Law Commons^™

Breaking The Silence On Father-Daughter Sexual Abuse Of Adolescent Girls: A Case Law Study, Janine Benedet, Isabel Grant

All Faculty Publications

Adolescent girls are targeted for sexual violence at a rate higher than females at any other life stage. Girls most often face sexual violence at the hands of men that they know and trust within their own families, yet this type of abuse has largely evaded scrutiny from the #MeToo movement. In this article, the authors seek to revitalize the discussion of sexual abuse against adolescent girls by their fathers. The article is part of a larger study that examined all Canadian judicial decisions involving sexual offences against girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen inclusive over a three-year …

Title Ix And Gender Stereotype Theory: Protecting Students From Parental Status Discrimination, Jocelyn Tillisch

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment asserts that students who experience discrimination on the basis of parental status have a cause of action under Title IX by using the gender stereotyping theory that is common in Title VII analysis as illustrated by Tingley-Kelley v. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. Part I will first provide an overview of the applicable law surrounding Title IX and Title VII. Part II will briefly summarize application of the gender stereotype theory and the applicable case law that provides the legal framework for this proposition. Part III will detail how the Title VII framework can be followed to …

Where's Dad? The Importance Of Integrating Fatherhood And Parenting Programming Into Substance Use Treatment For Men, Carla Smith Stover, Melissa Carlson, Sarika Patel, Raquel Manalich

Mental Health Law & Policy Faculty Publications

Large numbers of men enter substance use disorder treatment each year, yet very little attention is paid to the fatherhood and parenting status of these men. Substance use treatment programmes for men rarely incorporate a parenting component into their treatment planning, despite the increased success of women's treatment programmes that focus on gender and motherhood. This paper provides: (1) a review of the literature on the fathering of substance‐using men, what has been learned from substance use disorder treatment for mothers, and the implications for children and families; (2) pilot quantitative and qualitative outcomes resulting from the implementation of a …

Turner In The Trenches: A Study Of How Turner V. Rogers Affected Child Support Contempt Proceedings, Elizabeth Patterson

Faculty Publications

In its 2011 ruling in Turner v. Rogers, the Supreme Court held that a nonpaying child support obligor may not be incarcerated in a civil contempt proceeding if he did not have the ability to pay the ordered support or the purge necessary to regain his freedom. The Turner case arose in South Carolina, a state in which civil contempt proceedings are a routine part of the child support enforcement process. The author observed child support contempt proceedings in South Carolina both before and after the Turner decision to assess the extent to which indigent obligors were being held in …

Prenatal Abandonment: 'Horton Hatches The Egg' In The Supreme Court And Thirty-Four States, Mary M. Beck

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article addresses an issue critical to forty-one percent of fathers in the United States: prenatal abandonment. Under prenatal abandonment theory, fathers can lose their parental rights to non-marital children if they do not provide prenatal support to the mothers of their children. This is true even if the mothers have not notified the fathers of the pregnancy and if the mothers or fathers are unsure of the fathers’ paternity. While this result may seem counterintuitive, it is necessitated by demographic trends. Prenatal abandonment theory has been structured to protect mothers, fathers, and fetuses in response to a number of …

Shaping Expectations About Dads As Caregivers: Toward An Ecological Approach, Holning Lau

Hofstra Law Review

A growing number of men embrace childcare responsibilities traditionally associated with women. Yet fathers who wish to be caregivers often face impediments. Legal scholars have focused attention on one of these impediments, the lack of workplace paternity leave, by calling on the government to mandate leave for new fathers. In this Essay, I argue that the focus on workplace policies is much too narrow. In light of cultural norms in the United States, there will be difficulty passing national legislation mandating paternity leave. Moreover, men shoulder cultural pressure not to take paternity leave even when it is offered. This Essay …

Not Ideas Of The Thing But The Thing Itself: Imagining A Support Group For Separated And Divorced Fathers As A Site Of Legal Education, Thomas Mcmorrow

Dalhousie Law Journal

Legal education is not just about attaining an abstract knowledge of formal institutions, norms, and processes; it is also about developing insight into oneself and ones relationships. Therefore, understanding and developing the personal and social conditions that make governance through law possible are crucial elements of legal education. This article highlights legal education's potential role in fostering every person's sense of implication in-and responsibility forbuilding a just society In order to illustrate this concept, this article looks at the ways in which DADs, a support group for separated and divorced fathers, constitutes a site of legal education.

Shaping Expectations About Dads As Caregivers: Toward An Ecological Approach, Holning Lau

Holning Lau

The Origin Of Parental Rights: Labor, Intent, And Fathers, Dara Purvis

Dara Purvis

Most theories of parentage fail to explain the genesis of the right to parent - for example, why does a biological relationship generate parental rights? This Article shows that the law of parental rights mirrors theories of acquiring property, and that the law has shifted over time, from favoring a property right based in genetics to a Lockean theory of property rights earned through labor. The growth of Lockean labor-based theories is epitomized in reforms to parentage laws that incorporate functional theories of parenting, meaning that adults who perform caretaking work that creates a significant relationship with children are recognized …

Fathers And The Supreme Court: Founding Fathers And Nuturing Fathers, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

This article critiques the Supreme Court's negative, stereotypic views of fatherhood, especially unmarried fatherhood, and argues that the Court should reconsider and refine its definition of fatherhood around nurture. The corrective for the Court's current view is not to revert to a status-based definition of fatherhood, but rather to reinforce and recast its prior fathers' rights decisions to establish a definition grounded on relationship and care. What should be discarded are outdated stereotypes about men as incapable, incompetent caregivers, as well as patriarchal norms of status and ownership based in genetic and economic fatherhood recognized exclusively within marriage. Instead, fatherhood …

The Evolution Of “Fred”: Family Responsibilities Discrimination And Developments In The Law Of Stereotyping And Implicit Bias, Joan C. Williams, Stephanie Bornstein

Stephanie Bornstein

This Article integrates a discussion of current family responsibilities discrimination ("FRD") case law with a discussion of the single most important recent development in the field: the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ("EEOC") 2007 issuance of Enforcement Guidance on caregiver discrimination. The Guidance concretely informs the public about what constitutes unlawful discrimination against caregivers under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, the Guidance crystallizes two key holdings from case law in regard to Title VII disparate treatment claims brought by caregivers: (1) where plaintiffs have evidence of gender stereotyping, they can make out a prima facie case …

Parentage At Birth: Birthfathers And Social Fatherhood, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

Deciding who should be a child's legal parents at birth seems a simple task. Instinctively, the answer is the child's biological mother and father. Historically, the answer would have been different depending on whether the child was born within a marriage or not; marriage trumped biology, at least with respect to fathers. A husband was generally presumed to be the father of a child born to his wife, even if there was no genetic connection. A number of changes have moved parentage away from the marital/genetic/patriarchal model that valued the marital family above genes or social fatherhood. Modern principles of …

Fatherhood And Equality: Reconfiguring Masculinities, Nancy E. Dowd

Nancy Dowd

In this article, Professor Dowd sets out the asymmetric pattern of men’s caretaking as compared to women’s caretaking, and raises the issue of why greater equality has not been achieved in care as women’s participation in the workforce has increased. She argues that not only is this linked to the lack of institutional and structural supports for parenthood, which leads to gendered outcomes in who does care, but in addition, and perhaps most importantly, the barrier to care is cultural, linked to masculinities norms. Dowd sets out the barriers to care linked to masculinities and suggests a further analysis linked …

The Payoffs And Pitfalls Of Laws That Encourage Shared Parenting: Lessons From The Australian Experience, Patrick Parkinson

Dalhousie Law Journal

A fierce argument is raging in various jurisdictions around the world about whether legislation should encourage shared parenting when mothers and fathers live apart. Much attention has been paid to changes to the law in Australia in 2006; however, there are many myths about the impact of those legislative changes. This article explains the changes and places them in the context of developments across the western world in the law of parenting after separation. It then reviews the research evidence on the effects of the 2006 reforms, particularly in terms of the encouragement of shared care. The article concludes by …

The Origin Of Parental Rights: Labor, Intent, And Fathers, Dara Purvis

Journal Articles

Most theories of parentage fail to explain the genesis of the right to parent - for example, why does a biological relationship generate parental rights? This Article shows that the law of parental rights mirrors theories of acquiring property, and that the law has shifted over time, from favoring a property right based in genetics to a Lockean theory of property rights earned through labor. The growth of Lockean labor-based theories is epitomized in reforms to parentage laws that incorporate functional theories of parenting, meaning that adults who perform caretaking work that creates a significant relationship with children are recognized …

Are Mothers Hazardous To Their Children’S Health?: Law, Culture, And The Framing Of Risk, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines the psychosocial processes of risk construction and explores how these processes intersect with core principles of Anglo-American law. It does so by critiquing current cultural and legal perceptions that mothers, especially pregnant women, pose a risk to their children’s health. The Article’s core argument is that during the last four decades, both American society and American law have increasingly come to view mothers as a primary source of risk to children. This intense focus on the threat of maternal harm ignores significant environmental sources of injury, including fathers and other men, as well as exposure to toxic …

Forgotten Fathers, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

Poor fathers like John are largely forgotten, written off as a subset of the unworthy poor. These fathers struggle with poverty – often with near hopelessness – within multiple systems in which they are either entangled or overlooked, such as child-support and welfare programs, family courts, the criminal justice system, housing programs, and the healthcare, education, and foster-care systems. For these impoverished fathers, the “end of men” is often not simply a question for purposes of discussion but a fact that is all too real. In the instances in which poor fathers are not forgotten, they are targeted as causes …

Fatherhood And Equality: Reconfiguring Masculinities, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this article, Professor Dowd sets out the asymmetric pattern of men’s caretaking as compared to women’s caretaking, and raises the issue of why greater equality has not been achieved in care as women’s participation in the workforce has increased. She argues that not only is this linked to the lack of institutional and structural supports for parenthood, which leads to gendered outcomes in who does care, but in addition, and perhaps most importantly, the barrier to care is cultural, linked to masculinities norms. Dowd sets out the barriers to care linked to masculinities and suggests a further analysis linked …

Representing Parents In Child Welfare Cases, Vivek Sankaran

Book Chapters

A parent's constitutional right to raise his or her child is one of the most venerated liberty interests safeguarded by the Constitution and the courts.2 The law presumes parents to be fit, and it establishes that they do not need to be model parents to retain custody of their children.3 If the state seeks to interfere with the parent-child relationship, the Constitution mandates that the state: (1) prove parental unfitness, a standard defined by state laws; and (2) follow certain procedures protecting the due process rights of parents. The constitutional framework for child welfare cases is premised on the belief …

The Evolution Of “Fred”: Family Responsibilities Discrimination And Developments In The Law Of Stereotyping And Implicit Bias, Joan C. Williams, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article integrates a discussion of current family responsibilities discrimination ("FRD") case law with a discussion of the single most important recent development in the field: the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ("EEOC") 2007 issuance of Enforcement Guidance on caregiver discrimination. The Guidance concretely informs the public about what constitutes unlawful discrimination against caregivers under Title VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, the Guidance crystallizes two key holdings from case law in regard to Title VII disparate treatment claims brought by caregivers: (1) where plaintiffs have evidence of gender stereotyping, they can make out a prima facie case …

Advocating For The Constitutional Rights Of Nonresident Fathers, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

Months after a child welaare case is petitioned, a nonresident father appears in court and requests custody of his children who are living in foster care. Little is known about the father, and immediately, the system-judge, caseworkers, and attorneys view him with suspicion and caution, inquiring about his whereabouts and his prior involvement in the children's lives. Those doubts, in turn, raise complicated questions about his legal rights to his children. As a practioner working in the child welfare system, you're likely to face this scenario. The largest percentage of child victims of abuse and neglect come from households headed …

Final Version: The Case For The Genetic Parent: Stanley, Quilloin, Caban, Lehr, And Michael H. Revisited, Anthony Miller

Anthony Miller

Does a genetic parent have right to exercise the fundamental rights which the United States Constitution affords parents? If a lesbian couple has a child with one woman donating the ova, which is artificially inseminated and implanted in the other woman, is the donor woman a mother under the Constitution? If sometime in the future a heterosexual couple has a child through the process if in vitro fertilization and through the use of an artificial womb, would the woman and man be the child’s mother and father for constitutional purposes? While the United States Supreme Court has recognized that parents …

Review Of Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution In Child Support Enforcement, By Irwin Garfinkel, Sara S. Mclanahan, Daniel R. Meyer, And Judith A. Seltzer, Ryan E. Spohn

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The title of this book adequately reflects its timely focus on nonresidential fathers facing increased child support enforcement, examining how child support contributions (or failure to meet child support obligations) affect the lives of children as well as the fathers themselves. As the authors suggest, nonresident fathers have generally been treated as financial resources, with little attention paid to their rights as parents or their needs as providers for their children. A particular focus of this collection of studies is the role of indigent nonresident fathers and their role as parents and providers. Consequently, the scope of study adopted by …

Parentage At Birth: Birthfathers And Social Fatherhood, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Deciding who should be a child's legal parents at birth seems a simple task. Instinctively, the answer is the child's biological mother and father. Historically, the answer would have been different depending on whether the child was born within a marriage or not; marriage trumped biology, at least with respect to fathers. A husband was generally presumed to be the father of a child born to his wife, even if there was no genetic connection. A number of changes have moved parentage away from the marital/genetic/patriarchal model that valued the marital family above genes or social fatherhood. Modern principles of …

The Rights Of Putative Fathers To Their Infant Children In Contested Adoptions: Strengthening State Laws That Currently Deny Adequate Protection, Robbin Pott Gonzalez

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This paper argues that states need to strengthen protection of putative fathers' rights to their infant children when the mother wishes for the child to be adopted. Part I frames the discussion around established parental rights through constitutional case law. To do this, the paper addresses both the Supreme Court's parental rights doctrine and its biology-plus doctrine, which requires unwed fathers to show that in addition to being the biological father they also have taken responsibility for their children. Part II describes common state statutes that affect putative fathers, including putative father registries, safe haven laws, and laws granting custody …

Addressing Putative Fathers In Child Protection Proceedings: Is 'John Doe' Still Alive?, Frank E. Vandervort, W. Lansat

Articles

In practice, it seems, KH is not widely understood. Child protection petitions for temporary custody continue to name multiple men as the "father" of a child when there is a legal father. Some courts insist on terminating the parental rights of "John Doe" when no man has established paternity. After KH, are such actions necessary? Are they permissible?

Fathers And The Supreme Court: Founding Fathers And Nuturing Fathers, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article critiques the Supreme Court's negative, stereotypic views of fatherhood, especially unmarried fatherhood, and argues that the Court should reconsider and refine its definition of fatherhood around nurture. The corrective for the Court's current view is not to revert to a status-based definition of fatherhood, but rather to reinforce and recast its prior fathers' rights decisions to establish a definition grounded on relationship and care. What should be discarded are outdated stereotypes about men as incapable, incompetent caregivers, as well as patriarchal norms of status and ownership based in genetic and economic fatherhood recognized exclusively within marriage. Instead, fatherhood …

Daddy Dilemmas: Untangling The Puzzles Of Paternity, Donald C. Hubin

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Key Determinants Of A Mother's Decision To File For Child Support, Janice Laakso

Social Work & Criminal Justice Publications

About one-third of custodial mothers choose not to pursue a child support award even though It can be a significant source of Income. A qualitative study was conducted with 43 mothers who have each had at least one child In a nonmarital relationship, to learn more about how mothers make the decision to file or not file for child support The findings Indicate that a key determinant In a mother's decision Is the quality of her relationship with the father: A mother is less likely to file when the relationship Is good and more likely to file when the relationship …

The Alienation Of Fathers, Linda Kelly

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

By evaluating immigration and custody law from a father's perspective and thereby uncovering and addressing the biases held against men, both fathers and mothers will achieve greater recognition. Beyond revealing gender discrimination, such a study also demonstrates the disparate views still harbored toward unmarried parents. Examining custody and immigration law with an emphasis on these issues will hopefully foster a dialogue that brings the law in line with the reality of today's families and promotes each family member's individual potential.