Law Commons^™

Boardroom Diversity: Why It Matters, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

What exactly is board diversity and why does it matter? How does diversity fit in an attempt to build the best board for an organization? What attributes and skills are required by law and what mix of experiences and talents provide the best corporate governance? Even though most companies say they are looking for diversity, why has there been such little progress? Are required director attributes, which are a must for all boards, consistent with future diversity gains and aligned with achieving high performance and optimal board composition? How might women and people of color best cultivate the skills necessary …

The Intersection Of Women's Olympic Sport And Intersex Athletes: A Long And Winding Road, Daniel Gandert

Daniel J Gandert

After a victorious performance in the women’s 800 meter event at the 12th International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) World Championships in Berlin, the 18-year old runner Caster Semenya was under suspicion of not being female. She was required to undergo sex determination testing, also known as gender testing. While Semenya’s rivals likely found her case to be unique, athletes with similar conditions are not new to international competition and less-than-sensitive handling of such cases has regrettably been the norm in the past.

In May of 2011, and perhaps spurred by the Semenya case, the IAAF announced new eligibility rules …

A Right To Sexual Orientation Privacy: Strengthening Protections For Minors Who Are Outed In Schools, Adam J. Kretz

Adam Kretz

This Article examines a unique question in constitutional law and privacy rights – namely, what rights minor students have to control who can and cannot be informed of their sexual orientation. Through an examination of case law and social science data, the Article proposes that students should hold greater power over information regarding their sexual orientation, and hold responsible school officials who “out” students to a family member, parent, or guardian without the student’s consent.

The Female-Firm Under-Performance Hypothesis And Gender Disparity In The Laws, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using firm-level data on developing countries, the present paper explores and extends the well-known female-firm under-performance hypothesis. Using firm-size as the measure of performance, we contribute to the literature in three important ways. First, in contrast to existing studies that focus on the gender of the owner(s), we focus on the gender of the top manager of the firm. Hence, a new dimension of female vs. male-firms is suggested. Second, we argue that the gender-based difference in firm-size in favor of men need not be uniform across countries. Specifically, we argue that it is likely to be larger in countries …

Gender Factor In The Insurance Law: Recent Development Of The Ecj In Context With The U.S. Approach, Vadim Mantrov

Vadim Mantrov

This essay discusses recent development of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) on lawfulness of the use of the gender factor in calculation of insurance premiums and benefits. After summarizing effective regulation of the United States and the European Union, the essay provides not only relevant facts and reasoning of the ECJ but also critical review of this reasoning and reveals differences of approaches between the U.S. Supreme court and the ECJ. Still, it concludes that the ECJ left door open for possible adaptations for lawfulness of the use of gender factor in future.

Flexible Work Schedule, Child Care And Female Employment In Developing Countries: Evidence Using Firm-Level Data, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using newly available data on whether a country gives additional legal rights or not for flexible or part-time work schedule to employees with minor children, we analyze the impact of such provision in the law on female employment. For a representative sample of manufacturing firms in 57 developing countries, we find that the stated provision in the law has a large positive effect on the employment of females. Specifically, on the conservative side, the provision in the law increases the proportion of females in the workforce by 7.7 percentage points, a large effect given that on average females constitute 32 …

Gender Factor In The Insurance Law: Recent Development Of The Ecj In Context With The U.S. Approach, Vadim Mantrov

Vadim Mantrov

This essay discusses recent development of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) on lawfulness of the use of the gender factor in calculation of insurance premiums and benefits. After summarizing effective regulation of the United States and the European Union, the essay provides not only relevant facts and reasoning of the ECJ but also critical review of this reasoning and reveals differences of approaches between the U.S. Supreme court and the ECJ. Still, it concludes that the ECJ left door open for possible adaptations for lawfulness of the use of gender factor in future.

Lgbt Taxpayers: A Collision Of "Others", Anthony C. Infanti

Anthony C. Infanti

In this essay prepared for a symposium on the intersection of tax law with gender and sexuality, I explore the violent collision of these two concepts - or, more appropriately, these two “others.” I begin my exploration of this collision of “others” by first explaining how the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community is a marginalized “other” in American society while, in contrast, tax is a privileged “other” in the realm of American law. Then, I turn to a close examination of a recent case, O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner, to illustrate the collision of the otherness of LGBT individuals with …

Of Coyotes, Cooperation, And Capital: Social Capital And Women’S Migration At The Margins Of The State, Anna O. Oleary

Anna Ochoa OLeary

Examined here are some of the tenets of social capital in the context of the migrants’ crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without official authorization. Using this context helps identify how social capital development is weakened by the structural and gendered dimensions of migration, contributing to the rise in undocumented border crosser deaths since 1993.

Mixed Immigration Status Households In The Context Of Arizona’S Anti-Immigrant Policies, Anna O. Oleary, Azucena Sanchez

Anna Ochoa OLeary

Although the seeds of legislated restrictions for immigrants can be traced to 1986 with California’s unsuccessful Prop 187, more recent trends epitomized by Arizona’s proposed Senate Bill 1070, signed by that state’s governor in April, 2010, have renewed concerns about the effects that such measures will have on the life and livelihood of communities that include immigrants present in the country without official authorization (“undocumented immigrants”). In this paper we use some of the results of a binational study of reproductive health care strategies to show how emerging anti-immigrant policies neglect how such policies impact mixed immigration status households, a …

Imbrication Of Legal And Expert Discourses On Monoparental Adoptive Processes, Raquel Medina Plana

Raquel Medina Plana

Long and complex, international adoption processes can be seen as constituting a set of performative practices which involve strategies of transmission/ incorporation of culture, implying the construction of relational identities or subjectivities. With an “educational” drive, and a strong uniformity aspiration, the relevant institutions would be constructing a unified kind of adoptive parenthood, not just in their public dimension but also on the more intimate identity configuration level: the emotional life, affections, expectations, personal history… (Borrillo and Pitois-Etienne, 2004). When confronted with “non-traditional” family projects (as it is the case with monoparental adoption), adoptive processes perform a strong governmental control …

Feminism In The Global Political Economy: Contradiction And Consensus In Cuba, Deborah M. Weissman

Deborah M. Weissman

Much has been written about transnational feminist networks and their impacts on the local condition of women. Transborder feminist organizing has reshaped discourses and practice from the local to the international. Global feminist endeavors have influenced the development of international legal standards affecting the circumstances of women and contributed to the gender mainstreaming of human rights initiatives. At the same time, feminist transnationalism has often been identified as the source of tension as efforts have at times resulted in support for a neoliberal agenda propounding empowerment and self-esteem issues, which in turn, has raised questions about who is defining the …