Law Commons^™

The "Constitutional" Assault On The Virginia Military Institute, Jon A. Soderberg

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Speech Faces Hostile Environment: An Aggressive Hunt For Sex Harassment Leaves Plenty Of Wreckage, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

Take the case of James Maas, who has been teaching at Cornell University for more than 30 years and whose Psychology 101 is perhaps the largest undergraduate course in the country (attracting about 1,000 students every semester). He was won numerous teaching awards. In 1994, Mr. Maas was called before Cornell's "Professional Ethics Committee" to defend himself against charges of sexual harassment. The allegations centered around his "overly friendly and affectionate behavior" - which, it turns out, were hugs and occasional social kisses, most often in front of class or family.

The most notable example of a professor who stood …

The Civil Rights Remedy Of The Violence Against Women Act: Legislative History, Policy Implications & Litigation Strategy, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A False Public Sentiment: Narrative And Visual Images Of Women Lawyers In Film, Louise Everett Graham, Geraldine Maschio

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments claimed for women not only equality of rights under the law, but a cultural status that was not the product of compliance. It sought to enfranchise women across the entire panoply of social activity, and to afford them representation in a number of areas. Whether women have achieved the stature aspired to by the Declaration of Sentiments can be approached in a variety of ways. We have chosen to do so by exploring cinematic images of women lawyers.

Popular film serves as a cultural text. When we look at a group of films on …

The First Stone In Retrospect: An Outsider's Observations On The Book And Its Critics, Susan Grover

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

At The Fusion Of Horizons: Incommensurability And The Public Interest, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Running The Gauntlet No More - Using Title Ix To End Student-To-Student Sexual Harassment, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Reports on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. Monroe Board of Education which dealt with student-on-student sexual harassment.

When A Kiss Isn't Just A Kiss: Title Ix And Student-To-Student Harassment, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article discusses peer hostile environment sexual harassment. It examines the circuit court caselaw on the issue and the legislative history of Title IX, provides an overview of the Supreme Court precedent interpreting Title IX, outlines the Department of Education’s interpretation of Title IX’s requirements concerning peer hostile environment sexual harassment, and discusses analogous legal principles underlying the analysis of student-to-student hostile environment sexual harassment.

The Violence Against Women Act Project: Teaching A New Generation Of Public Interest Lawyers, Minna J. Kotkin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Voices/Voces In The Borderlands: A Colloquy On Re/Constructing Identities In Re/Constructed Legal Spaces, Margaret E. Montoya, Melissa Harrison

Faculty Scholarship

While we believe that the work of healing our cultural dyslexia is partly cognitive, in and through this paper we have tried to enact the experiential aspect. We may approach the entrances of the borderlands through reading and thinking, however we believe that the borderlands is a phenomenon of living, a phenomenon of well-intentioned people interacting in deliberate and thoughtful ways with those who are simultaneously like and unlike us/them. The borderlands require that we bring our critical faculties to bear on life's experiences, but, more often than not, we must suspend them in favor of more charitable and affiliative …

A Case For Pregnancy-Based Unemployment Insurance, Mark R. Brown

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Professor Brown argues that unemployment insurance laws should be amended to provide coverage to otherwise eligible, pregnant claimants. Under current law, women who quit because of pregnancy are either disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits altogether or qualify only after childbirth. Those who are fired, meanwhile, often either cannot prove the motivation for their discharge or discover that they are disqualified because of their unavailability for work. Professor Brown uses a case study to illustrate the problems posed by pregnancy and unemployment insurance. He proposes model legislation that extends coverage to all pregnant claimants who temporarily separate from their employment.

Public Policy And Private Lives: Social And Spatial Dimensions Of Women's Poverty And Welfare Policy In The United States, Ann R. Tickamyer

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Men May Work From Sun To Sun, But Women's Work Is Never Done: International Law And The Regulation Of Women's Work At Night, Christine Haight Farley

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

At the turn of the century in both the United States and in Europe, governments enacted laws to protect women from the most harmful aspects of industrialization. One such piece of protective legislation was the ban on the employment of women at night. Discovering that regulation of working hours had a negative effect on their competition in the world market, these western states looked to impose this standard internationally. Thus in 1919 the International Labor Organization enacted the Convention Concerning Employment of Women During the Night.

By the time the International Labor Organization responded to complaints that the convention was …

Reflections On The Limitations Of Rational Discourse, Empirical Data, And Legal Mandates As Tools For The Achievement Of Gender Equity In American Higher Education, Susan J. Scollay, Carolyn S. Bratt

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Scholars and academicians implicitly accept and subscribe to the notion that reasoned discourse supported by empirical data is at the core of the academic enterprise. Theoretically, then, organizational change within the academy ought to be attainable through the use of rational processes based upon the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data to define the scope of the problem and to identify logical solutions. However, the centuries-long attempt to achieve gender equity for women in institutions of higher education belies the truth of that belief in the power of reason as a catalyst for reforming American higher education.

Beginning with …

Human Rights And Community Development Through Low-Income Women's Leadership: The Voice Of An African-American Organizer, Claudine Michel

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

In this essay, I argue that grassroots organizing appears as one of the most viable option worldwide until women are better protected through legislation and public policy. I also posit that it is important to learn from divergent leadership philosophies, from the different values, roles and styles that women adopt in various parts of the world in the course of their day-to-day activities and in their efforts to organize, to support current community programs, and to train future community leaders. This essay relates the experiences of a grassroots organizer and presents what I believe to be a successful model of …

Rape, Race And Representation: The Power Of Discourse, Discourses Of Power And The Reconstruction Of Heterosexuality, Elizabeth M. Iglesias

Articles

No abstract provided.

Can Families Be Efficient? A Feminist Appraisal, Ann Laquer Estin

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article examines the convergence of feminist and law and economics theory on family law questions, particularly issues of marriage and divorce. Both feminist legal theory and law and economics analysis have come to occupy a significant place in the American legal academy, demonstrated by growing numbers of conferences, journals, casebooks and monographs, and electronic mail lists in each area. Not surprisingly, as the two fields have grown, they have begun to touch, to overlap, and occasionally to come into conflict. This process has been evident in the extensive literature on sex discrimination in employment and is increasingly apparent in …

Lessons For The United States: A Greek Cypriot Model For Domestic Violence Law, Joan L. Neisser

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The purpose of this Article is twofold: to view the problem of domestic violence victims not wishing to testify against their abusers through the lenses of different feminist perspectives; and to use the Greek Cypriot experience as a model to test the value of these theories when developing legal policies addressing this issue.

A Feminist Theory Of Malebashing, Susan H. Williams, David C. Williams

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The concern about feminist "malebashing" is increasingly common, inside the university and out, but unfortunately, because of the emotions involved, most discussions of malebashing generate more confusion than understanding. When feminists say negative things about men, they often speak in anger and perhaps fear. When men respond, they are often angry, defensive, and perhaps hurt. While this confusion may be understandable, it is still counter-productive. The dialogue is plagued by a failure to answer with precision or rigor the most basic questions about this subject: What is "malebashing," i.e., illegitimate negative statements about men, and how is it different from …

An Essay On The Piano, Law, And The Search For Women's Desire, Julia E. Hanigsberg

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The thesis of this essay is a simple one: to have a measure of control over her destiny, to have any choices, a woman must be a sexual agent, a subject of desire rather than an object. How can women exercise any autonomy in any other realms if in their most intimate lives they are unable to voice their desires? I do not mean to suggest that sexuality has unlimited explanatory power or that everything about women's domination can be explained by a rearticulation of desire. I do believe, however, that although the issue of sexuality is much discussed, feminist …

Hostile Environent Sexual Harassment Claims And The Unwelcome Influence Of Rape Law, Janine Benedet

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article considers the unwelcomeness requirement of the plaintiff’s prima facie case. In particular, it examines the discussion of unwelcomeness found in the decision of the Supreme Court in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, and the content given to this element by the subsequent decisions of lower courts. Such an inquiry reveals several parallels between the approach of courts to sexual harassment claims and their traditional treatment of the criminal offense of rape. The same biases and erroneous assumptions that have hampered an effective response to the physical violation of women have permeated the application of the purported remedy …

Granting Political Asylum To Potential Victims Of Female Circumcision, Gregory A. Kelson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Part I of this article examines two cases. In one case, a United States immigration court allowed female circumcision as a defense to deportation. In another case, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board granted political asylum after recognizing female circumcision as a form of persecution. Part II assesses the extent of protections currently provided for potential victims of female circumcision under U.S. asylum law and analyzes the factors that a court should consider when making asylum determinations. Part III recommends that gender should be added to the enumerated grounds for persecution under U.S. asylum law. This section provides a hypothetical …

U.S. Ratification Of The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Julia Ernst

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The purpose of this article is to highlight the need for ratification of the Convention by the United States, and to address arguments against ratification. Various concerns have been raised with respect to CEAFDAW, both specific to the United States and more international in scope. Some problems pertain to United States ratification generally, other issues concern potential conflicts between specific articles of the Convention and U.S. law, and broader problems have been raised with respect to international implementation. Most of these issues are not uncommon in international agreements, and may therefore be remedied through conventional mechanisms, including implementing legislation, reservations, …

Succeeding In Law School: A Comparison Of Women's Experiences At Brooklyn Law School And The University Of Pennsylvania, Marsha Garrison, Brian Tomko, Ivan Yip

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article reports our findings from a replication of the Penn research conducted at Brooklyn Law School in order to test the experience-performance link reported by the Penn researchers. Brooklyn Law School offers an ideal setting for a test of the Penn research because it already has adopted most of the reforms that the Penn researchers believe would reduce women's alienation from the learning environment and thus improve their academic performance. First, Brooklyn Law School, as compared to other American law schools, has a large proportion of women faculty. During the 1994-95 academic year, thirty-seven percent of its tenured and …

China's Denial Of Tibetan Women's Right To Reproductive Freedom, Eva Herzer, Sara B. Levin

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article first provides a historical account of the social and political context of the PRC's family planning policies in Tibet. Part B describes the PRC's official family policies from 1982 to the present. Part C discusses the PRC's actual practices, including its population quota controls, focusing on the forced and coerced abortions and sterilizations performed on Tibetan women. Part D applies international human rights law and concludes that the PRC's family planning policy, as implemented, violates international human rights laws. The Article concludes by recommending points of action for the PRC and international community to address these human rights …

Political Lawyering, One Person At A Time: The Challenge Of Legal Work Against Domestic Violence For The Impact Litigation/Client Service Debate, Peter Margulies

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The premise of this Article is that, in his assertion that client service work is political lawyering, Ralph Reed is right. Indeed, Gary Bellow made a similar point about the political content of both impact litigation and client service work in a classic article written almost twenty years ago. Of course, Reed and Bellow are hardly ideological soulmates. Reed disapproves of the political content of service work, while Bellow heartily endorses it. On that point, this Article sides with Bellow. It employs the example of domestic violence lawyering to demonstrate why Bellow and Reed are correct that client service work …

Innocent Spouses, Reasonable Women And Divorce: The Gap Between Reality And The Internal Revenue Code, Stephen A. Zorn

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article asks whether the "reasonable woman" should become the standard for women seeking relief from tax liabilities under the innocent spouse provision of the I.R.C. and whether an even more specific standard should be adopted for women who are also going through divorce or are in similar situations.

Women In The Courts: An Old Thorn In Men's Sides, Nikolaus Benke

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article was inspired by the work of a series of state task forces on women in the courts. It examines the subject from a historical perspective, comparing ancient Rome, mainly during the period from the first century B.C. to the third A.D., with the United States, from its prerevolutionary beginnings to the present. The article's focus is gender bias against women acting in official court functions.

Book Review: From Basic Needs To Basic Rights: Women's Claim To Human Rights. Edited By Margaret A. Schuler. Washington, D.C.: Women, Law And Development International, 1995. 597 Pages., Joel Armstrong Schoenmeyer

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In the review of this work, Schoenmeyer will adhere to the structure provided by Schuler. In doing so, he will give an overview of the topics addressed in each individual section and then attempt to tie together and further analyze some of the book's main concepts.

In A Greener Voice: Feminist Theory And Environmental Justice, Robert R.M. Verchick

Robert R.M. Verchick

This Article explores the way in which women activists--and the feminist strategies they contribute--help shape the meaning and pursuit of environmental justice. [FN8] It shows how methods associated with feminism have contributed to the movement's premier concerns for family safety and social equality and have prompted creative ways to identify and attack a broad range of environmental threats. The Article is divided into four parts. Part I briefly surveys the participation of women in the environmental justice movement and examines the reasons why so many women become involved in grassroots environmental struggles. Part II shows how the strategies and goals …