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Full-Text Articles in Law
The New Gender Panic In Sport: Why State Laws Banning Transgender Athletes Are Unconstitutional, Deborah Brake
The New Gender Panic In Sport: Why State Laws Banning Transgender Athletes Are Unconstitutional, Deborah Brake
Articles
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 …
Back To Basics: Excavating The Sex Discrimination Roots Of Campus Sexual Assault, Deborah Brake
Back To Basics: Excavating The Sex Discrimination Roots Of Campus Sexual Assault, Deborah Brake
Articles
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 …
The Trouble With 'Bureaucracy', Deborah L. Brake
The Trouble With 'Bureaucracy', Deborah L. Brake
Articles
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
Lessons From The Gender Equality Movement: Using Title Ix To Foster Inclusive Masculinities In Men's Sport, Deborah L. Brake
Articles
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 …
Wrestling With Gender: Constructing Masculinity By Refusing To Wrestle Women, Deborah Brake
Wrestling With Gender: Constructing Masculinity By Refusing To Wrestle Women, Deborah Brake
Articles
In February of 2011, an Iowa high school boy captured national attention when he refused to wrestle a girl at the state championship meet. The media shaped the story into a tale that honored the boy for sacrificing personal gain out of a moral imperative to “never hurt a girl.” Unpacking this incident reveals several “fault lines” in U.S. culture that often derail gender equality projects: (1) religion/morality is interposed as an oppositional and equally weighty social value that neutralizes an equality claim; (2) the agency of persons supporting traditional gender norms is assumed, while the agency of persons contesting …
Subtly Sexist Language, Pat K. Chew, Lauren K. Kelley-Chew
Subtly Sexist Language, Pat K. Chew, Lauren K. Kelley-Chew
Articles
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 …
Sex As A Suspect Class: An Argument For Applying Strict Scrutiny To Gender Discrimination, Deborah Brake
Sex As A Suspect Class: An Argument For Applying Strict Scrutiny To Gender Discrimination, Deborah Brake
Articles
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 …