Law Commons^™

4th Annual Women In Law Leadership Lecture, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Colonizing Queerness, Jeremiah A. Ho

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article investigates how and why the cultural script of inequality persists for queer identities despite major legal advancements such as marriage, anti-discrimination, and employment protections. By regarding LGBTQ legal advancements as part of the American settler colonial project, I conclude that such victories are not liberatory or empowering but are attempts at colonizing queer identities. American settler colonialism’s structural promotion of a normative sexuality illustrates how our settler colonialist legacy is not just a race project (as settler colonialism is most widely studied) but also a race-gender-sexuality project. Even in apparent strokes of progress, American settler colonialism’s eliminationist motives …

Sexual Agreements, Susan Frelich Appleton, Albertina Antognini

Scholarship@WashULaw

Few would find it surprising that an agreement for sex falls outside the bounds of contract law. Prostitution—defined as an exchange of sex for money—has long been a crime, a point that courts often make in declining to enforce agreements between unmarried partners. In fact, courts routinely invalidate contracts when sex forms the basis of a couple’s bargain, whether married or not, and whether the sex is explicit or inferred from the relationship itself. A closer look at the legal treatment of sexual agreements, however, tells a more complicated story. Although courts reject sex as consideration for being “meretricious” or …

Does U.S. Federal Employment Law Now Cover Caste Discrimination Based On Untouchability?: If All Else Fails There Is The Possible Application Of Bostock V. Clayton County, Kevin D. Brown, Lalit Khandare, Annapurna Waughray, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Theodore M. Shaw

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article discusses the issue of whether a victim of caste discrimination based on untouchability can assert a claim of intentional employment discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981. This article contends that there are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is a form of religious discrimination under Title VII. The question of whether caste discrimination is a form of race or national origin discrimination under Title VII or Section 1981 depends upon how the courts apply these definitions to caste discrimination based on untouchability. There are legitimate arguments that this form of discrimination is recognized within the concept …

The Strict Scrutiny Of Black And Blaqueer Life, T. Anansi Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Furtive Blackness: On Blackness and Being (“Furtive Blackness”) and The Strict Scrutiny of Black and BlaQueer Life (“Strict Scrutiny”) take a fresh approach to both criminal law and constitutional law; particularly as they apply to African descended peoples in the United States. This is an intervention as to the description of the terms of Blackness in light of the social order but, also, an exposure of the failures and gaps of law. This is why the categories as we have them are inefficient to account for Black life. The way legal scholars have encountered and understood the language of law …

Furtive Blackness: On Blackness And Being, T. Anansi Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Furtive Blackness: On Blackness and Being (“Furtive Blackness”) and The Strict Scrutiny of Black and BlaQueer Life (“Strict Scrutiny”) take a fresh approach to both criminal law and constitutional law; particularly as they apply to African descended peoples in the United States. This is an intervention as to the description of the terms of Blackness in light of the social order but, also, an exposure of the failures and gaps of law. This is why the categories as we have them are inefficient to account for Black life. The way legal scholars have encountered and understood the language of law …

Law School News: Roger Williams Celebrates Pride 06-17-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Keynote: The Protection Of Lgbt Youth, Craig Konnoth

Publications

This keynote contains three parts. Part I addresses the intersection of two metaphors: medicine and childhood in LGBT Rights. Part II addresses the state regulation of LGBT youth. Part III offers Professor Konnoth's concluding remarks on the protection of LGBT youth.

The Transformation Of Marriage As A State Institution, John Makdisi, June Mary Zekan Makdisi

Faculty Articles

The first section of this essay explores why the good of children requires the institution of marriage to promote the procreation of children by the act of physical-spiritual love between a man and a woman. The second section explores why the good of children requires the institution of marriage to promote the upbringing of children by the lasting, exclusive, and faithful commitment of the couple. The third section explains why Obergefell's removal of the requirement of a legal union between a man and a woman as an essential aspect of marriage not only destroys the function of the marriage institution …

Something Old, Something New: Reflections On The Sex Bureaucracy, Melissa Murray, Karen M. Tani

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay responds to “The Sex Bureaucracy,” in which Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk identify a “bureaucratic turn in sex regulation” — one that has expanded the reach of sexual regulation to include “nonviolent, non-harassing, voluntary sexual conduct” (or in their words, “ordinary sex”). In their view, the Department of Education’s campaign against sexual assault on college campuses epitomizes this bureaucratic shift. While applauding the authors’ attention to the intersection of sexuality and governance, we challenge their account of the “bureaucratic turn” as an unprecedented event. Drawing on examples from across U.S. history, we show how administrative agencies and unelected …

Reconsidering Legal Regulation Of Race, Sex, And Sexual Orientation, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Outing Privacy, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

The government regularly outs information concerning people's sexuality, gender identity, and HIV status. Notwithstanding the implications of such outings, the Supreme Court has yet to resolve whether the Constitution contains a right to informational privacy - a right to limit the government's ability to collect and disseminate personal information.

This Article probes informational privacy theory and jurisprudence to better understand the judiciary's reluctance to fully embrace a constitutional right to informational privacy. The Article argues that while existing scholarly theories of informational privacy encourage us to broadly imagine the right and its possibilities, often focusing on informational privacy's ability to …

How Teaching About Therapeutic Jurisprudence Can Be A Tool Of Social Justice, And Lead Law Students To Personally And Socially Rewarding Careers: Sexuality And Disability As A Case Example, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) asks us to look at law as it actually impacts people’s lives and focuses on the law’s influence on emotional life and psychological well-being. It suggests that law should value psychological health, should strive to avoid imposing anti-therapeutic consequences whenever possible, and — when consistent with other values served by law — should attempt to bring about healing and wellness. The ultimate aim of TJ is to determine whether legal rules and procedures or lawyer roles can or should be reshaped to enhance their therapeutic potential while not subordinating due process principles. An inquiry into therapeutic outcomes …

Surrogates In Quebec: The Good, The Bad And The Foreigner, Régine Tremblay

All Faculty Publications

The regime for the formal establishment of parent-child relationships in the province of Quebec was substantially modified in 2002 in order to achieve equality. Reforms to filiation – the legal bond connecting child and mother or child and father – in Quebec provided means for same-sex couples to adopt, for lesbian couples to conceive using donated sperm and clarified the filiation of children born of assisted procreation. This ‘successful’ reform in terms of equality left untouched an existing rule justified by women’s equality, namely, what the civil law calls the absolute nullity of surrogacy agreements. Surrogacy raises questions about what …

Classcrits Mission Statement, Justin Desautels-Stein, Angela P. Harris, Martha Mccluskey, Athena Mutua, James Pope, Ann Tweedy

Publications

No abstract provided.

All His Sexless Patients: Persons With Mental Disabilities And The Competence To Have Sex, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

With the growth in the field of mental disability law over the past 50 years, very few topics involving persons with mental illness remain taboo or off limits to scholars and judges who face these issues daily. However, discussions of the question of whether persons with mental disabilities have a right to voluntary sexual interaction often touches a raw nerve in conversations about mental disability law, even with those who are practicing in the field, and the discomfort people feel in examining this topic is exacerbated when discussing individuals who are institutionalized.

Although this often appears to be a difficult …

Mobile Activism: What Your Profile Picture Says About You, Laura J. Koenig

SURGE

I know you’ve all been seeing this image all of your Facebook news feeds. All of the sudden a few weeks ago it became everyone’s profile picture. People were sharing it, along with other images, explaining why Prop. 8 and the Defense Of Marriage Act should be repealed, and were generally expressing their support of marriage equality. [excerpt]

No Promo Hetero: Children's Right To Be Queer, Clifford Rosky

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the government has no legitimate interest in promoting heterosexuality or gender conformity during childhood. Although opponents of LGBT rights have longed cited this goal as one of the primary justifications for discrimination against LGBT people, it has no constitutional foundation upon which to stand. Building upon a familiar schema of legal scholarship on LGBT rights, this Article challenges the state’s interest in promoting heterosexuality by articulating a tripartite defense of children’s speech, status, and conduct. It argues that these three aspects of homosexuality are connected to and protected by three constitutional clauses — the First Amendment, …

Review Of Out In Africa: Lgbt Organizing In Namibia And South Africa, Chi Adanna Mgbako

Faculty Scholarship

This is a review of the book Out in Africa: LGBT Organizing in Namibia and South Africa by Ashley Currier.

Gender & Sexuality In The Aba Standards On The Treatment Of Prisoners, Margaret Colgate Love, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past three decades, commentators, advocates, and corrections experts have focused increasingly on issues of gender and sexuality in prison. This is due in part to the growing number of women in a generally burgeoning American prison population. It is also attributable to efforts to end custodial sexual abuse and prison sexual violence, which have focused attention on issues relating to women and LGBT prisoners. Also, in part, this heightened attention reflects the influence of growing free-world social movements emphasizing the "intersectionality" of multiple forms of subordination and seeking to secure fair treatment of gay and transgender people.

This …

Soul Of A Woman: The Sex Stereotyping Prohibition At Work, Kimberly A. Yuracko

Faculty Working Papers

In 1989 the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins declared that sex stereotyping was a prohibited from of sex discrimination at work. This seemingly simple declaration has been the most important development in sex discrimination jurisprudence since the passage of Title VII. It has been used to extend the Act's coverage and protect groups that were previously excluded. Astonishingly, however, the contours, dimensions and requirements of the prohibition have never been clearly articulated by courts or scholars. In this paper I evaluate four interpretations of what the sex stereotyping prohibition might mean in order to determine what it actually …

Dating The State: The Moral Hazards Of Winning Gay Rights, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

On August 1, 2009, a masked man dressed in black carrying an automatic weapon stormed into Beit Pazi in Tel Aviv, the home of the Aguda, the National Association of GLBT in Israel. He opened fire on a group of gay and lesbian teenagers who were meeting in the basement for "Bar-Noar," or "Youth Bar," killing two people and wounding at least ten others. This terrible act of violence attracted immediate national and international attention and condemnation. President Simon Peres declared the next day:

[T]he shocking murder carried out in Tel Aviv yesterday against youths and young people is a …

Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, And Michelle Obama: Performing Gender, Race, And Class On The Campaign Trail, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

The 2008 Presidential campaign highlighted three strong, interesting, and very different women -- Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Obama -- who negotiated identity performances in the political limelight. Because of their diverse backgrounds, experience, and ages, an examination of how these three women performed their identities and the public response to them offers a rich understanding of the changing nature of gender, gender roles, age, sexuality and race in our culture. This essay suggests that optimism that Obama's race and gender performances may have removed the stigma from "the feminine" may be misplaced, at least when it comes to …

Dissident Citizen, The Symposium: Sexuality & Gender Law: Assessing The Field, Envisioning The Future, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

We have arrived at a crossroads in terms of the intersection between law, sexuality, and globalization. Historically, and even today, the majority of accounts of GLBT migration tend to remain focused on “a narrative of movement from repression to freedom, or a heroic journey undertaken in search of liberation.” Within this narrative, the United States is usually cast as a land of opportunity and liberation, a place that represents freedom from discrimination and economic opportunity. But this narrative also elides the complexity that erupts from grappling with the reality that many other jurisdictions outside of the United States can be …

Le Droit Myope, Régine Tremblay

All Faculty Publications

Cet essai présente la violence conjugale comme un enjeu de droit privé et de droit public, comme une problématique qui se situe au confluent de ces deux catégories considérées comme mutuellement exclusives. L'évolution de la perception de I'homosexualité en droit public a transformé notre idée du couple en droit privé. Ceci remet en question notre façon de penser le couple, les individus qui le composent et la violence qui s'y produit.

The Politics Of Teen Women’S Sexuality: Public Policy And The Adolescent Female Body, Michelle Fine, Sara I. Mcclelland

Publications and Research

Teen women's sexual and reproductive lives are shaped by laws and public policies that expand or constrict their educational and health supports. Most adolescents depend substantially on the public sector to help support their healthy sexual development and to protect them from sexual violence, disease, and pregnancy. Thus, it is critical to examine the ways in which public policies concerning young women's sexualities have been forged within religious and "moralizing" discourses. The explicit pairing of law and religious ideology has transformed the role of law and public policy in young women's lives from a supportive function to one that censures …

Some Abcs Of Feminist Sex Education (In Light Of The Sexuality Critique Of Legal Feminism), Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This essay offers some ABCs for a framework for sex education informed by feminist and liberal principles, in contrast to the conservative sexual economy underlying abstinence-only sex education. It embraces affirmative governmental responsibility to foster sexual and reproductive agency and responsibility and stresses the aims of capacity, equality, and responsibility. An adequate program of sex education should also address how gender role expectations and stereotypes may stand in the way of adolescents developing capacities for responsible self-government and acquiring a sense of personal agency with respect to intimacy and sexuality. The Essay then evaluates such a feminist project in light …

Morals-Based Justifications For Lawmaking: Before And After Lawrence V. Texas, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Forever, it seems, the power to shape public morality has been seen as central to American governance. As one of the morality tradition's chief promoters, the Supreme Court itself has regularly endorsed and applauded government's police power to regulate the public's morality along with the public's health and welfare.

How, then, can we make sense of the Court's declaration in Lawrence v. Texas that the state's interest in preserving or promoting a particular morality among its constituents did not amount even to a legitimate interest to justify a Texas law criminalizing sexual intimacy between consenting adults? Has the Court unforeseeably …

Limited In Sex, They Dare: Attitudes Toward Issues Of Patient Sexuality, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

The author frequently speaks on issues involving the sexuality rights of persons with mental disabilities who are institutionalized. In this article, he discusses the prevalent attitudes of audience members to these presentations, attitudes ranging from anger to denial to projection to transference/countertransference to fear to expressions of religiosity. In some cases, an important connection is made between the speaker and audience members. The article considers these attitudes and seeks to offer explanations for why this is such a threatening topic to so many listeners.

Sexuality And Sovereignty: The Global Limits And Possibilities Of Lawrence Symposium: Legal Rights In Historical Perspective: From The Margins To The Mainstream, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

In the summer of 2003, the Supreme Court handed gay and lesbian activists a stunning victory in the decision of Lawrence v. Texas, which summarily overruled Bowers v. Hardwick. At issue was whether Texas' prohibition of same-sex sexual conduct violated the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In a powerful, poetic, and strident opinion, Justice Kennedy, writing for a six-member majority, reversed Bowers, observing that individual decisions regarding physical intimacy between consenting adults, either of the same or opposite sex, are constitutionally protected, and thus fall outside of the reach of state intervention. Volumes can be written about the …