Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Ochoa, Big Ten Law Deans Pledge Support For Diversity Ahead Of Scotus Affirmative Action Ruling, The Indiana Lawyer

Christiana Ochoa (7/22-10/22 Acting; 11/2022-)

s the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hand down a decision that could fundamentally alter affirmative action, a group of law school deans — including Dean Christiana Ochoa of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law — has issued a statement affirming the deans’ commitment to diversity.

The group of 15 deans represent Big Ten law schools, including IU Maurer. In their statement — which IU Maurer posted to its official Facebook page — the deans say they are “joining together to affirm our commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion through legally permissible means, regardless of the outcome of …

Indiana Law Faculty Member’S Book Honored With Ippy, Other Awards, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

Nearly a year to the day since it was published, a book from incoming Indiana University Maurer School of Law faculty member has earned an Independent Publisher Book Award (“IPPY.”)

Professor Valena Beety’s Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights won the Gold Medal in Women’s Issues. Since 1997, the Independent Publisher Book Awards have been recognizing the best independently published books each year.

Released on May 30, 2022, Beety’s book has already won two other prestigious awards—the Montaigne Medal and the Sarton Nonfiction Award—this spring.

“Professor Beety is a tremendous teacher and scholar, and we’re proud to see …

Bostock And Contact Theory: How Will A Single U.S. Supreme Court Decision Reduce Prejudice Against Lgbtq People?, Mantas Grigorovicius

Indiana Law Journal

In 1954, Gordon Allport, one of the nation’s leading social psychologists, laid out a hypothesis explaining how prejudice could be reduced by intergroup contact. Decades later, his hypothesis became a theory with thousands of research hours behind it. Under contact theory, one of the factors that facilitates a reduction in prejudice between two groups is support of authorities or law. This Comment focuses on Bostock v. Clayton County, a recent Supreme Court decision holding that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Allport suggested that antidiscrimination laws help to “lead and guide the folkways,” and this Comment explores how …

Does U.S. Federal Employment Law Now Cover Caste Discrimination Based On Untouchability?: If All Else Fails There Is The Possible Application Of Bostock V. Clayton County, Kevin D. Brown, Lalit Khandare, Annapurna Waughray, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Theodore M. Shaw

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article discusses the issue of whether a victim of caste discrimination based on untouchability can assert a claim of intentional employment discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981. This article contends that there are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is a form of religious discrimination under Title VII. The question of whether caste discrimination is a form of race or national origin discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981 depends upon how the courts apply these definitions to caste discrimination based on untouchability. There are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is recognized within the concept …

Menstruation Discrimination And The Problem Of Shadow Precedents, Deborah Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A burgeoning menstrual justice movement calls attention to menstruation-related discrimination in workplaces, schools, prisons, and many other aspects of life. In recent years, a few courts have suggested such discrimination could violate Title VII, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in employment. Their analysis focuses on the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), an amendment to Title VII passed to override a Supreme Court case that had held pregnancy discrimination was not sex discrimination.

This essay, written for a symposium at Columbia Law School, applies my earlier research on the statutory interpretation of Congressional overrides to highlight two potential challenges this …

Unilateral Burdens And Third-Party Harms: Abortion Conscience Laws As Policy Outliers, Nadia Sawicki

Indiana Law Journal

Most conscience laws establish nearly absolute protections for health care providers unwilling to participate in abortion. Providers’ rights to refuse—and relatedly, their immunity from civil liability, employment discrimination, and other adverse consequences—are often unqualified, even in situations where patients are likely to be harmed. These laws impose unilateral burdens on third parties in an effort to protect the rights of conscientious refusers. As such, they are outliers in the universe of federal and state anti-discrimination and religious freedom statutes, all of which strike a more even balance between individual rights and the prevention of harm to third parties. This Article …

O Brother Where Art Thou? The Struggles Of African American Men In The Global Economy Of The Information Age, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

As early as the late 1980’s, William Wilson argued that widespread economic transitions had altered the socioeconomic structure of American inner cities to the detriment of African Americans. Wilson identified declines in manufacturing work and its replacement with poorly compensated service sector work as driving racial segregation and leaving African Americans jobless, poor and alienated from American society. These transitions were particularly problematic for African American men since manufacturing work was their primary gateway to middle-class employment while African American women had already focused more on service work.

Since the initial exposition of Wilson’s theory of deindustrialization, Wilson’s framework of …

There’S Nothing Worse Than Losing To A Girl: An Analysis Of Sex Segregation In American Youth Sports, Julia Konieczny

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Reevaluating Politicized Identity & Notions Of An American Political Community In The Legal & Political Process, Marvin L. Astrada Jd, Phd

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Gender Disparities In Plea Bargaining, Carlos Berdejo

Indiana Law Journal

Across wide-ranging contexts, academic literature and the popular press have identified pervasive gender disparities favoring men over women in society. One area in which gender disparities have conversely favored women is the criminal justice system. Most of the empirical research examining gender disparities in criminal case outcomes has focused on judges’ sentencing decisions. Few studies have assessed disparities in the steps leading up to a defendant’s conviction, where various actors make choices that constrain judges’ ultimate sentencing discretion. This Article addresses this gap by examining gender disparities in the plea-bargaining process. The results presented in this Article reveal significant gender …

The Compliance Process, Veronica Root

Indiana Law Journal

Even as regulators and prosecutors proclaim the importance of effective compliance programs, failures persist. Organizations fail to ensure that they and their agents comply with legal and regulatory requirements, industry practices, and their own internal policies and norms. From the companies that provide our news, to the financial institutions that serve as our bankers, to the corporations that make our cars, compliance programs fail to prevent misconduct each and every day. The causes of these compliance failures are multifaceted and include general enforcement deficiencies, difficulties associated with overseeing compliance programs within complex organizations, and failures to establish a culture of …

Beyond The Numbers: Substantive Gender Diversity In Boardrooms, Yaron G. Nili

Indiana Law Journal

The push for gender diversity on public companies’ boards has been gaining traction. Advocacy groups, institutional investors, regulators, and companies themselves have all recognized the need for more diverse boards. However, gender parity is still absent from most public companies’ boards, and a significant number of companies still have no women on their boards.

Current public and academic discourse has focused on the number of women serving on the board and their percentage compared to men as the litmus test for gender diversity. However, academic studies and the public push for more diversity have mostly failed to account for another …

We Are All Farkhunda: An Examination Of The Treatment Of Women Within Afghanistan's Formal Legal System, Ashley Lenderman

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

In this paper, I will examine three cases of violence against women that went through the Afghan formal legal system: the case of Farkhunda, the Paghman district gang rape case, and the case of Sahar Gul. In the first Part, I will discuss the formal legal system framework on which the cases are based. In the second Part, I will discuss the cases in detail. In the third Part, I will describe neo-liberal, reformist, and neo-fundamentalist approaches to interpretation of Islamic law, and I will then draw out pieces of the decisions from the three cases that closely match these …

Legitimacy And Protection Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination Under Title Vii, Matt Snodgrass

Indiana Law Journal

Until relatively recently federal courts have held that claims of discrimination based in sexual orientation fall beyond the purview of Title VII protection. Even after the landmark holding in Price Waterhouse that recognized discrimination based in sex stereotypes and subsequent amendment to Title VII, courts resisted “bootstrapping” sexual orientation claims with sex discrimination claims. The result has been a number of puzzling outcomes—for example, extending Title VII protection to gay men who received adverse employment treatment due to stereotypically “effeminate” mannerism but not to gay men who meet cultural standards of masculinity— rigidly applying the structure of protected categories in …

Gender Equality Menace Under Liberia Domestic Relations Law, Yah-Yeplah Dolo-Barbu

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Like most Africa countries, Liberia has a dual legal system, that is, the customary and statutory. Cultural and traditional practices influence some of the laws. Laws in both legal systems discriminate against women in overt ways, especially laws that deal with the private sphere, such as marriage, divorce, custody, domestic violence, property, legitimacy, and inheritance. This dissertation seeks to identify inequality in the Liberian Domestic Relation laws that arise from facially discriminatory laws, facially neutral laws and omissions in the law. It also posits that the court’s role in interpreting these issues has been inadequate, and the legislature is reluctant …

Dissenting From History: The False Narratives Of The Obergefell Dissents, Christopher R. Leslie

Indiana Law Journal

According to a quote attributed to numerous philosophers and political leaders, “History is written by victors.”1 In the legal battle over same-sex marriage, those opposed to marriage equality have attempted to disprove this age-old adage. In response to the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges—which held that state laws banning same-sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment—each of the four dissenting Justices issued his own dissenting opinion. Every one of these dissents misrepresented the circumstances and precedent leading up to the Obergefell decision. Collectively, the Obergefell dissenters have valiantly tried to rewrite America’s legal, constitutional, and social history, all in an …

Discrimination In Baby Making: The Unconstitutional Treatment Of Prospective Parents Through Surrogacy, Andrea B. Carroll

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

How Parents Are Made: A Response To Discrimination In Baby Making: The Unconstitutional Treatment Of Prospective Parents Through Surrogacy, Kimberly M. Mutcherson

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

Hierarchies Of Discrimination In Baby Making: A Response To Professor Carroll, Radhika Rao

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

Introduction: Effects Of Global Developments On Gender And The Legal Practice, Gabriele Plickert

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Women in Legal Practice: Global and Local Perspectives, Symposium, June 5-8, 2012. Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association.

Gender And Global Lawyering: Where Are The Women?, Steven A. Boutcher, Carole Silver

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The dual forces of globalization and support for diversity in the legal profession are responsible for significant growth among U.S. law firms. Both women lawyers and those educated outside of the U.S. have been important elements facilitating the global trajectories of U.S. firms, but the interaction between the two has not been the subject of substantial research. We address this gap by drawing on an original dataset of lawyer biographies, and consider whether career strategies that involve the international mobility of lawyers are equally powerful for women and men. Our research suggests that globalization of large firm practice has not …

Women In The Legal Profession, 1970-2010: A Study Of The Global Supply Of Lawyers, Ethan Michelson

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article represents the first effort to measure the changing global supply and composition of lawyers over a period of several decades. In it I assemble data on lawyer populations and gender compositions from eighty-six countries and use them to calculate estimates for the rest of the world in order to paint a truly global picture of the changing supply of lawyers in general and of female lawyers in particular. Most of the data supporting my analyses come from a unique and hitherto untapped source: individual-level census data. Results reveal a clear sequence in the global process of lawyer feminization. …

Parenthood Status And Compensation In Law Practice, Nancy Reichman, Joyce Sterling

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article asks how cultural frameworks of status influence the evaluation of performance including compensation and advancement of lawyers who were seven years into their practice. We borrow from the work on status expectations that goes beyond gender distinctions and assesses whether the concept of motherhood has a negative impact on assessment of female lawyers. Status expectations theory hypothesizes that mothers are valued less because they are less committed to the workplace and thus receive a motherhood penalty while men receive a fatherhood bonus in compensation decisions. Employing data from the After The JD study, we test the impact of …

The Impact Of The Economic Downturn On Women Lawyers In The United States, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Abigail Kolker

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Although women have made considerable inroads in the legal profession over the past four decades, a review of their distribution in various types of practice in the United States shows that, compared to their male colleagues, they have been affected disproportionately by the recent economic downturn, although not in every sphere of the profession. This study reviews research, articles in the legal press, and online blogs that report women's access to equity partnerships has been stalled, their representation in part-time employment has increased, and they are disproportionately recruited or diverted to positions as staff or contract attorneys. Women's access to …

Gender And Difference Among Brazilian Lawyers And Judges: Public And Private Practice In The Global Periphery, Maria Da Gloria Bonelli

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article examines the ways in which Brazilian lawyers and judges experience difference. It focuses on how gender and diversity intersect in identity formation among women and men in public and private practice in the state of Sdo Paulo, Brazil. In attempting not to attach one fixed meaning to the concept of difference, the research works with Avtar Brah's typology, which aids in detecting how difference is perceived and experienced by the interviewees. The results provide a look at the specificities of professional practice in the global periphery, comparing the gender composition of law firms and gender stratification within legal …

"Why Is Gender A Form Of Diversity?": Rising Advantages For Women In Global Indian Law Firms, Swethaa Ballakrishnen

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Women in Legal Practice: Global and Local Perspectives, Symposium, June 5-8, 2012. Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association.

Afterward: A Comparative Look At The Status Of Women In The Legal Profession, Carroll Seron

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Women in Legal Practice: Global and Local Perspectives, Symposium, June 5-8, 2012. Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association.

Neither A Pedestal Nor A Cage: In Pursuit Of Genuine Gender Equality In The Philippine Workplace, Emily Sanchez Salcedo

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

For seven straight years since 2006, the Philippines ranked among the top ten countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index that rates countries based on their ability to close the gender gap in four fundamental categories, to wit: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. At eighth place, the country leads the rest of Asia and proudly shares the top spot in educational attainment and health and survival while managing to land in the top twenty in terms of economic participation and opportunity and political empowerment. While these rankings warm the …

Redefining The Black Face Of Affirmative Action: The Impact On Ascendant Black Women, Kevin D. Brown, Renee E. Turner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The racial and ethnic ancestries of blacks benefiting from affirmative action is changing, as foreign-born blacks and blacks with a non-black parent constitute disproportionately large percentages of blacks attending many selective higher education institutions. Coupled with the challenges arising from the educational achievement levels of black males during the past two decades, Brown and Turner examine the implication of these developments and the likelihood that they are creating further disadvantages for black women lawyers.

Why Don't "Reasonable Women" Complain About Sexual Harassment?, L. Camille Hébert

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.