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Addressing Allyship In A Time Of A “Thousand Papercuts”, Rangita De Silva De Alwis Jan 2021

Addressing Allyship In A Time Of A “Thousand Papercuts”, Rangita De Silva De Alwis

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In 2020, a team of students in the class on Women, Law and Leadership students interviewed 100 male law students on their philosophy on leadership and conducted several surveys on allyship and subtle bias. Complementing the allyship interviews, the class developed several survey instruments to examine emerging bias protocols and stereotype threats among a new generation of leaders at Penn Law from a diverse demographic. This exploration looked at individual patterns of conduct, institutional policies and organizational behavior that could combat a new generation of structural and systemic biases. Thirty years after the landmark study by Lani Guinier, we look …


Intersectionality And Title Vii: A Brief (Pre-)History, Serena Mayeri Jan 2015

Intersectionality And Title Vii: A Brief (Pre-)History, Serena Mayeri

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Title VII was twenty-five years old when Kimberlé Crenshaw published her path-breaking article introducing “intersectionality” to critical legal scholarship. By the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 reached its thirtieth birthday, the intersectionality critique had come of age, generating a sophisticated subfield and producing many articles that remain classics in the field of anti-discrimination law and beyond. Employment discrimination law was not the only target of intersectionality critics, but Title VII’s failure to capture and ameliorate the particular experiences of women of color loomed large in this early legal literature. Courts proved especially reluctant to recognize multi-dimensional discrimination against …


Marital Supremacy And The Constitution Of The Nonmarital Family, Serena Mayeri Jan 2015

Marital Supremacy And The Constitution Of The Nonmarital Family, Serena Mayeri

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Despite a transformative half century of social change, marital status still matters. The marriage equality movement has drawn attention to the many benefits conferred in law by marriage at a time when the “marriage gap” between affluent and poor Americans widens and rates of nonmarital childbearing soar. This Essay explores the contested history of marital supremacy—the legal privileging of marriage—through the lens of the “illegitimacy” cases of the 1960s and 1970s. Often remembered as a triumph for nonmarital families, these decisions defined the constitutional harm of illegitimacy classifications as the unjust punishment of innocent children for the “sins” of their …


Supply Side Or Discrimination? Assessing The Role Of Unconscious Bias, Amy L. Wax Jan 2011

Supply Side Or Discrimination? Assessing The Role Of Unconscious Bias, Amy L. Wax

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No abstract provided.


Race, Sex, And Rulemaking: Administrative Constitutionalism And The Workplace, 1960 To The Present, Sophia Z. Lee Jan 2010

Race, Sex, And Rulemaking: Administrative Constitutionalism And The Workplace, 1960 To The Present, Sophia Z. Lee

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This Article uses the history of equal employment rulemaking at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Power Commission (FPC) to document and analyze, for the first time, how administrative agencies interpret the Constitution. Although it is widely recognized that administrators must implement policy with an eye on the Constitution, neither constitutional nor administrative law scholarship has examined how administrators approach constitutional interpretation. Indeed, there is limited understanding of agencies’ core task of interpreting statutes, let alone of their constitutional practice. During the 1960s and 1970s, officials at the FCC relied on a strikingly broad and affirmative interpretation of …


Stereotype Threat: A Case Of Overclaim Syndrome?, Amy L. Wax Jan 2009

Stereotype Threat: A Case Of Overclaim Syndrome?, Amy L. Wax

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The theory of Stereotype Threat (ST) predicts that, when widely accepted stereotypes allege a group’s intellectual inferiority, fears of confirming these stereotypes cause individuals in the group to underperform relative to their true ability and knowledge. There are now hundreds of published studies purporting to document an impact for ST on the performance of women and racial minorities in a range of situations. This article reviews the literature on stereotype threat, focusing especially on studies investigating the influence of ST in the context of gender. It concludes that there is currently no justification for concluding that ST explains women’s underperformance …


Race, Gender, And Genetic Technologies: A New Reproductive Dystopia?, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2009

Race, Gender, And Genetic Technologies: A New Reproductive Dystopia?, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Women’S Unequal Citizenship At The Border: Lessons From Three Nonfiction Films About The Women Of Juárez, Regina Austin Jan 2009

Women’S Unequal Citizenship At The Border: Lessons From Three Nonfiction Films About The Women Of Juárez, Regina Austin

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There is no better illustration of the impact of borders on women’s equal citizenship than the three documentaries reviewed in this essay. All three deal with the femicides that befell the young women of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico between 1993 and 2005. Juarez is just across the border from El Paso, Texas. Performing the Border (1999) stimulates the viewer’s imagination regarding the ephemeral nature of borders and their impact on the citizenship of women who live at the intersection of local, regional, national and international legal regimes. Señorita Extraviada (2001) is an intimate portrait of the victims which illustrates why the …


Super Size Me And The Conundrum Of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, And Class For The Contemporary Law-Genre Documentary Filmmaker, Regina Austin Jun 2007

Super Size Me And The Conundrum Of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, And Class For The Contemporary Law-Genre Documentary Filmmaker, Regina Austin

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According to director Morgan Spurlock, the idea for "Super Size Me," the hugely popular documentary that explored the health impact of fast food, originated from a news report about Pelman v. McDonald’s, one of the fast food obesity cases. Over the course of his month-long McDonald’s binge, Spurlock became the literal embodiment of fast-food’s ill-effects on the seemingly generic American adult physique. Spurlock’s take on the subject, however, ignores the circumstances that contributed to the overweight conditions of the Pelman plaintiffs who were two black adolescent females who ate their fast food in the Bronx. One of them was homeless …


Child Welfare's Paradox, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2007

Child Welfare's Paradox, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


The Strange Career Of Jane Crow: Sex Segregation And The Transformation Of Anti-Discrimination Discourse, Serena Mayeri Jan 2006

The Strange Career Of Jane Crow: Sex Segregation And The Transformation Of Anti-Discrimination Discourse, Serena Mayeri

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This article examines the causes and consequences of a transformation in anti-discrimination discourse between 1970 and 1977 that shapes our constitutional landscape to this day. Fears of cross-racial intimacy leading to interracial marriage galvanized many white Southerners to oppose school desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, some commentators, politicians, and ordinary citizens proposed a solution: segregate the newly integrated schools by sex. When court-ordered desegregation became a reality in the late 1960s, a smattering of southern school districts implemented sex separation plans. As late as 1969, no one saw sex-segregated schools …


Privatization And Punishment In The New Era Of Reprogenetics, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2005

Privatization And Punishment In The New Era Of Reprogenetics, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


The Community Dimension Of State Child Protection, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2005

The Community Dimension Of State Child Protection, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Black Club Women And Child Welfare: Lessons For Modern Reform, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2005

Black Club Women And Child Welfare: Lessons For Modern Reform, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Child Welfare And Civil Rights, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2003

Child Welfare And Civil Rights, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Poverty, Welfare Reform, And The Meaning Of Disability, Jennifer Pokempner, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2001

Poverty, Welfare Reform, And The Meaning Of Disability, Jennifer Pokempner, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Kinship Care And The Price Of State Support For Children, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2001

Kinship Care And The Price Of State Support For Children, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Creating And Solving The Problem Of Drug Use During Pregnancy, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2000

Creating And Solving The Problem Of Drug Use During Pregnancy, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


The Paradox Of Silence: Some Questions About Silence As Resistance, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 2000

The Paradox Of Silence: Some Questions About Silence As Resistance, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Discrimination As Accident, Amy L. Wax Jan 1999

Discrimination As Accident, Amy L. Wax

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This Article seeks to examine how the law should respond to unconscious or automatic forms of cognitive bias that are thought to produce less favorable treatment of employees in the workplace because of race or sex ("unconscious disparate treatment"). Assuming that inadvertent bias is a form of workplace "accident," and using familiar principles of accident law and economic analysis, the Article concludes that extending the framework created by existing anti-discrimination laws to cover disparate treatment that stems from unconscious group-based biases is not a good idea because it is unlikely to serve the principal goals of a liability scheme (deterrence, …


Of False Teeth And Biting Critiques: Jones V. Fisher In Context, Regina Austin Jan 1999

Of False Teeth And Biting Critiques: Jones V. Fisher In Context, Regina Austin

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No abstract provided.


Who May Give Birth To Citizens? Reproduction, Eugenics, And Immigration, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 1998

Who May Give Birth To Citizens? Reproduction, Eugenics, And Immigration, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Nest Eggs And Stormy Weather: Law, Culture, And Black Women's Lack Of Wealth, Regina Austin Jan 1997

Nest Eggs And Stormy Weather: Law, Culture, And Black Women's Lack Of Wealth, Regina Austin

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No abstract provided.


Unshackling Black Motherhood, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 1997

Unshackling Black Motherhood, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Race And The New Reproduction, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 1996

Race And The New Reproduction, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


A Feminist Social Justice Approach To Reproduction-Assisting Technologies: A Case Study On The Limits Of Liberal Theory, Joan C. Callahan, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 1996

A Feminist Social Justice Approach To Reproduction-Assisting Technologies: A Case Study On The Limits Of Liberal Theory, Joan C. Callahan, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Is Equal Access The Prescription For Equity?, Victor Sidel, Dorothy E. Roberts, Jennifer Dohrn, Kathy Anastos, Nitza Milagros Escalera, Peter Holland, Sylvia Kleinman, Sylvia Law, Jack O'Sullivan, Robert Padgug, Dennis Rivera, Beth Weitzman Jan 1995

Is Equal Access The Prescription For Equity?, Victor Sidel, Dorothy E. Roberts, Jennifer Dohrn, Kathy Anastos, Nitza Milagros Escalera, Peter Holland, Sylvia Kleinman, Sylvia Law, Jack O'Sullivan, Robert Padgug, Dennis Rivera, Beth Weitzman

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No abstract provided.


Irrationality And Sacrifice In The Welfare Reform Consensus, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 1995

Irrationality And Sacrifice In The Welfare Reform Consensus, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


The Value Of Black Mothers' Work, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 1994

The Value Of Black Mothers' Work, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.


Racism And Patriarchy In The Meaning Of Motherhood, Dorothy E. Roberts Jan 1993

Racism And Patriarchy In The Meaning Of Motherhood, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.