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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Juvenile Law
Properly Accounting For Domestic Violence In Child Custody Cases: An Evidence-Based Analysis And Reform Proposal, Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Sarah Elizabeth Wellard
Properly Accounting For Domestic Violence In Child Custody Cases: An Evidence-Based Analysis And Reform Proposal, Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Sarah Elizabeth Wellard
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Promoting the best interests of children and protecting their safety and well-being in the context of a divorce or parentage case where domestic violence has been alleged has become highly politicized and highly gendered. There are claims by fathers’ rights groups that mothers often falsely accuse fathers of domestic violence to alienate the fathers from their children and to improve their financial position. They also claim that children do better when fathers are equally involved in their children’s lives, but that judges favor mothers over fathers in custody cases. As a consequence, fathers’ rights groups have engaged in a nationwide …
Fighting The Establishment: The Need For Procedural Reform Of Our Paternity Laws, Caroline Rogus
Fighting The Establishment: The Need For Procedural Reform Of Our Paternity Laws, Caroline Rogus
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Every state and the District of Columbia use voluntary acknowledgments of paternity. Created pursuant to federal law, the acknowledgment is signed by the purported biological parents and establishes paternity without requiring court involvement. Intended to be a “simple civil process” to establish paternity where the parents are unmarried, the acknowledgment is used by state governments to expedite child support litigation. But federal policy and state laws governing the acknowledgments do not sufficiently protect the interests of those men who have signed acknowledgments and who subsequently discover that they lack genetic ties to the children in question. A signatory who learns …
Put The Town On Notice: School District Liability And Lgbt Bullying Notification Laws, Yariv Pierce
Put The Town On Notice: School District Liability And Lgbt Bullying Notification Laws, Yariv Pierce
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Congress could mitigate the problem of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) student bullying by requiring that teachers and school officials report all bullying incidents to their school district administrators. Many school districts are not aware of the prevalence of LGBT bullying and the extent to which each school protects, or fails to protect, its LGBT students compared to other harassed students. LGBT students often encounter difficulty demonstrating that their school district has a policy or custom of deliberate indifference toward their equal treatment when a school does not equally protect an LGBT student from peer-to-peer bullying because of the …
Displaced Mothers, Absent And Unnatural Fathers: Lgbt Transracial Adoption, Kim H. Pearson
Displaced Mothers, Absent And Unnatural Fathers: Lgbt Transracial Adoption, Kim H. Pearson
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
While some might believe that Black versus gay discourse only surfaces in highly politicized settings like the military and marriage, it holds sway in the area of LGBT transracial adoption. LGBT transracial adoptions are a relatively small percentage of all adoptions, which include private adoptions, LGBT second-parent adoptions, and step-parent adoptions, but they are an important site for interrogating the Black versus gay discourse because adoption and custody decisions often address parent-child transmission. When claims intersect, as they do in a case where a White LGBT foster parent and a Black maternal grandmother dispute the adoption of a Black child, …
When Sixteen Ain't So Sweet: Rethinking The Regulation Of Adolescent Sexuality, Nicole Phillis
When Sixteen Ain't So Sweet: Rethinking The Regulation Of Adolescent Sexuality, Nicole Phillis
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Legally speaking, sexual maturity poses a significant enough liberty interest for a minor to make medical decisions regarding contraceptive medicine or to choose motherhood without parental involvement, but not quite enough for her to obtain an abortion independently. The law incentivizes teenage motherhood by only granting decisional autonomy to those minors who choose to have a child; the minor female's right to procreate vests regardless of her individual maturity. The law discourages teenage abortions by using the choice to terminate a pregnancy to trigger a presumption of immaturity; the minor female's abortion right is pitted against personal autonomy via parental …
Parenting And Pregnant Students: An Evaluation Of The Implementation Of The Other Title Ix, Michelle Gough
Parenting And Pregnant Students: An Evaluation Of The Implementation Of The Other Title Ix, Michelle Gough
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits gender discrimination. Although pregnancy has been described as the "quintessential sex difference," Title IX's prohibition of gender discrimination in the context of parenting and pregnant students has often been left out of the discussion, and therefore the understanding, of the implementation of Title IX Regulations. The scholarship discussing the topic shows general agreement that the language and spirit of Title IX has not been given effect thus far by our schools or by some courts. This Article begins by looking to the Title IX regulations themselves and then to the research …
Custody, Maintenance, And Succession: The Internalization Of Women's And Children's Rights Under Customary Law In Africa, Allison D. Kent
Custody, Maintenance, And Succession: The Internalization Of Women's And Children's Rights Under Customary Law In Africa, Allison D. Kent
Michigan Journal of International Law
In this Note, the author examines the process of international human rights norm internalization into areas traditionally governed exclusively by customary law, and the resulting evolution of customary law. Assuming, arguendo, that customary law is to be modified, I argue that a societal norm internalization approach is the most effective means to bring customary law into conformity with international human rights law. After a brief discussion of the fieldwork on which I rely, this Note describes the historical influence of colonialism on the development of customary law in Africa, with a particular focus on the repugnancy clauses of the …
Feminist Voices In The Debate Over Single-Sex Schooling: Finding Common Ground, Rosemary C. Salomone
Feminist Voices In The Debate Over Single-Sex Schooling: Finding Common Ground, Rosemary C. Salomone
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This article examines the deep divide within feminist ranks with an eye toward proposing a constructive and essential role for feminist understandings as single-sex schooling inches its way toward legal acceptability and into the mainstream of educational reform. In doing so, the forces that have shaped competing perspectives on women's equality are examined, especially disagreements over sameness and difference. In the end the article looks to the Court's decision in United States v. Virginia as a road map for feminists to follow in reaching common ground on the approach, despite seemingly profound ideological differences among them.
An Emerging Ethical And Medical Dilemma: Should Physicians Perform Sex Assignment Surgery On Infants With Ambiguous Genitalia?, Hazel Glenn Beh, Milton Diamond
An Emerging Ethical And Medical Dilemma: Should Physicians Perform Sex Assignment Surgery On Infants With Ambiguous Genitalia?, Hazel Glenn Beh, Milton Diamond
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This article discusses the development of a surgical approach to treating intersex infants and others with genital anomalies that began in the late 1950s and 1960s and became standard in the 1970s. Although professional literature has recently questioned the surgical approach to the treatment of infants, controversy surrounding treatment persists and the medical community now is divided. How sex reassignment surgery for intersex infants became a routine recommendation of practitioners and how parents were persuaded to consent to such radical surgeries provide a cautionary tale that is relevant to both medicine and law.
Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum
Divorce, Custody, Gender, And The Limits Of Law: On Dividing The Child, Lee E. Teitelbaum
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Dividing the Child: Social and Legal Dilemmas of Custody by Elanor E. Maccoby and Robert H. Mnookin
Who Is Jessica's Mother? Defining Motherhood Through Reality, Suellyn Scarnecchia
Who Is Jessica's Mother? Defining Motherhood Through Reality, Suellyn Scarnecchia
Other Publications
The recent Baby Jessica case and others like it have renewed the nature versus nurture debate in family law. Baby Jessica's biological parents, the Schmidts, sought to obtain permanent custody of their daughter after giving her up for adoption to the DeBoer family. Their argument was one that found its basis in biology and the idea of a traditional family. On the other hand, with the assistance of Professor Scarnecchia, the DeBoers argued that it was more important forJessica's overall health to remain with her primary caretakers of two years. Courts, however, have taken a more traditional view of this …
Prostitution Is Cruelty And Abuse To Women And Children, Susan Kay Hunter
Prostitution Is Cruelty And Abuse To Women And Children, Susan Kay Hunter
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Each day I rise to take up the truly good fight to stop the harm to women in prostitution. I long for complete liberation of all oppressed peoples. I passionately believe that the work I do to end prostitution is revolutionary. No one deserves to be used and abused, and that is the universal experience of prostituted women and children. It is also revolutionary work because my freedom as a woman is meaningless so long as some of us can be bought and sold. The giant sex industry grinds on, exploiting and enslaving women, while sexual liberals are well-paid by …
Rethinking The Substantive Rules For Custody Disputes In Divorce, David L. Chambers
Rethinking The Substantive Rules For Custody Disputes In Divorce, David L. Chambers
Articles
A few states, mostly in the West and South, still retain a preference in custody disputes for placing young children with their mothers. In most other states, legislatures or courts have replaced the maternal presumption with a rule directing courts to be guided solely by the child's "welfare" or "best interests." A few legislatures have created a new preference for joint custody, directing courts to consider favorably requests by a parent for such arrangements, even over the objection of the other parent. This Article argues that the trend away from the maternal presumption is sensible, but that the current best-interests …