Law Commons^™

The Obliging Shell: An Informal Essay On Formal Equal Opportunity, Patricia Williams

Michigan Law Review

I am struck by the Court's use of the word "equality" in the last line of its holding. It seems an extraordinarily narrow use of "equality," when it excludes from consideration so much clear inequality. It, again, resembles the process by which the Parol Evidence Rule limits the meaning of documents or words by placing beyond the bounds of reference anything that is inconsistent, or, depending on the circumstances, even that which is supplementary. It is this lawyerly language game of exclusion and omission that is the subject of the rest of this essay.

California Women: Get On Board, Women Legislators Caucus

California Agencies

No abstract provided.

Finding A "Manifest Imbalance": The Case For A Unified Statistical Test For Voluntary Affirmative Action Under Title Vii, David D. Meyer

Michigan Law Review

This Note analyzes the "manifest imbalance" standard developed in Weber and Johnson and the various approaches the lower courts have taken in trying to apply the test. Part I examines the Weber and Johnson opinions in some detail, and argues that the Court intended to permit affirmative action aimed at remedying the evident effects of past discrimination, regardless of whether the employer or society at large is to blame. Section I.A describes the diverging constitutional and statutory standards for evaluating voluntary affirmative action programs, and the policies behind the divergence. Sections I.B and I.C take a closer look at the …

Gender Discrimination And The Transformation Of Workplace Norms, Kathryn Abrams

Vanderbilt Law Review

Lately when I talk about gender, I am often confronted with the message that women's equality has already been achieved. A colleague may provide this insight, or a complete stranger waiting in a grocery line. But the thought was most succinctly expressed by a student who grew impatient with my activism. "I don't understand," she declared."Women have gotten just about everything they wanted. Don't they see that the time for militancy is over?" Perhaps this response should come as no surprise. The battle for the Equal Rights Amendment has been lost, but in salient ways our society seems to have …

Mother-Love And Abortion: A Legal Interpretation, Darleen Darnell

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Mother-Love and Abortion: A Legal Interpretation by Robert D. Goldstein

The Criminalization Of Maternal Conduct During Pregnancy: A Decisionmaking Model For Lawyers, Elizabeth L. Thompson

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing Gender, Joan C. Williams

Michigan Law Review

I start out, as have many others, from the deep split among American feminists between "sameness" and "difference." The driving force behind the mid-twentieth-century resurgence of American feminism was an insistence on the fundamental similarity of men and women and, hence, their essential equality.

I begin in Part I by challenging the widely influential description of gender advocated by Carol Gilligan. While Part I challenges the description of gender differences offered by Gilligan feminists, it does not deny the existence of gender differences. The chief strength of the feminism of difference is its challenge to what have been called male …

Individual Entitlement To The Financial Benefits Of A Professional Degree: An Empirical Study Of The Attitudes And Expectations Of Married Professional Students And Their Spouses, Rebecca Redosh Eisner, Ruth Zimmerman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note describes the case law that delineated the factors examined in the study. Those factors are the financial support provided by the supporting spouse, the extent of personal sacrifice made by the supporting spouse, the length of the marriage and corresponding accumulated assets of the marriage at the time of the divorce, and the relative earning capacities of the two parties after the divorce. Part II discusses the design of the study, and specifically how we manipulated these factors in hypothetical vignettes to measure reactions to the factors. Part III presents the results and our conclusions …

Womens' Experience In Legal Education: Silencing And Alienation, Lucinda M. Finley

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Watkins V. United States Army And The Employment Rights Of Lesbians And Gay Men, Arthur S. Leonard

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Equality And Private Choice, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law - Battered Woman Syndrome: The Killing Of A Passive Victim - A Perfect Defense Or A Perfect Crime? - State V. Norman, Jeffrey M. Cutler

Campbell Law Review

This Note will examine the strengths and weaknesses of the decision in State v. Norman, and will discuss whether this ruling provides solutions or further problems for the legal system in this area of controversy. In scrutinizing what has been labeled the "battered spouse syndrome," the legal profession must answer a question. Is the use of the syndrome creating a perfect defense or is it opening the door to the perfect crime?

Ode To A Crim Teacher, Laura Weinstock

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Battered Woman Syndrome: An Argument For The Development Of New Standards And The Incorporation Of A Feminine Approach To Ethics, Deborah Kochan

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

No abstract provided.

Report Of The Women And The Law Project: Gender Bias And The Law School Curriculum, Ann Shalleck

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Killing Daddy: Developing A Self-Defense Strategy For The Abused Child, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Respect For Diversity: The Case Of Feminist Legal Thought, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Respect for diversity was one quality many faculty members considered significant when searching in 1987 for a new dean of the University of Michigan School of Law. Yet other so-called elite law schools and less prestigious institutions recently have evinced little concern for diversity and even indifference toward the idea. Tenure and appointment disputes at several Ivy League schools have sparked heated controversy and call into question their institutional commitments to diversity. Those disputes have involved the legitimacy of work by women in legal theory and feminist legal thought, although considerable contentious activity also seems to reflect a general lack …

Agency And Partnership: A Study Of Breach Of Promise Plaintiffs, Mary I. Coombs

Articles

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing Gender, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Emerge For The Dark: A Grass Roots Program Teaches The First Step Toward Fighting Violence Toward Women, Stacy Brustin

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Webster V. Reproductive Health Services: Do Legislative Declarations That Life Begins At Conception Violate The Establishment Clause?, Dr. Robert L. Maddox, Blaine Bortnick

Campbell Law Review

This article contends that the Missouri legislative statement is a theologically derived finding that personhood begins at the moment of conception. Such an inherently theological and controversial determination violates a core purpose of the establishment clause of the first amendment, the absolute prohibition against government preference of one religious sect or denomination over another and the placing of the state's imprimatur on a particular religious dogma. What follows is a synopsis of the religious debate over whether human life begins at conception. Next is a discussion of the statute in light of this debate in the context of establishment clause …

Legal Education As Political Consciousness-Raising Or Paving The Road To Hell, Richard F. Devlin Frsc

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Journal of Legal Education did all legal educators a great service when it published "Women in Legal Education-Pedagogy, Law, Theory, and Practice," a symposium that highlights feminist criticisms of, innovations in, and desiderata for legal education. The contributors challenge some of our deepest convictions about what it means to be a law teacher. Appropriately, all the contributors are women. It is they who have experienced most keenly-and have been harmed by the gendered nature of the legal educational process. The gendered nature of legal education is not, however, a "women's only" issue; it is not solely "their problem," "their …

Black Women And The Constitution: Finding Our Place, Asserting Our Rights, Judy Scales-Trent

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Canada's Roe: The Canadian Abortion Decision And Its Implications For American Constitutional Law And Theory, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Abortion And Divorce In Western Law By Mary Ann Glendon, Lauren K. Robel

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this book, Professor Mary Ann Glendon contends that the American commitment to individualism and rights has deprived our law of compassion in the areas of abortion and divorce. She argues that while western European countries tell their citizens that their decisions about family are important to the larger society, American law takes extreme and damaging positions that isolate people at times when the community has an interest in their acts. Much of the book is a gentle and persuasive reminder that America lacks any semblance of a national family policy, an omission that looks heartless in comparison to Europe. …

Will Roe V. Wade Survive The Rehnquist Court?, Dawn E. Johnsen, Marcy Wilder

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Charleston Policy: Substance Or Abuse, The , Kimani Paul-Emile

Faculty Scholarship

In 1989, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) adopted a policy that, according to subjective criteria, singled out for drug testing, certain women who sought prenatal care and childbirth services would be tested for prohibited substances. Women who tested positive were arrested, incarcerated and prosecuted for crimes ranging from misdemeanor substance possession to felony substance distribution to a minor. In this Article, the Author argues that by intentionally targeting indigent Black women for prosecution, the MUSC Policy continued the United States legacy of their systematic oppression and resulted in the criminalizing of Black Motherhood.

A Break In The Silence: Including Women's Issues In A Torts Course, Lucinda M. Finley

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Webster And Women's Equality, Dawn E. Johnsen, Marcy J. Wilder

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

From Driving To Drugs: Governmental Regulation Of Pregnant Women's Lives After Webster, Dawn E. Johnsen

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.