Law Commons^™

The New Gender Panic In Sport: Why State Laws Banning Transgender Athletes Are Unconstitutional, Deborah Brake

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The scope and pace of legislative activity targeting transgender individuals is nothing short of a gender panic. From restrictions on medical care to the regulation of library books and the use of pronouns in schools, attacks on the transgender community have reached crisis proportions. A growing number of families with transgender children are being forced to leave their states of residence to keep their children healthy and their families safe and intact. The breadth and pace of these developments is striking. Although the anti-transgender backlash now extends broadly into health and family governance, sport was one of the first settings—the …

Title Ix's Trans Panic, Deborah L. Brake

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Sport is an agent of social change, but that change does not always track in a progressive direction. Sport can be a site for contesting and reversing the gains of progressive social movements as much as furthering the values of equality and justice for historically marginalized groups. This dynamic of contestation and reversal is now playing out in a new wave of anti-transgender backlash that has gained adherents among some proponents of equal athletic opportunities for girls and women. In this latest twist in the debate over who deserves the opportunity to compete, the sex-separate athletic programming permitted by Title …

Theory Matters—And Ten More Things I Learned From Martha Chamallas About Feminism, Law, And Gender, Deborah L. Brake

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This Festschrift article celebrates the scholarship of Martha Chamallas, Distinguished University Professor and Robert J. Lynn Chair in Law Emeritus of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, and one of the most impactful scholars of feminist legal theory and employment discrimination of her generation. Mining the insights of Chamallas’s body of work, the article identifies ten core “lessons” relating to feminism and law drawn from her scholarship and academic career. It then weaves in summaries and synthesis of her published works with discussion of subsequent legal and social developments since their publication. These lessons (e.g., feminism is plural; …

Lawyers For White People?, Jessie Allen

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This article investigates an anomalous legal ethics rule, and in the process exposes how current equal protection doctrine distorts civil rights regulation. When in 2016 the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct finally adopted its first ever rule forbidding discrimination in the practice of law, the rule carried a strange exemption: it does not apply to lawyers’ acceptance or rejection of clients. The exemption for client selection seems wrong. It contradicts the common understanding that in the U.S. today businesses may not refuse service on discriminatory grounds. It sends a message that lawyers enjoy a professional prerogative to discriminate against …

Reproducing Inequality Under Title Ix, Deborah L. Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

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This article elaborates on and critiques the law’s separation of pregnancy, with rights grounded in sex equality under Title IX, from reproductive control, which the law treats as a matter of privacy, a species of liberty under the due process clause. While pregnancy is the subject of Title IX protection, reproductive control is parceled off into a separate legal framework grounded in privacy, rather than recognized as a matter that directly implicates educational equality. The law’s division between educational equality and liberty in two non-intersecting sets of legal rights has done no favors to the reproductive rights movement either. By …

Coworker Retaliation In The #Metoo Era, Deborah Brake

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The national firestorm sparked by #MeToo has galvanized feminist legal scholars to reconsider the Title VII framework governing workplace sexual harassment and the potential for #MeToo to transform workplace culture in a way that Title VII, to date, has not. In the analysis of #MeToo’s prospects for change, less attention has been paid to how Title VII’s protection from retaliation intersects with the movement. One particular aspect of retaliation law – coworker retaliation – has thus far escaped the attention of legal scholars. Already underdeveloped as a species of retaliation law, coworker retaliation holds particular resonance for the #MeToo movement …

Contraceptive Equity: Curing The Sex Discrimination In The Aca's Mandate, Greer Donley

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Birth control is typically viewed as a woman’s problem despite the fact that men and women are equally capable of using contraception. The Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate (Mandate), which requires insurers to cover all female methods of birth control without cost, promotes this assumption and reinforces contraceptive inequity between the sexes. By excluding men, the Mandate burdens women in four ways: it fails to financially support a quarter to a third of women that rely on male birth control to prevent pregnancy; it incentivizes women to endure the risks and side effects of birth control when safer options exist …

Regulation Of Encapsulated Placenta, Greer Donley

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The practice of placenta encapsulation is rapidly growing. It typically involves post-partum mothers consuming their placentas as pills in the months after childbirth. The perceived benefits include improved mood and energy, reduced bleeding and pain, and greater milk supply. But these effects are unproven, and consumption comes with health risks. The rise of this trend has sparked a vigorous debate in the recent medical literature, but this Article is the first to consider the legal implications of placenta encapsulation. This Article examines whether FDA should regulate encapsulated placenta, and if so, whether it should be regulated as a drug, supplement, …

Back To Basics: Excavating The Sex Discrimination Roots Of Campus Sexual Assault, Deborah Brake

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This article, written for a symposium devoted to the legacy of celebrated Lady Vols coach, Pat Summit, connects the dots between Title IX’s regulation of campus sexual assault and the law’s overarching goal of expanding women’s access to leadership. Beginning with a discussion of how sexual objectification and harassment obstruct women’s paths to leadership, the article situates campus sexual assault as an important part of Title IX’s overarching agenda to promote equal educational opportunity. Although liberal feminism and dominance feminism are often discussed as competing theoretical frames for understanding and challenging gender inequality, they are best seen as complementary and …

Fighting The Rape Culture Wars Through The Preponderance Of The Evidence Standard, Deborah Brake

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In the heated controversy over the obligations Title IX places on colleges and universities to respond to sexual assault, no issue has been more contentious than the standard of proof used to make findings of responsibility in internal student misconduct processes. In 2011, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education released a “Dear Colleague” letter (DCL) clarifying the obligations imposed on institutions of higher education to use fair and equitable grievances procedures in resolving allegations of sexual assault. Among numerous other requirements, the DCL alerted colleges and universities that it expected them to use the …

The Trouble With 'Bureaucracy', Deborah L. Brake

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Despite heightened public concern about the prevalence of sexual assault in higher education and the stepped-up efforts of the federal government to address it, new stories from survivors of sexual coercion and rape, followed by institutional betrayal, continue to emerge with alarming frequency. More recently, stories of men found responsible and harshly punished for such conduct in sketchy campus procedures have trickled into the public dialogue, forming a counter-narrative in the increasingly polarized debate over what to do about sexual assault on college campuses. Into this frayed dialogue, Jeannie Suk and Jacob Gersen have contributed a provocative new article criticizing …

Lessons From The Gender Equality Movement: Using Title Ix To Foster Inclusive Masculinities In Men's Sport, Deborah L. Brake

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This article was written for a symposium issue in Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice on the topic of LGBT inclusion in sports. The symposium, which was held at the University of Minnesota Law School in November of 2015, was precipitated by the controversy that erupted when NFL player Chris Kluwe sued and settled with the Minnesota Vikings for allegedly firing him over his outspoken support for marriage equality. The article situates the Chris Kluwe controversy in the broader context of masculinity in men’s sports. At a time when support for LGBT rights has resulted in striking …

On Not 'Having It Both Ways' And Still Losing: Reflections On Fifty Years Of Pregnancy Litigation Under Title Vii, Deborah L. Brake

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This article, published in the B.U. Law Review Symposium issue, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 at 50: Past, Present and Future,” reflects on the past fifty years of conflict and struggle over how to treat pregnancy discrimination under Title VII. Pregnancy has played a pivotal role in debates among feminist legal scholars and women’s rights advocates about the limitations of both the equal treatment and special treatment anti-discrimination frameworks. The article’s title references the much-discussed Wendy W. Williams cautionary note that if we cannot have it “both ways” we need to decide which way we want to have it …

Evolving Standards Of Domination: Abandoning A Flawed Legal Standard And Approaching A New Era In Penal Reform, Spearit

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This Article critiques the evolving standards of decency doctrine as a form of Social Darwinism. It argues that evolving standards of decency provided a system of review that was tailor-made for Civil Rights opponents to scale back racial progress. Although as a doctrinal matter, evolving standards sought to tie punishment practices to social mores, prison sentencing became subject to political agendas that determined the course of punishment more than the benevolence of a maturing society. Indeed, rather than the fierce competition that is supposed to guide social development, the criminal justice system was consciously deployed as a means of social …

Sex And The Shari’A: Defining Gender Norms And Sexual Deviancy In Shi’I Islam, Haider Ala Hamoudi

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This paper demonstrates that modern authoritative jurists working within the Shi’i tradition have developed their rules respecting sex regulation to serve three primary commitments. The first of these is that there is an intense and near debilitating desire on the part of human beings generally, though mostly men, for a great deal of sex. This desire must be satisfied, but it also must be tightly controlled. This is because of the second commitment, which is that excessive licentiousness is a form of secular distraction from a believer’s central obligation to worship God. Finally, and perhaps the most interesting, is the …

Encouraging Maternal Sacrifice: How Regulations Governing The Consumption Of Pharmaceuticals During Pregnancy Prioritize Fetal Safety Over Maternal Health And Autonomy, Greer Donley

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Pregnant women are routinely faced with the stressful decision of whether to consume needed medications during their pregnancies. Because the risks associated with pharmaceutical drug consumption during pregnancy are largely unknown, pregnant women both inadvertently consume dangerous medications and avoid needed drugs. Both outcomes are harmful to pregnant women and their fetuses. This unparalleled lack of drug safety information is a result of ill-conceived, paternalistic regulations in two areas of the law: regulations governing ethical research in human subjects and regulations that dictate the required labels on drugs. The former categorizes pregnant women as “vulnerable” and thus precludes them from …

Discrimination Inward And Upward: Lessons On Law And Social Inequality From The Troubling Case Of Women Coaches, Deborah L. Brake

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In the Title IX success story, women’s opportunities in coaching jobs have not kept pace with the striking gains made by female athletes. Women’s share of jobs coaching female athletes has declined substantially in the years since the law was enacted, moving from more than 90% to below 43% today. As a case study, the situation of women coaches contains important lessons about the ability of discrimination law to promote social equality. This article highlights one feature of bias against women coaches — gender bias by female athletes — as a counter-paradigm that presents a challenge to the dominant frame …

Unprotected Sex: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act At 35, Deborah L. Brake, Joanna L. Grossman

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Thirty-five years ago, Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to overturn a Supreme Court decision refusing to recognize pregnancy discrimination as a form of discrimination based on sex. Now, three and a half decades later, women whose work lives are impacted by pregnancy are again finding themselves unprotected from discrimination. Lower court rulings have eviscerated the Act’s protections at the same time that an expansion of worker rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act should redound to the benefit of pregnant women by expanding the pool of comparators who receive accommodations. By following trends in discrimination law generally - equating …

Does The Constitution Protect Abortions Based On Fetal Anomaly?: Examining The Potential For Disability-Selective Abortion Bans In The Age Of Prenatal Whole Genome Sequencing, Greer Donley

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This Note examines whether the state or federal government has the power to enact a law that prevents women from obtaining abortions based on their fetus’s genetic abnormality. Such a ban has already been enacted in North Dakota and introduced in Indiana and Missouri. I argue below that this law presents a novel state intrusion on a woman’s right to obtain a pre-viability abortion. Moreover, these pieces of legislation contain an outdated understanding of prenatal genetic testing—the landscape of which is quickly evolving as a result of a new technology: prenatal whole genome sequencing. This Note argues that the incorporation …

Pathways For Women To Senior Management Positions And Board Seats: An A-Z List, Douglas M. Branson

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In April, Michigan State University School of Law held a symposium entitled “Pathways to Power.” For the most part, symposium speakers confined themselves to speaking about women’s progress along partner tracks in law firms, into positions as prosecutors and judges, and elections to political office. The author of this article has published two books (No Seat at the Table - How Governance and Law Keep Women Out of the Boardroom and The Last Male Bastion - Gender and the CEO Suite) and several articles on pathways for women to corporate management positions and to board seats. This article …

Judges' Gender And Employment Discrimination Cases: Emerging Evidence-Based Empirical Conclusions, Pat K. Chew

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This article surveys the emerging empirical research on the relationship between the judges' gender and the results in employment discrimination cases.

Doma And The Happy Family: A Lesson In Irony, Rhonda Wasserman

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In enacting the Defense of Marriage Act, Congress chose to protect heterosexual marriage because of its “deep and abiding interest in encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing. Simply put, government has an interest in marriage because it has an interest in children.” Ironically, DOMA may harm, rather than protect, the interests of some children – i.e., the children of gay and lesbian couples.

Both state and federal law reflect the belief that children are better off being raised by two parents in an intact family. This belief is reflected in the marital presumption of paternity, which presumes that a married woman’s …

The Heart Of The Game: Putting Race And Educational Equity At The Center Of Title Ix, Deborah L. Brake, Verna L. Williams

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This article examines how race and educational equity issues shape women's sports experiences, building upon the narrative of Darnellia Russell, a high school basketball player profiled in the documentary The Heart of the Game. Darnellia is a star player who, because of an unintended pregnancy, has to fight to play the game she loves.

This girl's story provides a unique and underutilized lens through which to examine gender and athletics, as well as evaluate the legal framework for gender equality in sport. In focusing on this narrative, we seek to give voice to black female athletes and to express their …

What Counts As 'Discrimination' In Ledbetter And The Implications For Sex Equality Law, Deborah L. Brake

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This article, presented at a Symposium, The Roberts Court and Equal Protection: Gender, Race and Class held at the University of South Carolina School of Law in the Spring of 2008, explores the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for sex equality law more broadly, including equal protection. There is more interrelation between statutory and constitutional equality law as a source of discrimination protections than is generally acknowledged. Although the Ledbetter decision purports to be a narrow procedural ruling regarding the statute of limitations for Title VII pay discrimination claims, at its …

Subtly Sexist Language, Pat K. Chew, Lauren K. Kelley-Chew

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Sometimes, sexist language is blatant and universally shunned. Other times, it is more subtle and even socially acceptable. For instance, as summarized in this article, substantial social science research has considered the use of male-gendered generics (the use of such words as he, man, chairman, or mankind to represent both women and men) rather than gender-neutral alternatives (such as she or he, human, chairperson, or humankind). This research concludes that male-gendered generics are exclusionary of women and tend to reinforce gender stereotypes. Yet, these words may not be recognized as discriminatory because their use is perceived as normative and therefore …

Perceiving Subtle Sexism: Mapping The Social-Psychological Forces And Legal Narratives That Obscure Gender Bias, Deborah L. Brake

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This essay seeks to explain the Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education case as an interpretation of discrimination that notably and correctly focuses on how institutions cause sex-based harm, rather than on whether officials within chosen institutions act with a discriminatory intent. In the process, I discuss what appears to be the implicit theory of discrimination underlying the Davis decision: that schools cause the discrimination by exacerbating the harm that results from sexual harassment by students. I then explore the significance of the deliberate indifference requirement in this context, concluding that the standard, for all its flaws, is distinct …

Title Ix As Pragmatic Feminism, Deborah Brake

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This paper uses Title IX as a vehicle for exploring the potential benefits of pragmatism for feminist legal theory. Title IX is unusual in antidiscrimination law for its eclectic approach to theory, drawing from liberal feminism, substantive equality, antisubordination and different voice models of equality at various points in the law's approach to gender equality in sports. This paper argues that Title IX, as a pragmatic approach to theory, provides a promising example of how feminist legal theory can draw from pragmatism to navigate the double-bind and the backlash.

Following an introduction in Part I, Part II of this Article …

School Liability For Peer Sexual Harassment After Davis: Shifting From Intent To Causation In Discrimination Law, Deborah L. Brake

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This essay seeks to explain the Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education case as an interpretation of discrimination that notably and correctly focuses on how institutions cause sex-based harm, rather than on whether officials within chose institutions act with a discriminatory intent. In the process, I discuss what appears to be the implicit theory of discrimination underlying the Davis decision: that schools cause the discrimination by exacerbating the harm that results from sexual harassment by students. I then explore the significance of the deliberate indifference requirement in this context, concluding that the standard, for all its flaws, is distinct …

Sex As A Suspect Class: An Argument For Applying Strict Scrutiny To Gender Discrimination, Deborah Brake

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In United States v. Commonwealth of Virginia' ("VMI"), the Supreme Court has a landmark opportunity to revisit the legal standard courts should use to review classifications which treat men and women differently. The VMI case involves an equal protection challenge to the state's exclusion of women from VMI and its establishment of an alternative, sex-stereotyped women's leadership program as a remedy to that exclusion. The United States, which brought the case against VMI, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that sex-based classifications, like classifications based on race, must be subjected to the highest level of constitutional scrutiny, or "strict …