Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Real Men, Luke A. Boso

Luke A. Boso

Men experience discrimination every day at work and at school because they fail to look or behave like real men. Most courts now hold that men can prove sex discrimination by presenting evidence that the defendant harassed or bullied the plaintiff because he fails to conform to sex stereotypes. But judges in these cases are reluctant to find that defendants intended to discriminate “because of sex,” which is required to state a valid claim under statutory anti-discrimination law. Instead, judges routinely grant defendants’ motions for summary judgment and to dismiss based on little more than their own ideas about what …

Symposium: Title Ix: Women, Athletics And The Law - Foreword, Paula Monopoli

Paula A Monopoli

No abstract provided.

Disrupting Sexual Categories Of Intimate Preference, Luke A. Boso

Luke A. Boso

Society tends to treat a person's sexual orientation and intimate preferences as if those concepts are static and immutable. People regularly divide themselves into binary gay and straight categories, and similarly seek masculine or feminine qualities in an appropriately sexed person. These intimate preferences occupy a uniquely private position in society, and the characteristics to which people claim attraction are thought so personal as to be sacred. In turn, we resist characterizing our intimate preferences as discrimination despite the tangible harms that befall those who are disproportionately excluded from romantic opportunities. But individual discriminatory intimate practices do not necessarily imply …

The Irrational Woman: Informed Consent And Abortion Decision-Making, Maya Manian

Maya Manian

In Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on a type of second-trimester abortion that many physicians believe is safer for their patients. Carhart presented a watershed moment in abortion law, because it marks the Supreme Court’s first use of the anti-abortion movement’s “woman-protective” rationale to uphold a ban on abortion and the first time since Roe v. Wade that the Court denied women a health exception to an abortion restriction. The woman-protective rationale asserts that banning abortion promotes women’s mental health. According to Carhart, the State should make the final decisions about pregnant women’s healthcare, because …

Transgender Theory: Reprogramming Our Automated Settings, Marybeth Herald

Marybeth Herald

Over the course of the last few decades, both law and society have struggled to deprogram unhelpful and downright destructive gender stereotypes that are ubiquitous in our everyday existence. It has not been an easy task, nor entirely successful on either the legal or cultural front. Laws that prohibit gender discrimination, such as Title VII, have helped end overt discrimination. The next phase involves the challenging problem of unconscious bias, which often effectively keeps us treading the same mental paths while bypassing any roads not traveled.

It is not surprising then that when the validity of even the basic categories …