Law Commons^™

Autonomy's Magic Wand: Abortion And Constitutional Interpretation, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights In The Islamic Constitutional Tradition: Shared Ideals And Divergent Regimes, 25 J. Marshall L. Rev. 267 (1992), Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na' Im

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

M Is For The Many Things, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

People have gotten quite a few things about mothers and motherhood wrong over the last 700 or so years. Educators, historians, jurists, philosophers, physicians, social workers, and theologians have been telling us what mothers are like: what they need, how they feel, what pleases them, how and how well they think. Mothers didn't love their children in the fifteenth century and loved them too much in the 1950s. Black mothers felt no pain in childbirth, and white mothers felt no pleasure in intercourse. The obligations of motherhood, physical and social, have been used to explain why women should not work, …

Rape And Responsibility, Lynne Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

I am a "lucky" survivor of a rape committed by a stranger - "lucky", because people believed me, a jury convicted the man of raping me, and he is still in prison ten years later. I know many women who have been raped who were not so fortunate, because they believed the rape was their fault, because no one else believed them, because they knew their rapist, or because they were married to him and it wasn't a crime. We share some things - the anger, the pain, the anguish, the fear - and not others; nevertheless, this is what …

Uaw V. Johnson Controls: The Supreme Court Fails To Get The Lead Out, Overlooks Fetal Harm Resulting From Workplace Exposure, John M. Tkacik Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

UAW v. Johnson Controls, Inc., recently decided by the United States Supreme Court, has resulted in what one commentator described as "[t]he strongest and most important sex-discrimination victory in nearly 30 years." As a result of the decision, employers can no longer bar women from hazardous jobs through fetal-protection policies, except under the most extreme and narrow circumstances. This legal victory for women in the workplace, however, has seriously impacted the debate over the protection of fetal health and safety. The Supreme Court, in a seemingly encore presentation of Roe, again overlooked the harm facing the unborn child in Johnson …

Two Legal Constructs Of Motherhood: "Protective" Legislation In Mexico And The United States, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

The theme of this symposium, "Reconstructing Motherhood," requires an examination of laws designed to further traditional motherhood roles. Societal constructs of motherhood-women as child bearers and nurturers-have profoundly affected women's involvement in paid employment. Conversely, women's participation in paid employment affects how women experience motherhood. For example, a woman who does not work outside the home has a dramatically different mothering experience than a woman who works outside the home and leaves her children with a day-care provider. The legal system can affect the relationship between motherhood and employment opportunities for women by means of employment laws and policies. Sometimes …

The Reasonable Woman And The Ordinary Man, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Nineteen ninety-one was a seismic year for sexual harassment. The first localized shift occurred in January, when the Ninth Circuit established that the standard by which sexual harassment in the workplace would be judged was no longer the reasonable man or even the reasonable person but rather the reasonable woman. In October a larger audience felt a much stronger jolt when Anita Hill spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hill testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her while she worked for him at the Department of Education and at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Her testimony …

The Domestic Violence Component Of The New York Task Force Report On Women In The Courts: An Evaluation And Assessment Of New York City Courts, Sarah Eaton, Ariella Hyman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This piece contains the findings of a survey conducted to evaluate the impact of the New York Task Force On Women in the Court's Report in the area of domestic violence and of the progress that has taken place since the Report's publication. The authors hope to provide insight not only into the next steps that should be taken in New York City, but also into the most effective methods of implementing change to combat bias against women in the courtroom. The authors conclude that although progress has been made in the area of combating bias against women in the …

Sex Discrimination (Update 1), Christina B. Whitman

Book Chapters

During the 1980s and early 1990s intense disagreement has arisen over the appropriate strategy for eliminating sex discrimination. Some courts and commentators argue for gender-neutral rules that define categories in purely functional terms. Others, who point out that gender-neutral rules promise equality only for women who can meet a ‘‘male standard,’’ think that legal distinctions between the sexes are not only appropriate but necessary, at least in cases involving perceived biological differences. Still others refuse to think in terms of sameness and difference. They analyze each issue by asking whether the disputed rule furthers the domination of men and the …

Five Year Report Of The New York Judicial Committee On Women In The Courts, The Judicial Committee On Women In The Courts

Fordham Urban Law Journal

In response to a report submitted by the Judicial Committee on Women, which concluded gender bias to be a "pervasive problem" in the New York State Court System, a Task Force was created to implement the recommendations of that committee. The Five Year Report is a summary of the work done by the Committee and notes the progress made in the fight for more gender equality in our courts. The Committee concluded that although significant progress has been made, there is still a long way to go in the fight for gender equality.

Reconstructing Liberty, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is commonly and rightly understood in this country that our constitutional system ensures, or seeks to ensure, that individuals are accorded the greatest degree of personal, political, social, and economic liberty possible, consistent with a like amount of liberty given to others, the duty and right of the community to establish the conditions for a moral and secure collective life, and the responsibility of the state to provide for the common defense of the community against outside aggression. Our distinctive cultural and constitutional commitment to individual liberty places very real restraints on what our elected representatives can do, even …

The "Gag Rule" Revisited: Physicians As Abortion Gatekeepers, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

To the surprise of many and the dismay of some, the U.S. Supreme Court took it upon itself last term to proclaim a national compromise on the question of abortion. The Court's announced truce, an elaboration on Justice O'Connor's "undue burden" idea, is pragmatic in design but unlikely to prove stable in practice. The three justices who spoke for the Court disparaged Roe with reluctant praise, then upheld its outer shell on the ground that social expectations and the need to sustain the appearance of the rule of law made it impolitic to do otherwise. This awkward doctrinal invention seems …

Contradiction And Revision: Progressive Feminist Legal Scholars Respond To Mary Joe Frug, Elizabeth M. Schneider, Judi Greenberg, Martha Minow

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Heat Of Passion And Wife Killing: Men Who Batter/Men Who Kill, Donna Coker

Articles

No abstract provided.