple births and with large families. This is evidenced by a long history …

The State As Batterer: Learning From Family Law To Address American's Family-Like Racial Dysfunction, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

The women's movement for equality bootstrapped to the movement for equality for Blacks. Now the reverse can happen. This Article uses family law and the plight of some battered women, as a lens to address analogous racial conflicts in the broader American family.

Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, And Michelle Obama: Performing Gender, Race, And Class On The Campaign Trail, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

The 2008 Presidential campaign highlighted three strong, interesting, and very different women -- Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Obama -- who negotiated identity performances in the political limelight. Because of their diverse backgrounds, experience, and ages, an examination of how these three women performed their identities and the public response to them offers a rich understanding of the changing nature of gender, gender roles, age, sexuality and race in our culture. This essay suggests that optimism that Obama's race and gender performances may have removed the stigma from "the feminine" may be misplaced, at least when it comes to …

Reproducing Gender On Law School Faculties, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

This article demonstrates that there is a gender divide on law school faculties. Women work in inferior sex-segregated jobs and teach a disproportionate percentage of female-identified courses. More than 80% of law school deans are men. Men teach the more prestigious male-identified courses. Women suffer from differential expectations from colleagues and students and often bear the brunt of their colleagues' bullying behaviors at work. Using masculinities studies and other social science research to identify gendered structures, practices, and behaviors that harm women law professors, this article provides a theoretical framework to explain why women in the legal academy do not …

Stereotype Threat: A Case Of Overclaim Syndrome?, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

The theory of Stereotype Threat (ST) predicts that, when widely accepted stereotypes allege a group’s intellectual inferiority, fears of confirming these stereotypes cause individuals in the group to underperform relative to their true ability and knowledge. There are now hundreds of published studies purporting to document an impact for ST on the performance of women and racial minorities in a range of situations. This article reviews the literature on stereotype threat, focusing especially on studies investigating the influence of ST in the context of gender. It concludes that there is currently no justification for concluding that ST explains women’s underperformance …

A Shift Toward Gender Equality In Prosecutions: Realizing Legitimate Enforcement Of Crimes Committed Against Women In Municipal And International Criminal Law, Tamara F. Lawson

Articles

A new era of law enforcement has emerged recognizing the importance of punishing gender-specific violence. This first wave of "gender-sensitive prosecutors" has changed the way crimes against women are handled in the criminal justice system. The enactment of gender neutralizing laws and policies has dramatically improved the enforcement of crimes against women and attempts to end the era of impunity. This Article addresses the changes in prosecutions and further considers international human rights treaties that require gender equality in law enforcement.

In criminal law, it is the willingness of a prosecutor to exercise his or her discretionary authority to file …

Women’S Unequal Citizenship At The Border: Lessons From Three Nonfiction Films About The Women Of Juárez, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

There is no better illustration of the impact of borders on women’s equal citizenship than the three documentaries reviewed in this essay. All three deal with the femicides that befell the young women of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico between 1993 and 2005. Juarez is just across the border from El Paso, Texas. Performing the Border (1999) stimulates the viewer’s imagination regarding the ephemeral nature of borders and their impact on the citizenship of women who live at the intersection of local, regional, national and international legal regimes. Señorita Extraviada (2001) is an intimate portrait of the victims which illustrates why the …

Asylum In A Different Voice: Judging Immigration Claims And Gender, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

An extensive statistical study of disparities in asylum adjudication throughout the United States reveals gross disparities in rates of asylum grants by region of country, experience of adjudicators, prior employment, and other factors. One of the most robust findings was one of gender disparities in adjudication rates. If the adjudicator of claims for asylum was female there was a 44% greater likelihood that asylum would be granted. This chapter in the book reporting these findings reflects on this significant finding of gender differences in judging and discusses, in light of the author's prior work on gender differences in lawyering, whether …

Female Investors And Securities Fraud: Is The Reasonable Investor A Woman?, Joan Macleod Heminway

Scholarly Works

This paper extends existing scholarship that questions the existing materiality standard used under Rule 10b-5 (and elsewhere in U.S. securities regulation) and its touchstone notion of the reasonable investor. Specifically, the paper asks and answers a seemingly straightforward, yet provocative, question: Is the reasonable investor a woman? The paper then preliminarily explores the potential significance of its key findings - that women and men exhibit different investment behaviors and achieve different investment outcomes, and that the resulting female investor profile is closer to existing conceptions of the reasonable investor than the resulting male investor profile.

As women become larger players …