Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

The Loving Story: Using A Documentary To Reconsider The Status Of An Iconic Interracial Married Couple, Regina Austin

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The Loving Story (Augusta Films 2011), directed by Nancy Buirski, tells the backstory of the groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, that overturned state laws barring interracial marriage. The article looks to the documentary to explain why the Lovings should be considered icons of racial and ethnic civil rights, however much they might be associated with marriage equality today. The film shows the Lovings to be ordinary people who took their nearly decade long struggle against white supremacy to the nation’s highest court out of a genuine commitment to each other and a determination to live in …

Intersectionality And The Constitution Of Family Status, Serena Mayeri

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Marital supremacy—the legal privileging of marriage—is, and always has been, deeply intertwined with inequalities of race, class, gender, and region. Many if not most of the plaintiffs who challenged legal discrimination based on family status in the 1960s and 1970s were impoverished women, men, and children of color who made constitutional equality claims. Yet the constitutional law of the family is largely silent about the status-based impact of laws that prefer marriage and disadvantage non-marital families. While some lower courts engaged with race-, sex-, and wealth-based discrimination arguments in family status cases, the Supreme Court largely avoided recognizing, much less …

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 …

Reconciling Equal Protection Law In The Public And In The Family: The Role Of Racial Politics, Dorothy E. Roberts

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In Constitutional Colorblindness and the Family, Katie Eyer brings to our attention an intriguing contradiction in the Supreme Court's equal protection jurisprudence. Far from ending race‐based family law rules with its 1967 decision, Loving v. Virginia, the Court has ignored lower courts' decisions approving official uses of race in foster care, adoption, and custody decisions in the last half century. Thus, as Eyer observes, “during the same time that the Supreme Court has increasingly proclaimed the need to strictly scrutinize all government uses of race, family law has remained a bastion of racial permissiveness.”

Scholars who oppose race‐matching …

Historicizing The "End Of Men": The Politics Of Reaction(S), Serena Mayeri

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No abstract provided.

Examining Gender Stereotypes In New Work/Family Reconciliation Policies: The Creation Of A New Paradigm For Egalitarian Legislation, Rangita De Silva De Alwis

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No abstract provided.

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

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No abstract provided.

Engines Of Inequality: Class, Race, And Family Structure, Amy L. Wax

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The past 30 years have witnessed a dramatic divergence in family structure by social class, income, education, and race. This article reviews the data on these trends, explores their significance, and assesses social scientists’ recent attempts to explain them. The article concludes that society-wide changes in economic conditions or social expectations cannot account for these patterns. Rather, for reasons that are poorly understood, cultural disparities have emerged by class and race in attitudes and behaviors surrounding family, sexuality, and reproduction. These disparities will likely fuel social and economic inequality and contribute to disparities in children’s life prospects for decades to …

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

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No abstract provided.

Child Welfare And Civil Rights, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.

Criminal Justice And Black Families: The Collateral Damage Of Over-Enforcement, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.

The Moral Exclusivity Of The New Civil Society, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.

Unshackling Black Motherhood, 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

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No abstract provided.

Race And The New Reproduction, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.

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

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No abstract provided.

Surrogacy, Slavery, And The Ownership Of Life, Anita L. Allen

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No abstract provided.