Law Commons^™

The Glass Ceiling In Law Firms: A Form Of Sex-Based Discrimination, Rebecca Korzec

All Faculty Scholarship

At a certain level, women lawyers collide with a "glass ceiling," an invisible, artificial barrier which prevents women from being promoted to management and leadership positions within a business or firm. The glass ceiling 'represents a subtle form of sex discrimination - unwritten, generally unspoken, but very pervasive.' Its presence is reflected in trends and statistics which consistently reveal women's underrepresentation in executive and management positions.

This article focuses on whether the glass ceiling formed as a result of sex discrimination, blatant or subtle, or whether it formed as a result of women lawyers' differing qualifications or career choices. It …

When Fathers' Rights Are Mothers' Duties: The Failure Of Equal Protection In Miller V. Albright, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

The history of coverture and the transmission of American citizenship brings an elementary point into focus: The allocation of parental rights is always correlated with the allocation of parental responsibility. This basic legal truism, and its numerous implications for citizenship law, suggests that the principal gender injustice caused by § 1409 is not its truncation of fathers' rights, but its creation and perpetuation of a legal regime in which mothers assume full responsibility for foreign-born nonmarital children. Once we recognize this gendered operation of § 1409, broader failures of equal protection analysis come into relief. First, while the jurisprudential understanding …

Sexuality And Civil Rights: Re-Imagining Anti-Discrimination Laws, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I first describe the origins and current status of anti-discrimination laws that cover sexual orientation and/or gender identity. I examine the debates over whether existing laws are underutilized, and I analyze the variations in the structures of state and local laws that contribute to an unevenness in the patterns of utilization. These factors suggest that even persons living in states or local jurisdictions that already have anti-discrimination laws may lack meaningful mechanisms for redress. Part two raises the ante in my exploration of the relationship between sexuality and civil rights laws by asking whether there are ways …

Gay People, Trans People, Women: Is It All About Gender?, Chai R. Feldblum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A few gay rights theorists have long pointed out that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation can be conceived of as discrimination based on sex. But those of us who play primarily in the legislative or litigation arenas have largely ignored the practical applications of that insight. In this brief essay, I want to consider whether it makes sense for gay rights legislative advocates and litigators to continue to downplay the gender non-conformity aspects of gay sexual orientation . . . the first part of this essay reviews activities that occurred between 1993 and 2001 regarding coverage of gender …