Religion Law Commons^™

Women In Shareholder Activism, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Even a cursory review of the history of American environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder activism reveals the presence of women leaders. This Article sketches some of this history and interrogates the role of women in the shareholder activism movement. That movement typically has involved claims by minority shareholders to corporate power; activists are nearly always on the margins of power, though minority shareholders may, collectively, represent a majority interest. This Article ascribes women’s leadership in shareholder activism to their longstanding position as outsiders to corporate organization. Women’s participation in shaping corporate policy—even from the margins—has provided women with …

Law Library Blog (September 2020): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Personal Laws In Creating A “Second Sex”, Rangita De Silva De Alwis, Indira Jaising

All Faculty Scholarship

The cultural construction of gender determines the role of women and girls within the family in many societies. Gendered notions of power in the family are often shrouded in religion and custom and find their deepest expression in Personal Laws. This essay examines the international law framework as it relates to personal laws and the commonality of narratives of litigators and plaintiffs in the cases from the three different personal law systems in India.

Coercive Assimilationism: The Perils Of Muslim Women's Identity Performance In The Workplace, Sahar F. Aziz

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Should employees have the legal right to “be themselves” at work? Most Americans would answer in the negative because work is a privilege, not an entitlement. But what if being oneself entails behaviors, mannerisms, and values integrally linked to the employee’s gender, race, or religion? And what if the basis for the employer’s workplace rules and professionalism standards rely on negative racial, ethnic or gender stereotypes that disparately impact some employees over others? Currently, Title VII fails to take into account such forms of second-generation discrimination, thereby limiting statutory protections to phenotypical or morphological bases. Drawing on social psychology and …

Veiled Discrimination, Sahar F. Aziz

Sahar F. Aziz

Should employees have the legal right to “be themselves” at work? Most Americans would answer in the negative because work is a privilege, not an entitlement. An employer’s workplace rules that define professionalism, therefore, are his prerogative and defined by the demands of the marketplace. Underlying this conclusion is the false premise that objective and neutral factors shape modern notions of professionalism. To the contrary, professionalism is a subjective concept dependent on the decision makers’ worldview, norms, values, and definitions of propriety. Employees who belong to the employer’s social group or fall within society’s majority are advantaged as minimal effort …

Religious Victory Over The Affordable Care Act? Possible Recourse For The Employee Of The Religious Employer, Jacqueline Prats

Jacqueline M Prats

In 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Even as the Court deliberated, a number of for-profit employers prepared to challenge the law—not the Act as a whole, but a specific part: the requirement that insurance plans cover contraceptives for women, free of co-pay or other cost-sharing. Although their companies were secular, these business owners claimed that the “contraception mandate” violated not only their religious beliefs, but also those of their companies. They challenged the ACA under both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and a federal statute called the Religious Freedom …

Substance And Method In The Year 2000, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Veiled Women In The American Courtroom: Is The Niqab A Barrier To Justice?, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

U.S. courts and policy-makers have recently authorized laws and practices that interfere with the wearing of religious modesty attire that conceals the hair or face in contexts such as courtroom testimony or driver’s license issuance. For example, in response to a court’s dismissal of the case of a woman who refused to remove her niqab in the courtroom, the Michigan Supreme Court decided that judges can exercise “reasonable control” over the appearance of courtroom parties. But what degree of control over religious attire is reasonable? The Constitution will not allow a blanket niqab removal policy based on any of the …

Empowerment Or Estrangement: Liberal Feminism's Visions Of The “Progress” Of Muslim Women, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

This paper presents some thoughts on the progress of Muslim women towards gender justice. It argues that Liberal Legal feminism shares a common understanding of history and progress with those Liberal political theories that justified the British Empire. Because of this genealogy, Liberal feminism seeks to reform cultures and societies that do not comport with a particular Liberal teleology that forecloses the expression of alternative ideas of history, progress, and human flourishing. It further argues that Muslim women's organizations that partner with Northern organizations sometimes seek to fulfill Liberal expectations of victimhood at the hands of their culture. The consequence …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Rhetorical Holy War: Polygamy, Homosexuality, And The Paradox Of Community And Autonomy, Gregory C. Pingree

ExpressO

The article explores the rhetorical strategies deployed in both legal and cultural narratives of Mormon polygamy in nineteenth-century America. It demonstrates how an understanding of that unique communal experience, and the narratives by which it was represented, informs the classic paradox of community and autonomy – the tension between the collective and the individual. The article concludes by using the Mormon polygamy analysis to illuminate a contemporary social situation that underscores the paradox of community and autonomy – homosexuality and the so-called culture wars over family values and the meaning of marriage.

The Alley Behind First Street, Northeast: Criminal Abortion In The Nation's Capital 1873-1973, Douglas R. Miller

ExpressO

The thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade found our country no less divided over abortion than it was during the era of its prohibition. As the bitter struggle over judicial nominations throughout the present administration suggests, abortion’s future remains at the forefront of American political debate.

In their push for increased limitations, abortion opponents generally overlook the historical consequences of prohibition. Abortion rights proponents often invoke history in their opposition to new restrictions, but tend to do so superficially, and only in a manner that supports their position.

This article attempts a more complex study of criminal abortion’s legal and …

International Child Abductions: The Challenges Facing America , Charles F. Hall

ExpressO

International child abductors often escape domestic law enforcement and disappear without consequence or resolution. International child abductions occur too frequently; in the United States alone, the number of children abducted abroad every year has risen to over 1,000. Currently, 11,000 American children live abroad with their abductors. These abductions occur despite international treaties and the Congressional resolutions that have significantly stiffened the penalties for those caught. Effectively combating international child abductions requires drafting resolutions that are acceptable across the diverse societies and cultures of the international community. Without such resolutions to fill the gaps of current treaties this problem will …

Her Honor: An Islamic Critique Of The Rape Laws Of Pakistan From A Woman-Sensitive Perspective, Asifa Quaraishi

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article critiques the rape laws of Pakistan from an Islamic point of view which is careful to include women's perspectives in its analysis. Unlike much of what is popularly presented as traditional Islamic law, this woman-affirming Islamic approach will reveal the inherent gender-egalitarian nature of Islam, which is too often ignored by its academics, courts, and legislatures. This article will demonstrate how cultural patriarchy has instead colored the application of certain Islamic laws in places like Pakistan, resulting in the very injustice which the Quran so forcefully condemns.

Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash Of Cultures Or A Clash With A Construct?, Ann Elizabeth Mayer

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article examines the recent trend proposing that Islam and Islamic culture mandate a distinctive approach to human rights. It offers critical assessments of selected civil and political rights in two recent products of this trend: (1) the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, issued by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and endorsed by Iran and Saudi Arabia; and (2) the rights provisions in the Saudi Arabian Basic Law promulgated in 1992. These legislative initiatives will be examined in conjunction with constructs of an Islamic culture necessarily at odds with international human rights norms. These constructs have …