Law Commons^™

Universal Mother : Transnational Migration And The Human Rights Of Black Women In The Americas, Hope Lewis

Hope Lewis

Community-based or personal forms of identity, as well as some externally imposed gender, race, and cultural stereotypes operate simultaneously to influence global markets. This Article explores the human rights implications of the stories surrounding a female migrant household worker as they exemplify how perceptions about identity can shape legal responses and how legal frameworks can shape perceptions of identity. The identities associated with the migrant household worker seemed to constitute a uniquely complex illustration of the intersection of race, gender, ethnicity, class, immigration status, nationality, and disability. However, the stories establish that all identities can be equally complex. This Article …

Gender Politics In Massachusetts: Progress For Paid Family Leave, Elizabeth A. Sherman

New England Journal of Public Policy

Advances in the educational and occupational status of women in the United States over the past quarter century have greatly expanded the participation of women in the workforce. However, economic and social changes in women’s lives have put pressure on traditional family roles and on the political system to respond to the problems families face balancing work and family responsibilities. Initiatives for paid family leave in Massachusetts reflect the newfound political strength of women in politics — as leaders of political organizations, as elected officials, and as voters — and the willingness of the state’s political elite to grapple with …

Gender Matters: Teaching A Reasonable Woman Standard In Personal Injury Law, Margo Schlanger

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Still Not Behaving Like Gentlemen, Ann Bartow

Ann Bartow

The author reflects upon the genesis of a law school project with Lani Guinier that ultimately resulted in the publication of a law review article entitled Becoming Gentlemen: Women's Experiences at One Ivy League Law School, and later a book, Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional Change. I discuss an apparent dearth of positive, substantive changes in legal education over the past eleven years, noting that women apparently continue to receive lower grades and fewer honors related to grades in top law schools. I also consider reactions to Becoming Gentlemen, and observe that to the extent it got everyone's …

Setting The Record Straight: A Proposal For Handling Prosecutorial Appeals To Racial, Ethnic Or Gender Prejudice During Trial, Andrea Lyon

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From Gender Apartheid To Non-Sexism: The Pursuit Of Women's Rights In South Africa, Penelope Andrews

Articles & Chapters

This article discusses the quest for women's rights in South Africa and how the transition from apartheid to democracy led to a commitment to gender equality as incorporated in South Africa's transitional and final Constitutions. This paper refers to the organizational attempts by women prior to and during the constitutional drafting process to ensure that the new Constitution embodied the aspirations and reflected the struggles for women's rights by women activists in South Africa. This article is divided into six sections. Section Two describes the legacy of apartheid for all women in South Africa. This section shows how the laws …

Epilogue, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

The First Circuit reversed the district court's order dismissing Lucas Rosa's claim against Park West Bank. The appeals court's reversal seems to be part of an emerging nationwide rejection of cases from the 1970s and 1980s. In these cases courts summarily dismissed sex discrimination claims brought by transgender plaintiffs, no matter how squarely the facts appeared to present a clear-cut case of discrimination based on sex. This created that appeared to be a "transgender" exception to sex discrimination law. Earlier courts ignored what the First Circuit recognized here-that a bank officer who tells an applicant to go home, change, and …

Brief For The Plaintiff-Appellant Lucas Rosa In The United States Court Of Appeals For The First Circuit Lucas Rosa V. Park West Bank And Trust Company On Appeal From The United States District Court For The District Of Massachusetts, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

This is the brief for the Plaintiff-Appellant Lucas Rosa v. Park West Bank and Trust Company in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. This appeal is from a Final Judgment, entered October 18, 1999, that disposed of all claims in the case. This case involves an action brought pursuant to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Massachusetts statutes forbidding discrimination in places of public accommodation, and credit, against a bank for refusing to issue and accept a loan application from a bank customer because of the customer's sex.

Reinforcing The Myth Of The Crazed Rapist: A Feminist Critique Of Recent Rape Legislation, Christina E. Wells, Erin Elliott

Faculty Publications

Part I of this article reviews these new legislative provisions, discussing their requirements as well as the general impetus behind their enactment. Part II discusses both the history of rape prosecution and feminist efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to eliminate barriers to successful rape prosecutions. This part also elaborates upon the myth of the crazed rapist and its relationship to feminist reform efforts. Part III explains how the current legislation is rooted in and reinforces that myth by encouraging unsupportable distinctions among rape defendants. Finally, Part IV discusses the feminist response to such laws and argues for a more …

Women At War: An Evolutionary Perspective, Kingsley R. Browne

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Struggle For Sex Equality In Sport And The Theory Behind Title Ix, Deborah Brake

Articles

Title IX's three-part test for measuring discrimination in the provision of athletic opportunities to male and female students has generated heated controversy in recent years. In this Article, Professor Brake discusses the theoretical underpinnings behind the three-part test and offers a comprehensive justification of this theory as applied to the context of sport. She begins with an analysis of the test's relationship to other areas of sex discrimination law, concluding that, unlike most contexts, Title IX rejects formal equality as its guiding theory, adopting instead an approach that focuses on the institutional structures that subordinate girls and women in sport. …

Keeping The Government's Hands Off Our Bodies: Mapping A Feminist Legal Theory Approach To Privacy In Cross-Gender Prison Searches, Teresa A. Miller

Journal Articles

The power of privacy is diminishing in the prison setting, and yet privacy is the legal theory prisoners rely upon most to resist searches by correctional officers. Incarcerated women in particular rely upon privacy to shield them from the kind of physical contact that male guards have been known to abuse. The kind of privacy that protects prisoners from searches by guards of the opposite sex derives from several sources, depending on the factual circumstances. Although some form of bodily privacy is embodied in the First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, prisoners challenging the constitutionality of cross-gender searches most commonly …

Report Of The Race, Class, Ethnicity And Gender Working Group, Dana Hamilton

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sex Changes And “Opposite-Sex” Marriage: Applying The Full Faith And Credit Clause To Compel Interstate Recognition Of Transgendered Persons’ Amended Legal Sex For Marital Purposes

San Diego Law Review

This Comment argues that, in most cases, states are constitutionally bound to give full faith and credit to laws and judgments rendered in

sister states, including those that result in changes of the sex designated on birth certificates. The sex designated on the birth certificate controls gender identity for all legal purposes of the individual named therein. Therefore, unless a forum state demonstrates that allowing transsexuals and intersexuals to marry in their legal gender is contrary to an important state interest, that state must recognize “opposite-sex” marriages involving transsexuals and intersexuals.

Gender And Intercollegiate Athletics: Data And Myths, Julia C. Lamber

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article explores what nondiscrimination means in the context of intercollegiate athletics. After reviewing the Department of Education's controversial Title IX Policy Interpretation, it critically examines the analytical framework used in Title IX athletic cases and concludes that commonly made analogies to litigation under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act are inapt. A major part of the Article is an empirical study, looking first at gender equity plans written by institutions of higher education for the National Collegiate Athletic Association and then at data collected from more than 325 institutions pursuant to the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act. …

The Cult Of Hostile Gender Climate: A Male Voice Preaches Diversity To The Choir, Dan Subotnik

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Dispelling The Misconceptions Raised By The Davis Dissent, Joan E. Schaffner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article argues that the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education did not do enough to explicitly assuage the dissenters’ concerns and aims to do so itself. Davis permitted liability for school districts that purposely ignore instances of student-on-student sexual harassment that deprived a student of the opportunity for education. The three issues raised by the dissent were federalism, whether the conduct at issue is sexual harassment, and First Amendment concerns about the aggressor’s speech being protected. In response, I argue that the majority opinion does not violate federalism principles, the harassment qualifies as …

Alice In Legal Wonderland: A Cross-Examination Of Gender, Race And Empire In Victorian Law And Literature, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Lewis Carroll's 1865 scene of a recalcitrant Alice in the courtroom, defying the court's authority as she grows (literally) into a large and threatening presence, dramatizes what was becoming an increasingly common Victorian spectacle: a woman questioning and critiquing the law and claiming a place for herself within its institutions. Women have played a significant (but much overlooked) role in legal history and, in this paper, I argue for the importance of examining various narratives of the past (including literary accounts) that explored women's relationship to the law.

Against the backdrop of several legal cases in which women sought entry …

Crossing Borderlands Of Inequality With International Legal Methodologies - The Promise Of Multiple Feminisms, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This work provides insights into the gendered developments of international law. It explores the roles played by the gendered rule of law and by the conflation of economic, social, political, religious, cultural, and historic realities in the marginalization of women in the international, regional, and domestic spheres worldwide. The first section presents the myriad locations of women's persistent inequality. The next sets forth feminist theory that has been the basis of both the celebration of women's progress and the denunciation of women's subordination. The last part makes suggestions for the articulation of a methodology that follows the complex paths of …

Strong, Smart, And Bold Girls: The Girls Incorporated Approach To Education , Heather Johnston Nicholson, Mary F. Maschino

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Girls Incorporated is a national non profit youth organization that "inspires all girls to be strong, smart and bold". in 200, Girls Inc. programs reached more than 740,000 girls and young women ages six through eighteen. A vast majority of these programs are conducted at schools during and after the school day. Program areas include science, media criticism, leadership, and substance use prevention. This article explores the different tactics, philosophies, and programs utilized used by Girls Inc.

Latinas, Culture And Human Rights: A Model For Making Change, Saving Soul, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay provides an overview of progresses achieved for women in the Americas by virtue of the use of the human rights model to further women's rights and attain betterment of their lives. Specifically, this work reviews the location of Latinas both within and outside the United States fronteras. As women of color within larger U.S. society and as women within their comunidad Latina, Latinas experience different multifaceted subordinations. A human rights model that recognizes the multidimensional nature of gendered racial discrimination and of racialized gender discrimination can serve to improve the lives of Latinas as well as non-Latina women …

Tax Expenditures, Social Justice And Civil Rights: Expanding The Scope Of Civil Rights Laws To Apply To Tax-Exempt Charities, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In recent years, courts have decided a number of cases in which private organizations discriminated against people based solely on their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other immutable traits. For example, in 2000, the Boy Scouts of America revoked a New Jersey man's membership in the Boy Scouts because he was gay. New Jersey's supreme court held that the Boy Scouts' action violated New Jersey's anti-discrimination law. Notwithstanding the state court's holding, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the First Amendment prevented any court from forcing the Boy Scouts to keep a gay man as a member of its …