Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Athletic Scholarships And Title Ix: Compliance Trends And Context, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article evaluates enforcement practices and compliance trends related to Title IX's requirement for gender equity in the distribution of athletic financial aid. It confirms that universities in the most competitive athletic programs continue to underfund women's athletic scholarships relative to the proportionality standard required by law. It also confirms that the under-allocation of women's athletic opportunities at universities across divisions results in additional disparities in scholarship funding that is not captured by an analysis of compliance. This Article concludes with suggestions that the government clarifies its expectations and enforcement priorities. It further calls for regulators, scholars, and advocates to …

Covid-19 And Lgbt Rights, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Even in the best of times, LGBT individuals have legal vulnerabilities in employment, housing, healthcare and other domains resulting from a combination of persistent bias and uneven protection against discrimination. In this time of COVID-19, these vulnerabilities combine to amplify both the legal and health risks that LGBT people face.

This essay focuses on several risks that are particularly linked to being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, with the recognition that these vulnerabilities are often intensified by discrimination based on race, ethnicity, age, disability, immigration status and other aspects of identity. Topics include: 1) federal withdrawal of antidiscrimination protections; 2) …

Law Symposium: Adjudicating Sexual Misconduct On Campus: Title Ix And Due Process In Uncertain Times, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Grappling With Law On Campus Sexual Misconduct 11-08-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Talking About Black Lives Matter And #Metoo, Bridget J. Crawford, Linda S. Greene, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Mehrsa Baradaran, Noa Ben-Asher, I. Bennett Capers, Osamudia R. James, Keisha Lindsay

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This essay explores the apparent differences and similarities between the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements. In April 2019, the Wisconsin Journal of Gender, Law and Society hosted a symposium entitled “Race-Ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Black Lives Matter and the Role of Intersectional Legal Analysis in the Twenty-First Century.” That program facilitated examination of the historical antecedents, cultural contexts, methods, and goals of these linked equality movements. Conversations continued among the symposium participants long after the end of the official program. In this essay, the symposium’s speakers memorialize their robust conversations and also dive more deeply into the phenomena, …

Law School News: Roger Williams Celebrates Pride 06-17-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu Law News: The E-Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (June 2019), Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: 'Hate And Bigotry Have No Place In America' April 18, 2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

2nd Annual Stonewall Lecture 04-16-2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

#Metoo, Statutory Rape Laws, And The Persistence Of Gender Stereotypes, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article proceeds in five parts. Part I reviews the history of the legal and social movement from gender-specific to gender-neutral statutory rape laws. This Part includes an exploration of critical scholarship responding to the Supreme Court's Michael M. decision. Part II explains the limitations of gender-specific legislation. This Part illustrates that there are two categories of gender-neutral statutory rape jurisdictions: age-differential statutes and arbitrary prosecution statutes. This Part also explores challenges to these statutes, particularly arbitrary prosecution statutes, on equal protection grounds. Part III provides empirical data that men are prosecuted at a rate four times greater than females …

Talking About Black Lives Matter And #Metoo, Linda S. Greene, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Bridget J. Crawford, Mehrsa Baradaran, Noa Ben-Asher, I. Bennett Capers, Osamudia R. James, Keisha Lindsay

Publications

This essay explores the apparent differences and similarities between the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements. In April 2019, the Wisconsin Journal of Gender, Law and Society hosted a symposium entitled “Race-Ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Black Lives Matter and the Role of Intersectional Legal Analysis in the Twenty-First Century.” That program facilitated examination of the historical antecedents, cultural contexts, methods, and goals of these linked equality movements. Conversations continued among the symposium participants long after the end of the official program. In this essay, the symposium’s speakers memorialize their robust conversations and also dive more deeply into the phenomena, …

The Critical Tax Project, Feminist Theory, And Rewriting Judicial Opinions, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Articles

In this essay, the authors discuss the intellectual foundations for their co-edited book, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions (2017), the first in a series of subject-matter specific volumes published in the U.S. Feminist Judgments Series by Cambridge University Press. Using only the facts and precedents in existence at the time of the original opinion, the contributors to this and other feminist judgments projects around the globe seek to show how application of feminist perspectives could impact, or even change, the holding or reasoning of judicial decisions. Underlying Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions is the belief that the study of taxation …

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Diana Hassel's Blog: How Will Supreme Court Slice Wedding Cake Case 01-11-2018, Diana Hassel

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Arguing With The Building Inspector About Gender-Neutral Bathrooms, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

Conventional interpretations of building codes are among the greatest barriers to building the gender-neutral bathrooms of the future. Focusing on the example of schools, this Essay argues for a reinterpretation of the International Building Code in light of its policy goals: safe, private, and equitable access to public bathrooms. Under this reinterpretation, the Code allows all public bathrooms to be gender-neutral.

Master File, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. V. Colo. Civil Rights Comm., __ U.S. __ (2017): Legislative History Of Sb08-200, Matt Simonsen

Research Data

This Master File of the legislative history of a 2008 amendment to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) was researched and compiled by Matt Simonsen, J.D. Candidate 2019, University of Colorado Law School, and submitted to law professors Craig Konnoth and Melissa Hart. The SB08-200 Master File is cited in Brief of Amici Curiae Colorado Organizations and Individuals in Support of Respondents, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, __U.S.__ (2018) (No. 16-111).

449 p.

Introduction To Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Book Chapters

Could a feminist perspective change the shape of the tax law? Most people understand that feminist reasoning has tremendous potential to affect, for example, the law of employment discrimination, sexual harassment, and reproductive rights. Few people may be aware, however, that feminist analysis can likewise transform tax law (as well as other statutory or code-based areas of the law). By highlighting the importance of perspective, background, and preconceptions on the reading and interpretation of statutes, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions shows what a difference feminist analysis can make to statutory interpretation. This volume, part of the Feminist Judgments Series, brings …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Lorraine Lalli's Post: Judge Reeves On Racial Violence, Same-Sex Marriage, 01/12/2016, Lorraine Lalli

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Two Laws Of Sex Stereotyping, Noa Ben-Asher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article offers two main contributions to the study of sex stereotyping. First, it identifies an organizing principle that explains why some forms of sex stereotyping are today legally prohibited while others are not. Second, it argues for a shift in the current rights framework--from equal opportunity to individual liberty--that could assist courts and other legal actors to appreciate the harms of currently permissible forms of sex stereotyping. Commentators and courts have long observed that the law of sex stereotyping has many inconsistencies. For instance, it is lawful today for the state to require that unwed biological fathers, but not …

The Global Struggle For Lgbtq Rights: Legal, Political, And Social Dimensions, Macarena Saez

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Controversies In Tax Law: A Matter Of Perspective (Introduction), Anthony C. Infanti

Book Chapters

This volume presents a new approach to today’s tax controversies, reflecting that debates about taxation often turn on the differing worldviews of the debate participants. For instance, a central tension in the academic tax literature — which is filtering into everyday discussions of tax law — exists between “mainstream” and “critical” tax theorists. This tension results from a clash of perspectives: Is taxation primarily a matter of social science or social justice? Should tax policy debates be grounded in economics or in critical race, feminist, queer, and other outsider perspectives?

To capture and interrogate what often seems like a chasm …

Reconsidering Legal Regulation Of Race, Sex, And Sexual Orientation, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

A Critical Research Agenda For Wills, Trusts And Estates, Bridget J. Crawford, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

The law of wills, trusts, and estates could benefit from consideration of its development and impact on people of color; women of all colors; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered individuals; low-income and poor individuals; the disabled; and nontraditional families. One can measure the law’s commitment to justice and equality by understanding the impact on these historically disempowered groups of the laws of intestacy, spousal rights, child protection, will formalities, will contests, and will construction; the creation, operation and construction of trusts; fiduciary administration; creditors’ rights; asset protection; nonprobate transfers; planning for incapacity and death; and wealth transfer taxation. This essay …

Pauli Murray And The Twentieth-Century Quest For Legal And Social Equality, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Inward And Upward: Lessons On Law And Social Inequality From The Troubling Case Of Women Coaches, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

In the Title IX success story, women’s opportunities in coaching jobs have not kept pace with the striking gains made by female athletes. Women’s share of jobs coaching female athletes has declined substantially in the years since the law was enacted, moving from more than 90% to below 43% today. As a case study, the situation of women coaches contains important lessons about the ability of discrimination law to promote social equality. This article highlights one feature of bias against women coaches — gender bias by female athletes — as a counter-paradigm that presents a challenge to the dominant frame …

Unprotected Sex: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act At 35, Deborah L. Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

Articles

Thirty-five years ago, Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to overturn a Supreme Court decision refusing to recognize pregnancy discrimination as a form of discrimination based on sex. Now, three and a half decades later, women whose work lives are impacted by pregnancy are again finding themselves unprotected from discrimination. Lower court rulings have eviscerated the Act’s protections at the same time that an expansion of worker rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act should redound to the benefit of pregnant women by expanding the pool of comparators who receive accommodations. By following trends in discrimination law generally - equating …

Civil Rights Reform And The Body, Tobias Barrington Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

Discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression has emerged as a major focus of civil rights reform. Opponents of these reforms have structured their opposition around one dominant image: the bathroom. With striking consistency, opponents have invoked anxiety over the bathroom -- who uses bathrooms, what happens in bathrooms, and what traumas one might experience while occupying a bathroom -- as the reason to permit discrimination in the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. This rhetoric of the bathroom in the debate over gender-identity protections seeks to exploit an underlying anxiety that has played a role in …

Lgbt Taxpayers: A Collision Of 'Others', Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

In this essay prepared for a symposium on the intersection of tax law with gender and sexuality, I explore the violent collision of these two concepts - or, more appropriately, these two “others.” I begin my exploration of this collision of “others” by first explaining how the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community is a marginalized “other” in American society while, in contrast, tax is a privileged “other” in the realm of American law. Then, I turn to a close examination of a recent case, O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner, to illustrate the collision of the otherness of LGBT individuals with …

Sport And Masculinity: The Promise And Limits Of Title Ix, Deborah Brake

Book Chapters

This paper uses the lens of masculinities theory to examine the connections between sport and masculinity and considers how law both reinforces and intervenes in sport’s production of masculinity. The paper urges moving beyond a "women vs. men" framework for examining gender equality in sport to include critical study of sport’s relationship to masculinities. The primary law examined in this chapter is Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972, which is widely (and properly) credited with the explosive growth of women’s sports in the intervening decades. While Title IX has greatly expanded the range of culturally valued femininities for …

Inequitable Administration: Documenting Family For Tax Purposes, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

Family can bring us joy, and it can bring us grief. It can also bring us tax benefits and tax detriments. Often, as a means of ensuring compliance with Internal Revenue Code provisions that turn on a family relationship, taxpayers are required to document their relationship with a family member. Most visibly, taxpayers are denied an additional personal exemption for a child or other dependent unless they furnish the individual’s name, Social Security number, and relationship to the taxpayer.

In this article, I undertake the first systematic examination of these documentation requirements. Given the privileging of the “traditional” family throughout …

Negotiating The Situation: The Reasonable Person In Context, Lu-In Wang

Articles

This Essay argues that our understanding of the reasonable person in economic transactions should take into account an individual’s race, gender, or other group-based identity characteristics - not necessarily because persons differ on account of those characteristics, but because of how those characteristics influence the situations a person must negotiate. That is, individuals’ social identities constitute features not just of themselves, but also of the situations they inhabit. In economic transactions that involve social interaction, such as face-to-face negotiations, the actor’s race, gender, or other social identity can affect both an individual actor and those who interact with him or …