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Full-Text Articles in Law
Back To The Future Of Abortion Regulation In The First Term, Tracy A. Thomas
Back To The Future Of Abortion Regulation In The First Term, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
Abortion and women's reproductive rights have reemerged as front-page news. As popular culture grapples with election rhetoric, states continue to engage in aggressive anti-abortion regulation of first-term abortions. In the first half of 2011, more abortion bills have passed to restrict abortion than ever before. The 162 new abortion bills passed by 19 states in the first six months of the year dwarf the average number of abortion bills for the last three decades of 15 per year. Even more, these bills propose significantly more stringent limits on abortion than in the past, including mandatory ultrasound viewings, intensive counseling, and …
Akron Law School: The Early History Of The University Of Akron School Of Law: 1921-1959, Richard Aynes, Margaret E. Matejkovic
Akron Law School: The Early History Of The University Of Akron School Of Law: 1921-1959, Richard Aynes, Margaret E. Matejkovic
Richard L. Aynes
This manuscript contains an initial history of the Akron Law School (1921-1959) the predecessor of the University of Akron School of Law. The school was founded in 1921 as an evening school. This manuscript begins with a biographical sketch of the founding Dean, Judge Charles R. Grant. Grant was an underage Union soldier in the Civil War who participated in the capture of New Orleans and whose service was recognized by the U.S. Congress. At a time when less than one percent of the people in the nation had a college degree, he graduated from Western Reserve College (then in …
Misappropriating Women's History In The Law And Politics Of Abortion, Tracy A. Thomas
Misappropriating Women's History In The Law And Politics Of Abortion, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
“Without known exception, the early American feminists condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms.” This claim about women’s history has been used by pro-life advocates for twenty years to control the political narrative of abortion. Conservatives, led by the group Feminists for Life, have used feminist icons from history to support their anti-abortion advocacy. Federal anti-abortion legislation has been named after feminist heroines, like the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnancy and Parenting Students Act (co-sponsored by Rick Santorum) and the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Act of 2011. Amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court quote women’s rights leaders in …
Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas
Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This is the introduction to the book, Feminist Legal History. This edited collection offers new visions of American legal history that reveal women’s engagement with the law over the past two centuries. It integrates the stories of women into the dominant history of the law in what has been called “engendering legal history,” (Batlan 2005) and then seeks to reconstruct the assumed contours of history. The introduction provides the context necessary to appreciate the diverse essays in the book. It starts with an overview of the existing state of women’s legal history, tracing the core events over the past two …
Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas
Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
In the mid-nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used narratives of women and their involvement with the law of domestic relations to collectivize women. This recognition of a gender class was the first step towards women’s transformation of the law. Stanton’s stories of working-class women, immigrants, Mormon polygamist wives, and privileged white women revealed common realities among women in an effort to form a collective conscious. The parable-like stories were designed to inspire a collective consciousness among women, one capable of arousing them to social and political action. For to Stanton’s consternation, women showed a lack of appreciation of their own …
Kate Chase, The "Sphere Of Women's Work," And Her Influence Upon Her Father's Dissent In Bradwell V. Illinois, Richard Aynes
Kate Chase, The "Sphere Of Women's Work," And Her Influence Upon Her Father's Dissent In Bradwell V. Illinois, Richard Aynes
Richard L. Aynes
Kate Chase was said to be the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman of her age. Her father, Salmon P. Chase, is remembered today as Lincoln’s secretary of the treasury and as a chief judge of the U. S. Supreme Court. In his own time, Chase was considered one of the nation’s political giants; Abraham Lincoln described him as “one and a half times bigger than any other man” he had ever known. Carl Schurz’s summary still echoes today: “More than anyone else he looked the great man. Tall, broad-shouldered, and proudly erect, . . . he was a …
Sex V. Race, Again, Tracy A. Thomas
Sex V. Race, Again, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
In this book, feminists speak out on race and gender in the 2008 presidential campaign. Who should be first? With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as frontrunners, the 2008 Democratic primary campaign was a watershed moment in U.S. history. Offering the choice of an African American man or a white woman as the next Democratic candidate for president, the primary marked an unprecedented moment—but one that painfully echoed previous struggles for progressive change that pitted race and gender against each other. Who Should Be First? collects key feminist voices that challenge the instances of racism and sexism during the presidential …
Enforcing The Bill Of Rights Against The States: The History And The Future, Richard Aynes
Enforcing The Bill Of Rights Against The States: The History And The Future, Richard Aynes
Richard L. Aynes
This article traces, in broad strokes, the history of the disputes about whether or not the Bill of Rights can be enforced against the states. It begins with pre-Fourteenth Amendment claims and recounts the actions of the 39th Congress: The Freedman’s Bureau, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Several speeches on the Amendment from the Congressional elections of 1866 are utilized, including those of Section 1 author John Bingham, Congressmen Columbus Delano, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Wilson, James Garfield, and Senator John Sherman, as well as Democrats who participated in what has been termed the most …
The New Face Of Women's Legal History: An Introduction To The Symposium, Tracy A. Thomas
The New Face Of Women's Legal History: An Introduction To The Symposium, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
Women’s legal history is developing as a new and exciting field that provides alternative perspectives on legal issues both past and present. Feminist legal history seeks to examine the ways in which law historically has informed women’s rights and how feminist discourse has shaped the law. This short essay quickly traces the development of women's legal history as a field, and then introduces the papers from a symposium at the University of Akron School of Law. The Akron Constitutional Law Center oranized a conference in October 2007 entitled “The New Face of Women’s Legal History” to showcase many of the …
Elizabeth Cady Stanton On The Federal Marriage Amendment: A Letter To The President, Tracy A. Thomas
Elizabeth Cady Stanton On The Federal Marriage Amendment: A Letter To The President, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This essay written from a historical, first-person perspective explores the parallels between the current movement for a Federal Marriage Amendment and that of the nineteenth century through the lens of feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Using the archival sources of Stanton’s articles and speeches from 1880 to 1902, the paper identifies her key arguments opposing a constitutional standard of marriage. The paper then juxtaposes Stanton’s arguments against the 2004 Federal Marriage Amendment to reveal the continued relevance and import of her insights. Stanton’s analytical platform attacked the core pretexts of federalism and gender that fueled the proposed marriage amendment in her …
The Beecher Sisters As Nineteenth-Century Feminist Icons Of The Sameness-Difference Debate, Tracy A. Thomas
The Beecher Sisters As Nineteenth-Century Feminist Icons Of The Sameness-Difference Debate, Tracy A. Thomas
Tracy A. Thomas
This essay reviews the recent book, The Beecher Sisters by Barbara White, through the lens of feminist theory. It argues that each of the three great women chronicled in the book – Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Isabella Beecher Hooker – serve as icons for each of the distinct strands of modern feminist thought. Barbara White, a professor emeritus of women’s studies at the University of New Hampshire, has given the field of women’s legal history a boost with her interdisciplinary contribution to the social and legal history of women. In The Beecher Sisters, White introduces us to each …
On Misreading John Bingham And The Fourteenth Amendment, Richard L. Aynes
On Misreading John Bingham And The Fourteenth Amendment, Richard L. Aynes
Richard L. Aynes
Nearly fifty years ago, Professor Charles Fairman published his seminal article, Does the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporate the Bill of Rights? According to Fairman, it does not. Fairman's analysis of the congressional debates and other historical data on the Fourteenth Amendment led him to conclude that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Amendment does not make the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. Instead, Fairman argued that the intent of the Amendment's framers is most nearly realized by the use of the Due Process Clause to enforce against the states only those rights “ ‘implicit in the concept of …
The Impeachment And Removal Of Tennessee Judge West Humphreys: John Bingham's Prologue To The Johnson Impeachment Trial, Richard Aynes
The Impeachment And Removal Of Tennessee Judge West Humphreys: John Bingham's Prologue To The Johnson Impeachment Trial, Richard Aynes
Richard L. Aynes
At the beginning of the Civil War many individuals who held positions under the United States government submitted resignations which, in their minds, allowed them to assume positions with the so-called government of the Confederate States of America. One of the few individuals who did not do so, but nevertheless assumed a position under the Confederate States of America was U.S. District Judge West H. Humphreys. After the Confederacy was formed, he continued to hold court in the same courtroom but under the guise of a Confederate States Judge. This presented two problems for President Lincoln and the Unionists. First, …