Law Commons^™

Breaking The Silence: Holding Texas Lawyers Accountable For Sexual Harassment, Savannah Files

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Following the 2017 exposure of Harvey Weinstein, the #MeToo movement spread rapidly across social media platforms calling for increased awareness of the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault and demanding change. The widespread use of the hashtag brought attention to the issue and successfully facilitated a much-needed discussion in today’s society. However, this is not the first incident prompting a demand for change.

Efforts to bring awareness and exact change in regards to sexual harassment in the legal profession date back to the 1990s. This demonstrates that the legal profession is not immune from these issues. In fact, at least …

Sexual Harassment Prevention After #Metoo: Employers' Need To Reevaluate, Michael T. Zugelder, Darrell M. Crosgrove, Paul J. Champagne

Finance Faculty Publications

The complex problem of workplace sexual harassment has now been put in sharper focus by the publicity of high-profile cases and the advent of the #MeToo movement, both of which have educated victims and motivated them to assert their civil rights. Employers can anticipate an increase in reported incidents and will need to reevaluate the sufficiency of their current anti-harassment policies, reporting procedures and support training to prevent sexual harassment. Employers ' should not stop there but should include efforts to create a culture of respect to prevent incidences of sexual harassment in the first place.

What About #Ustoo?: The Invisibility Of Race In The #Metoo Movement, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

Women involved in the most recent wave of the #MeToo movement have rightly received praise for breaking long-held silences about harassment in the workplace. The movement, however, has also rightly received criticism for both initially ignoring the role that a woman of color played in founding the movement ten years earlier and in failing to recognize the unique forms of harassment and the heightened vulnerability to harassment that women of color frequently face in the workplace. This Essay highlights and analyzes critical points at which the contributions and experiences of women of color, particularly black women, were ignored in the …

Removing Camouflaged Barriers To Equality: Overcoming Systemic Sexual Assault And Harassment At The Military Academies, Rebecca Weiant

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The Education Amendments of 1972 introduced requirements to protect female students from discriminatory policies at post-secondary institutions. A portion of those amendments, commonly known as Title IX, require that no students be subjected to discrimination based on their sex by any educational institution or activity receiving federal financial assistance. An exemption under § 1681(a)(4), however, explicitly prohibits application of Title IX to any educational institution whose primary purpose is to train individuals for military service or the merchant marine. Although those students are still subject to stringent conduct standards, the service academies themselves are tethered to sex discrimination policies only …

Draft Of A Letter Of Recommendation To The Honorable Alex Kozinski, Which I Guess I'M Not Going To Send Now, Yxta Maya Murray

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This legal-literary essay engages the current social and jurisprudential moment, encapsulated by the hashtag #metoo. It focuses on the allegations, made in the first week of December 2017, that Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski verbally sexually harassed former law clerks Emily Murphy and Heidi Bond. I wrote the lioness’s share of the piece during December 10–11—that is, in the days before news outlets reported that other women complained of Kozinski touching them on the thigh or breast while propositioning them for sex or discussing recent sexual encounters—and concluded that Kozinski was unlikely to face impeachment or meaningful …

How Is Sex Harassment Discriminatory?, Noa Ben-Asher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

What is sexual harassment, and what is its actual harm? Since the 1980s, these two questions have perplexed lawmakers, policymakers, feminists, and the public. Today, with the rise of #MeToo, and with increased national attention to Title IX claims regarding sexual violence on college campuses, these questions are once again in the spotlight. As some commentators have observed, in the last several years lawmakers and policymakers have been increasingly influenced by a feminist antisubordination approach to sexual harassment and assault. This growing influence is currently reflected in more strict standards of consent (“affirmative consent”) to sex, in higher procedural and …

Sex Harassment Training Must Change: The Case For Legal Incentives For Transformative Education And Prevention, Susan Bisom-Rapp

Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of the #MeToo moment, employers, legislators, and human resources professionals have defaulted to a familiar solution to what seems like an epidemic of workplace harassment: mandatory sex harassment training. The chosen antidote, however, begs an important question that this author posed over 15 years ago: Does sex harassment training actually prevent harassment? My review of the social science research in 2001 revealed no convincing evidence that sex harassment training curbs harassment. In fact, the scant research available indicated that training, as typically conducted in American workplaces, may backfire, triggering stereotypes about women and people of color, and …

Ending Harassment By Starting With Retaliation, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

This Essay posits that the fear of retaliation significantly contributes to the problem of harassment—we cannot hope to end harassment without starting by addressing the reality of retaliation. Although some scholars have argued that the fear of retaliation is one reason women don’t report harassment, and some scholars have discussed the inadequacies of anti-retaliation law, this Essay breaks new ground by arguing that ending harassment must start with preventing retaliation. Part I backs up what seems to be a commonsense proposition: Many victims of harassment do not report it because they fear retaliation.5 Part II then describes the difficulty in …

Preparing Law Students In The Wake Of #Metoo, Paula A. Monopoli

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Is Sex Harassment Discriminatory?, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

What is sexual harassment, and what is its actual harm? Since the 1980s, these two questions have perplexed lawmakers, policymakers, feminists, and the public. Today, with the rise of #MeToo, and with increased national attention to Title IX claims regarding sexual violence on college campuses, these questions are once again in the spotlight. As some commentators have observed, in the last several years lawmakers and policymakers have been increasingly influenced by a feminist antisubordination approach to sexual harassment and assault. This growing influence is currently reflected in more strict standards of consent (“affirmative consent”) to sex, in higher procedural …