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Articles 1 - 25 of 25
Full-Text Articles in Law
Pregnant Transgender People: What To Expect From The Court Of Justice Of The European Union's Jurisprudence On Pregnancy Discrimination, Hannah Van Dijcke
Pregnant Transgender People: What To Expect From The Court Of Justice Of The European Union's Jurisprudence On Pregnancy Discrimination, Hannah Van Dijcke
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Pregnant transgender people’s experiences vary: they may identify as male or non-binary and may seek gender-affirming medical care to different degrees. This variety in gender identities and bodies puts additional pressure on CJEU’s pregnancy discrimination case law—a case law that is, as this Article argues, already flawed. Building on a critique of the CJEU’s decision in Dekker, this Article discusses three alternative approaches to addressing pregnancy discrimination in EU law. The first two approaches are different ways of construing pregnancy discrimination as sex discrimination. First, the Article discusses a gender-stereotyping approach to direct sex discrimination, and, second, an indirect sex …
Born Free: Toward An Expansive Definition Of Sex, Laura Palk, Shelly Grunsted
Born Free: Toward An Expansive Definition Of Sex, Laura Palk, Shelly Grunsted
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The State of New York recently issued its first physician-certified “intersex” birth certificate, correcting a 55-year-old’s original birth certificate. This is a positive step towards eliminating the traditional binary approach to a person’s birth sex, but it creates potential uncertainties in the employment discrimination context. Over the past several years, the definition of what constitutes “discrimination on the basis of sex” has both expanded (with the legalization of same-sex marriage) and narrowed (restricting the use of gender specific bathrooms). Until recently it appeared that a broader definition of the term “sex” would become the judicial—and possibly legislative—norm in a variety …
Removing Camouflaged Barriers To Equality: Overcoming Systemic Sexual Assault And Harassment At The Military Academies, Rebecca Weiant
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 …
Missed Opportunities: The Unrealized Equal Protection Framework In Maher V. Roe And Harris V. Mcrae, Amelia Bailey
Missed Opportunities: The Unrealized Equal Protection Framework In Maher V. Roe And Harris V. Mcrae, Amelia Bailey
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Note focuses on two cases, Maher v. Roe and Harris v. McRae, and argues that they represent watershed moments in the reproductive rights movement because they positioned abortion as a fundamental right in name only. In both cases, the Supreme Court sanctioned severe funding restrictions and refused to grant poor women the right to state and federal assistance for elective and “nontherapeutic” abortions. “Non-therapeutic abortion” refers to those abortions performed or induced when the life of the mother is not endangered if the fetus is carried to term or when the pregnancy of the mother is not the …
Centering The Teenage "Siren": Adolescent Workers, Sexual Harassment, And The Legal Construction Of Race And Gender, Anastasia M. Boles
Centering The Teenage "Siren": Adolescent Workers, Sexual Harassment, And The Legal Construction Of Race And Gender, Anastasia M. Boles
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Recent scholarship and media attention has focused on the prevalence of sexually harassing behavior directed at working teenagers, and the emergence of sexual harassment lawsuits by these minors against their employers. Although many of the legal issues concerning workplace sexual harassment and adult workers (and the various state and federal jurisprudence prohibiting it) have been widely discussed, there is surprisingly little discourse, research, and precedent addressing the problem of workplace sexual harassment and teen workers. Currently, most sexual harassment cases brought by adolescent workers are litigated using the doctrinal framework for adult workers. Only the Seventh Circuit has developed an …
Flexible Scheduling And Gender Equiality: The Working Families Flexibility Act Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lane C. Powell
Flexible Scheduling And Gender Equiality: The Working Families Flexibility Act Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lane C. Powell
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The Working Families Flexibility Act (“WFFA”) as proposed in 2012 would create a federal right for employees to request flexible work arrangements. However, the bill contains no private right of action for employees to enforce this new right. By reframing the WFFA as an anti-discrimination statute targeting unconstitutional sex discrimination on the part of the States, the WFFA could be upheld under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, allowing Congress to provide a private right of action for both private and state employees. This Note uses the Supreme Court’s decisions on the Family Medical Leave Act in Hibbs and Coleman …
Against The New Maternalism, Naomi Mezey, Cornelia T. L. Pillard
Against The New Maternalism, Naomi Mezey, Cornelia T. L. Pillard
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Parenting is a major preoccupation in law and culture. As a result of efforts of the American women's movement over the past forty years, the legal parent is, for the first time in history, sex-neutral. Our law has abandoned restrictions on women's education, employment, and civic participation that sprang from and reinforced beliefs about the primacy of motherhood as women's best destiny. On the flip side, U.S. law now also generally rejects formal constraints on men's family roles by requiring sex-neutrality of laws regulating custody, adoption, alimony, spousal benefits, and the like. The official de-linking of presumptive parenting roles from …
Sex Equality's Unnamed Nemesis, Veronica Percia
Sex Equality's Unnamed Nemesis, Veronica Percia
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Sex inequality still exists. However, its manifestations have evolved since the early sex inequality cases were heard in courts and legislatures first began structuring statutory regimes to combat it. In particular, so-called "facial" discrimination against men and women on the basis of sex has no doubt decreased since the advent of this legal assault on sex inequality. Yet the gendered assumptions that structure our institutions and interactions have proven resilient. With sex discrimination now operating more covertly, the problem of sex inequality looks considerably different than it once did. Courts, however, have failed to successfully respond to the changing contours …
Removing Categorical Constraints On Equal Employment Opportunities And Anti-Discrimination Protections, Anastasia Niedrich
Removing Categorical Constraints On Equal Employment Opportunities And Anti-Discrimination Protections, Anastasia Niedrich
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
It has been the "historical tendency of anti-discrimination law to use categories to define protected classes of people." This Article challenges the categorical approach and seeks to change that limited framework. This Article focuses on the flaws with Title VII's categorical approach and discusses why there is a desperate need for change to combat the different types and targets of workplace discrimination today, focusing on the transgender community as one example. After discussing the current framework and operation of Title VII, this Article analyzes the insurmountable flaws inherent in the categorical approach to anti-discrimination law, and specifically considers Title VII's …
Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Contingent Equal Protection: Reaching For Equality After Ricci And Pics, Jennifer S. Hendricks
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article uses the term contingent equal protection to describe the constitutional analysis that applies to a range of governmental efforts to ameliorate race and sex hierarchies. "Contingent" refers to the fact that the equal protection analysis is contingent upon the existence of structural, de facto inequality. Contingent equal protection cases include those that involve explicit race and sex classifications, facially neutral efforts to reduce inequality, and accommodation of sex differences to promote equality. Uniting all three kinds of cases under a single conceptual umbrella reveals the implications that developments in one area can have for the other two.
Vindicating The Matriarch: A Fair Housing Act Challenge To Federal No-Fault Evictions From Public Housing, Melissa A. Cohen
Vindicating The Matriarch: A Fair Housing Act Challenge To Federal No-Fault Evictions From Public Housing, Melissa A. Cohen
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Pearlie Rucker, sixty-three years old, had been living in public housing in Oakland, California for thirteen years. Ms. Rucker lived with her mentally disabled adult daughter, Gelinda, as well as two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Ms. Rucker regularly searched Gelinda's room for signs of drugs, and had warned Gelinda that any drug activity on the premises could result in eviction. Nevertheless, Gelinda was caught with drugs three blocks from the apartment. Despite the fact that Ms. Rucker had no knowledge of Gelinda's drug activity, and in fact had been carefully monitoring what happened in her apartment, the Oakland Housing Authority …
Untold Stories: Gender-Related Persecution And Asylum In South Africa, Lindsay M. Harris
Untold Stories: Gender-Related Persecution And Asylum In South Africa, Lindsay M. Harris
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article explains the particular difficulties that female asylum seekers and survivors of gender-related persecution face, reaffirming the need for the practical and sensitive application of international and domestic gender guidelines. Extensive research into client files and interviews with key decision makers prove that, despite scholarship suggesting that women may be advantaged in asylum proceedings, a focus on gender is still needed in the South African context. While there are undoubtedly problematic elements of the 1998 Refugees Act warranting its revision, the addition of gender as an additional category under the refugee definition, as proposed by the recent Refugees Amendment …
Student Gladiators And Sexual Assault: A New Analysis Of Liability For Injuries Inflicted By College Athletes, Ann Scales
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article will focus on an issue that was probably not on the minds of 19th century educators, nor primarily on the minds of the legions of present-day academic critics of intercollegiate sports. Namely, this Article explores the ways in which big-time athletics- particularly football-normalize and encourage harms to women, including educational and sexual harms. The author’s theses depend upon acknowledging certain open secrets about college football: that it is a celebration of male physical supremacy (measured by male standards); that it is something that society lets males do and have as their sport, for reasons both good and bad; …
The Lactating Angel Or Activist? Public Breatsfeeding As Symbolic Speech, Elizabeth Hildebrand Matherne
The Lactating Angel Or Activist? Public Breatsfeeding As Symbolic Speech, Elizabeth Hildebrand Matherne
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The only way to combat this stigma against public breastfeeding is through the act of breastfeeding in public. The author proposes that breastfeeding is a powerful act of symbolic speech vital for discarding one of the lingering shackles of women's inequality that triggers first amendment protection. Breastfeeding in public addresses this stigma by treating two ills at once: 1) greater public exposure to the practice decreases the severity of society's reactions, and 2) the less stares and confrontation that publicly nursing mothers receive, the more likely they will be to breastfeed, whenever or wherever their baby is hungry. This will …
Refusal To Dispense Emergency Contraception In Washington State: An Act Of Conscience Or Unlawful Sex Discrimination?, Dana E. Blackman
Refusal To Dispense Emergency Contraception In Washington State: An Act Of Conscience Or Unlawful Sex Discrimination?, Dana E. Blackman
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article will demonstrate that a pharmacist's refusal to fill a valid prescription for emergency contraception constitutes sex discrimination and violates the WLAD. Part I explains the nature and function of emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) as well as their role in basic health care for women and the importance of their accessibility. Part II addresses federal civil rights protections and the failure of these protections to provide relief for women facing refusals. Focusing on the WLAD, Part II also explains how state public accommodation statutes protect women from discrimination in places of public accommodation. It further sets forth the prima …
Victimizing The Abused?: Is Termination The Solution When Domestic Violence Comes To Work?, Nicole Buonocore Porter
Victimizing The Abused?: Is Termination The Solution When Domestic Violence Comes To Work?, Nicole Buonocore Porter
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Part I of this article will discuss domestic violence, explaining the dynamics of domestic violence in an effort to shed light on why it is so difficult for a battered woman to leave the abusive relationship. This understanding is necessary for a sensitive and informed decision-making process. This Part will also discuss the magnitude of the effect that domestic violence has on the workplace. Part II will discuss a company's potential legal liability for: (a) wrongfully terminating the employee-victim and (b) failing to protect other employees (including, perhaps, the employee-victim herself) if the company does not terminate the employee-victim and …
Hands Off Policy: Equal Protection And The Contact Sports Exemption Of Title Ix, Jamal Greene
Hands Off Policy: Equal Protection And The Contact Sports Exemption Of Title Ix, Jamal Greene
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The disparity between what the Constitution permits of public schools and what Title IX permits of private ones is unquestionably stark. This Article calls this disparity into question. First, it asks under what circumstances, if any, allowance for sex discrimination in athletics may be justified under constitutional standards. Then, it considers the practical relevance of the disparity between how a school may lawfully discriminate under Title IX and how it may do so under the Equal Protection Clause. Finally, it offers a prescription for bringing into balance the gender equity messages sent by Title IX and the Constitution.
From Presumed Fathers To Lesbian Mothers: Sex Discrimination And The Legal Construction Of Parenthood, Susan E. Dalton
From Presumed Fathers To Lesbian Mothers: Sex Discrimination And The Legal Construction Of Parenthood, Susan E. Dalton
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
In Part I of this article, Dalton briefly reviews the way legal scholars commonly define sex-based discrimination, particularly as it pertains to issues of reproduction. Part II is a brief historical review of legal constructions of parenthood. In Part III, Dalton examines two legal concepts: retroactive legitimation and presumed fatherhood. Both concepts were introduced in 1872 and each independently encouraged judges to think of fatherhood as consisting of two distinct spheres, the biological and the social. She then traces the legal development of these concepts through a series of presumed father, retroactive legitimation, and putative father cases. In Part IV …
The Customer Is Always Right… Not! Employer Liability For Third Party Sexual Harassment, Lea B. Vaughn
The Customer Is Always Right… Not! Employer Liability For Third Party Sexual Harassment, Lea B. Vaughn
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This article will ask a series of questions. What is third party sexual harassment? Under what conditions does it occur? Does it differ in any significant respects from traditional notions of sexual harassment? Should those differences, if any, make a difference in the way that the legal system addresses third party harassment? And indeed, should the problem be addressed solely through the legal system? What might an employer do to alleviate sexual harassment of this type?
Brief For The Plaintiff-Appellant Lucas Rosa In The United States Court Of Appeals For The First Circuit Lucas Rosa V. Park West Bank And Trust Company On Appeal From The United States District Court For The District Of Massachusetts, Jennifer L. Levi, Mary L. Bonauto
Brief For The Plaintiff-Appellant Lucas Rosa In The United States Court Of Appeals For The First Circuit Lucas Rosa V. Park West Bank And Trust Company On Appeal From The United States District Court For The District Of Massachusetts, Jennifer L. Levi, Mary L. Bonauto
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The District Court fundamentally misconceived the law as applicable to the Plaintiffs claim by concluding that there may be no relationship, as a matter of law, between telling a bank customer what to wear and sex discrimination. It also misapplied Rule 12(b)(6) to the extent that it resolved any factual questions beyond the allegations of the Complaint regarding the basis of the Bank's different treatment of the Plaintiff. Finally, because the District Court incorrectly dismissed the single federal claim in Plaintiffs Complaint, it improperly dismissed Plaintiffs pendant state claims for want of federal court jurisdiction.
Amicus Curiae Brief Of Now Legal Defense And Education Fund And Equal Rights Advocates In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellant And In Support Of Reversal In The United States Court Of Appeals For The First Curcuit Lucas Rosa V. Park West Bank And Trust Company On Appeal From The United States District Court For The District Of Massachusetts, Katherine M. Franke
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
By dismissing the plaintiffs complaint under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act ("ECOA") on the ground that "the issue in this case is not [Rosa's] sex, but rather how he chose to dress when applying for a loan" (Bench Order at 1), the lower court erroneously established that there are no set of facts in which clothing-based sex stereotyping can form the basis of a legitimate claim of sex discrimination in access to credit. This view of the meaning and scope of the ECOA runs contrary to well-established Supreme Court precedent which prohibits, inter alia, the adverse treatment of a …
Lucas Rosa V. Park West Bank And Trust Company, Katherine M. Franke
Lucas Rosa V. Park West Bank And Trust Company, Katherine M. Franke
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
In July of 1998 something rather mundane happened: Lucas Rosa walked into Park West Bank in Holyoke, Massachusetts and asked for a loan application. Since it was a warm summer day, and because she wanted to look credit-worthy, Rosa wore a blousey top over stockings. Suddenly, the mundane transformed into the exceptional: When asked for some identification, Rosa was told that no application would be forthcoming until and unless she went home, changed her clothes and returned attired in more traditionally masculine/male clothing. Rosa, a biological male who identifies herself as female was, it seems, denied a loan application on …
Epilogue, Jennifer L. Levi
Epilogue, Jennifer L. Levi
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The First Circuit reversed the district court's order dismissing Lucas Rosa's claim against Park West Bank. The appeals court's reversal seems to be part of an emerging nationwide rejection of cases from the 1970s and 1980s in which courts summarily dismissed sex discrimination claims brought by transgender plaintiffs, no matter how squarely the facts appeared to present a clear-cut case of discrimination based on sex. Creating what appeared to be a "transgender" exception to sex discrimination law, those earlier courts ignored what the First Circuit recognized here-that a bank officer who tells an applicant to go home, change, and return …
Dowry Deaths: Proposing A Standard For Implementation Of Domestic Legislation In Accordance With Human Rights Obligations, Namratha S. Ravikant
Dowry Deaths: Proposing A Standard For Implementation Of Domestic Legislation In Accordance With Human Rights Obligations, Namratha S. Ravikant
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This article discusses the due diligence standard of governmental responsibility, and measures the adequacy of India's implementation of its national dowry death legislation in accordance with its international human rights obligations. India has enacted legislation designed to combat dowry violence. Although India's laws seem to follow the letter of its international human rights obligations, the country violates the spirit of human rights by lacking an actual commitment to implement this legislation. This Article demonstrates and examines India's breach of its duty of due diligence. Such a breach constitutes government complicity in condoning and perpetuating dowry deaths, which violate women's human …
An Imperfect Remedy For Imperfect Violence: The Construction Of Civil Rights In The Violence Against Women Act, David Frazee
An Imperfect Remedy For Imperfect Violence: The Construction Of Civil Rights In The Violence Against Women Act, David Frazee
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Along with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) could be the most significant addition to federal civil rights laws in the last century. While potentially revolutionary, the VAWA's civil rights remedy forges two problematic legal concepts-traditional civil rights jurisprudence and "perfect" violence-into a super-remedy that risks combining the worst aspects of each. Those who utilize and interpret the Act can avoid this outcome by situating individual violent acts in the broader social and historical context of gender-motivated violence.