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Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons™

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Law and Gender

Saint Louis University School of Law

Articles 1 - 17 of 17

Full-Text Articles in Civil Rights and Discrimination

The Misguided Use Of The Harvard/Unc Ruling To Thwart Law Firm And Other Private Employer Dei Efforts, Ronald A. Norwood Apr 2024

The Misguided Use Of The Harvard/Unc Ruling To Thwart Law Firm And Other Private Employer Dei Efforts, Ronald A. Norwood

SLU Law Journal Online

This article explores the Harvard/UNC ruling and what, in the author’s view, is the misguided efforts by certain political and well-financed private actors to use that ruling to justify the eradication of private employers and law firm DEI efforts. It is the author’s firm belief that because the Supreme Court’s holding is limited to an analysis of the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause (limited to state actors) and Title VI (covering private actions receiving federal funding), that ruling should not be used by courts to quash DEI programs designed to level the employment playing field for minorities, women and other protected …

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Colonizing Queerness, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2024

Colonizing Queerness, Jeremiah A. Ho

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This Article investigates how and why the cultural script of inequality persists for queer identities despite major legal advancements such as marriage, anti-discrimination, and employment protections. By regarding LGBTQ legal advancements as part of the American settler colonial project, I conclude that such victories are not liberatory or empowering but are attempts at colonizing queer identities. American settler colonialism’s structural promotion of a normative sexuality illustrates how our settler colonialist legacy is not just a race project (as settler colonialism is most widely studied) but also a race-gender-sexuality project. Even in apparent strokes of progress, American settler colonialism’s eliminationist motives …

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Second-Tier Marriages, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2024

Second-Tier Marriages, Jeremiah A. Ho

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This Essay interrogates the reasoning behind the retrenchment toward LGBTQ rights progress that has taken place since marriage equality. With marriage rights for same-sex couples now "on the books," the Supreme Court's treatment of same-sex couples in both Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm'n and 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis reveals the status quo's hesitancy to recognize same-sex relationships on equal footing. Retrenchment, however, only describes the moment itself; it alludes to but offers no comprehensive or satisfying theory that identifies the motives behind the moves. This Essay theorizes from within the context of the Supreme Court's LGBTQ …

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Brief Amici Curiae Legal Scholars Of Sex And Gender In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellant, Kyle Velte, Ezra Young, Jeremiah A. Ho, M. Dru Levasseur, Nancy C. Marcus, Dara E. Purvis, Eliot Tracz, Ann E. Tweedy Jan 2023

Brief Amici Curiae Legal Scholars Of Sex And Gender In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellant, Kyle Velte, Ezra Young, Jeremiah A. Ho, M. Dru Levasseur, Nancy C. Marcus, Dara E. Purvis, Eliot Tracz, Ann E. Tweedy

All Faculty Scholarship

This amicus brief was filed in Griffith v. El Paso County, Colorado, case no. 23-1135 (10th Circuit) in support of appellant Darlene Griffith. Amici curiae are legal scholars of sex and gender. They offer
expertise in their personal capacities to assist the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in assessing whether the El Paso County Sheriff officials violated Ms. Griffith’s Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection when they refused to house Ms. Griffith, a transgender woman, in the women's unit of the El Paso County Jail as a pretrial detainee.

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Queering Bostock, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2021

Queering Bostock, Jeremiah A. Ho

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Although the Supreme Court’s 2020 Title VII decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, is a victory for LGBTQ individuals, its doctrinal limitations unavoidably preserve a discriminatory status quo. This Article critically examines how and why Bostock fails to highlight the indignities experienced by queer minorities under decades of employment discrimination. In Bostock, Justice Gorsuch presents a sweeping textualist interpretation of Title VII that protects against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. Yet, the decision sparsely recognizes queer lived experiences, compared to prior pro-LGBTQ cases where such recognition contributed to developing an anti-stereotyping framework that confronted some of the heteronormative biases …

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Queer Sacrifice In Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2020

Queer Sacrifice In Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jeremiah A. Ho

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This Article interprets the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, as a critical extension of Derrick Bell’s interest convergence thesis into the LGBTQ movement. Chiefly, Masterpiece reveals how the Court has been more willing to accommodate gay individuals who appear more assimilated and respectable—such as those who participated in the marriage equality decisions—than LGBTQ individuals who are less “mainstream” and whose exhibited queerness appear threatening to the heteronormative status quo. When assimilated same-sex couples sought marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, their respectable personas facilitated the alignment between their interests to marry and the Court’s …

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Find Out What It Means To Me: The Politics Of Respect And Dignity In Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2017

Find Out What It Means To Me: The Politics Of Respect And Dignity In Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination, Jeremiah A. Ho

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This accompanying article considers the state of LGBTQ equality after the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. Specifically, by examining this upsurge of social visibility for same-sex couples as both acceptance of sexual minorities and cultural assimilation, the article finds that the marriage cases at the Supreme Court — Obergefell and U.S. v. Windsor — shifted the framing of gay rights from the politics of respect that appeared more than a decade ago in Lawrence v. Texas toward a politics of respectability. The article traces this regression in Justice Kennedy’s own definition of dignity from Lawrence, where …

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Once We're Done Honeymooning: Obergefell V. Hodges, Incrementalism, And Advances For Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2016

Once We're Done Honeymooning: Obergefell V. Hodges, Incrementalism, And Advances For Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination, Jeremiah A. Ho

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Undoubtedly, the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is the watershed civil rights decision of our time. Since U.S. v. Windsor, each recent victory for same-sex couples in the federal courts evidenced that the legal recognition of same-sex marriages in the U.S. was becoming increasingly secure. Meanwhile, momentum was growing for the visibility of sexual minorities nationally. Yet, is marriage equality the last stop in the pro-LGBTQ movement, or should we expect sexual minorities to advance in other legal arenas? Should we expect that the recent strides in marriage equality from Windsor to Obergefell can somehow leverage …

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To Count And Be Counted: A Response To Professor Levinson, Marcia L. Mccormick Jan 2014

To Count And Be Counted: A Response To Professor Levinson, Marcia L. Mccormick

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This Essay deepens the discussion Professor Levinson began in his lecture for the Richard J. Childress Memorial Lecture at SLU Law, Who Counts?. Professor Levinson explored the question of who counts as a member of the US community, and who gets to decide who counts. Inevitably, given our history of exclusion on the basis of race and sex, questions about belonging and race and sex form a central part of the current debate. Labeling a person with a race and sex presupposes the questions of what makes a person a certain race or sex? This essay explores what identity …

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Weather Permitting: Incrementalism, Animus, And The Art Of Forecasting Marriage Equality After U.S. V. Windsor, Jeremiah A. Ho Jan 2014

Weather Permitting: Incrementalism, Animus, And The Art Of Forecasting Marriage Equality After U.S. V. Windsor, Jeremiah A. Ho

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Within LGBT rights, the law is abandoning essentialist approaches toward sexual orientation by incrementally de-regulating restrictions on identity expression of sexual minorities. Simultaneously, same-sex marriages are become increasingly recognized on both state and federal levels. This Article examines the Supreme Court’s recent decision, U.S. v. Windsor, as the latest example of these parallel journeys. By overturning DOMA, Windsor normatively revises the previous incrementalist theory for forecasting marriage equality’s progress studied by William Eskridge, Kees Waaldijk, and Yuval Merin. Windsor also represents a moment where the law is abandoning antigay essentialism by using animus-focused jurisprudence for lifting the discrimination against the …

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Constitutional Limitations On Closing The Gender Gap In Employment, Marcia L. Mccormick Jan 2013

Constitutional Limitations On Closing The Gender Gap In Employment, Marcia L. Mccormick

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Despite our country’s efforts to eliminate it, there remain pay and achievement gaps between men and women in the workplace. This article summarizes legal approaches to close the gap, constitutional developments that have slowed government’s power to address the inequality, worrisome trends in recent cases, and the implications of these. This article proposes a future of utilizing congress’s taxing power to address inequalities.

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Implausible Injuries: Wal-Mart V. Dukes And The Future Of Class Actions And Employment Discrimination Cases, Marcia L. Mccormick Jan 2013

Implausible Injuries: Wal-Mart V. Dukes And The Future Of Class Actions And Employment Discrimination Cases, Marcia L. Mccormick

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In 2001, a class action suit was brought against Wal-Mart, where plaintiffs sought to certify a class of every woman who did work for the giant retailer or had worked for it since 1998, seeking relief related to promotion and pay policies. Plaintiffs alleged that they were all discriminated against on the basis of sex. The Supreme Court agreed with Wal-Mart, finding that the class did not meet requirements for class actions set by Rule 23. This article explores the reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s split decision that the class did not meet the commonality standard, which relied significantly on …

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Gender, Family, And Work, Marcia L. Mccormick Jan 2012

Gender, Family, And Work, Marcia L. Mccormick

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The country has prohibited sex discrimination since the 1960’s, but society continues to view women and men differently because women give birth, breastfeed, and are traditional caregivers. This article takes a historical look at court decisions and legislative efforts to address equality where men and women are not similarly situated and also explores recent developments and current debates, such as caregiver discrimination, lactation rooms and breaks, and the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. Despite the abundance of legislation and court decisions over the past forty years, much progress still needs to be made.

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Race, Sex And Genes At Work: Uncovering The Lessons Of Norman-Bloodsaw, Elizabeth Pendo Jan 2010

Race, Sex And Genes At Work: Uncovering The Lessons Of Norman-Bloodsaw, Elizabeth Pendo

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The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”) is the first federal, uniform protection against the use of genetic information in both the workplace and health insurance. Signed into law on May 21, 2008, GINA prohibits an employer or health insurer from acquiring or using an individual’s genetic information, with some exceptions. One of the goals of GINA is to eradicate actual, or perceived, discrimination based on genetic information in the workplace and in health insurance. Although the threat of genetic discrimination is often discussed in universal terms - as something that could happen to any of us - the …

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The Equality Paradise: Paradoxes Of The Law's Power To Advance Equality, Marcia L. Mccormick Jan 2006

The Equality Paradise: Paradoxes Of The Law's Power To Advance Equality, Marcia L. Mccormick

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This paper, written for Texas Wesleyan Law School's Gloucester Conference, ¿Too Pure an Air: Law and the Quest for Freedom, Justice, and Equality,¿ is a brief exploration of a broader project. Every civil rights movement must struggle with how to allocate scarce resources to accomplish the broadest change possible. This paper compares the legal and political strategies of the Black rights movement and the women's rights movement in the United States, comparing both the strategy choices and the results. These two movement followed essentially the same strategies. Where they have attained success and where each has failed demonstrates the limits …

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How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Cases): Gender Stereotypes And Sexual Harassment Since The Passage Of Title Vii, Miriam A. Cherry Jan 2004

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (Cases): Gender Stereotypes And Sexual Harassment Since The Passage Of Title Vii, Miriam A. Cherry

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This Article, which is part of a symposium on the 40th Anniversary of Title VII appearing in the Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal, evaluates the progress of women in the workforce by critically analyzing the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Written in the early 1960s and made into a 1967 movie, How to Succeed follows the adventures of J. Pierrepont Finch, a window washer who, with the aid of a sarcastic self-help book, schemes his way up the corporate ladder. It also includes the sexual exploits of the exclusively male executive corps among the female …

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Recognizing Violence Against Women: Gender And The Hate Crimes Statistics Act, Elizabeth Pendo Jan 1994

Recognizing Violence Against Women: Gender And The Hate Crimes Statistics Act, Elizabeth Pendo

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This article argues that acts of gender-based violence should be recognized under the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, and that certain types of violence against women, such as rape, are fundamentally gender-based. Part I examines the existing definition of hate crimes under the HCSA, and the exclusion of the majority of violence against women. Part II suggests gender should be included as a category under the HCSA because of the similar effects of violence directed at women due to gender, and violence directed at members of other groups because of their group identity. Using acquaintance rape as an example, …

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