Law Commons^™

The French Veil Ban: A Transnational Legal Feminist Approach, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

After the gruesome terrorist attack that killed eighty-four people in Nice, many beach towns in France began to ban Muslim women from wearing the "burkini" on beaches. The burkini, which was created by an Australian designer, is modest swimwear that covers the body and hair. The Nice attack occurred on the heels of a series of attacks in France. The timing of the French burkini ban suggests it was targeting Muslims due to the anger over the attacks. The argument that burkinis are not hygienic is a fig leaf for other more pernicious justifications. Others argue that religious garb generally …

If It Walks Like Systematic Exclusion And Quacks Like Systematic Exclusion: Follow-Up On Removal Of Women And African-Americans In Jury Selection In South Carolina Capital Cases, 1997-2014, Ann M. Eisenberg, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, John H. Blume

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article builds on an earlier study analyzing bases and rates of removal of women and African-American jurors in a set of South Carolina capital cases decided between 1997 and 2012. We examine and assess additional data from new perspectives in order to establish a more robust, statistically strengthened response to the original research question: whether, and if so, why, prospective women and African-American jurors were disproportionately removed in different stages of jury selection in a set of South Carolina capital cases.

The study and the article it builds on add to decades of empirical research exploring the impacts (or …

Recovering Socialism For Feminist Legal Theory In The 21 St Century, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that a significant strand of feminist theory in the 1970s and 1980s — socialist feminism — has largely been ignored by feminist jurisprudence in the United States and explores potential contributions to legal theory of recapturing the insights of socialist feminism. It describes both the context out of which that theory grew, in the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s, and the contents of the theory as developed in the writings of certain authors such as Heidi Hartmann, Zillah Eisenstein, and Iris Young, as well as their predecessors in the U.K., and in the …

"Nobody's Saying We're Opposed To Complying": Barriers To University Compliance With Vawa And Title Ix, Charlotte Savino

Cornell Law Library Prize for Exemplary Student Research Papers

Part I of this note will explore the government’s action in addressing sexual assault on campus, including the history of VAWA, the Clery Act, and Title IX. Part II will posit barriers to compliance, including ambiguous mandates, due process issues of private adjudication, and privacy law. Part III encapsulates the current political landscape and the laws that are under consideration. Part IV concludes with the financial and legal consequences of university action and inaction, including lawsuits brought by victims, lawsuits brought by the accused, Department of Education and Office of Civil Rights fines, and admissions consequences as prospective students actively …

Sex-Selective Abortion Bans: Anti-Immigration Or Anti-Abortion?, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In the last five years, over half of the state legislatures in the United States have considered banning sex-selective abortion because of the (false) belief that Asian Americans are disproportionately giving birth to more boys than are European Americans. Supported by the data that applies to a very small subset of Asian Americans, proponents of the law stereotype Asian Americans by assuming that their birthing patterns are the same as those of people in India and China.

Because of the undue focus on Asian immigrants in the discussions of sex selection bans, the real conversation that should occur in the …

Replacing Myths With Facts: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws In The United States, Brian Citro, Jeff Gilson, Sital Kalantry, Kelsey Stricker, University Of Chicago Law School. International Human Rights Clinic, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (U.S.), Advancing New Standards In Reproductive Health (Organization)

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Several countries in the world have sex ratios at birth that are as high or higher than China and India, including countries with predominantly white populations. Nonetheless, immigrant communities in the United States from China and India are consistently accused of harboring a preference for sons. It is supposedly this preference for sons that leads Asian Americans to abort female fetuses. In response, eight states have enacted bans on sex-selective abortion and 21 states and the United States Congress have considered such bans.

Proponents of sex-selective abortion bans claim that the United States is one of the few countries in …

The Law Review Divide: A Study Of Gender Diversity On The Top Twenty Law Reviews, Lynne N. Kolodinsky

Cornell Law Library Prize for Exemplary Student Research Papers

My goal in this Note is to provide the first comprehensive statistical analysis of independently reported and verified data on law review membership in order to determine whether or not a gender disparity exists on law reviews. I further hope that this analysis would indicate whether any given admissions process correlates particularly strongly with that gender disparity. Interestingly, no single selection method or even combination of selection methods appears to consistently yield any greater number of women than men; some law reviews with similar admissions processes have very different membership compositions by gender, and some law reviews with very different …

Victim Gender And The Death Penalty, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Valerie P. Hans, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Previous research suggests that cases involving female victims are more likely to result in death sentences. The current study examines possible reasons for this relationship using capital punishment data from the state of Delaware. Death was sought much more for murders of either male or female white victims compared to murders of black male victims. Analyzing capital sentencing hearings in Delaware from 1977-2007 decided by judges or juries, we found that both characteristics of the victims and characteristics of the murders differentiated male and female victim cases. The presence of sexual victimization, the method of killing, the relationship between the …

Religious Exceptionalism And Human Rights, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The liberal-democratic governmental compact assures that citizenship, political power, and civic participation in all of its forms will be afforded to all citizens on an equal basis. In particular, simple identity—as a presumptive matter—cannot be the basis for the denial of human rights. It is on this simple yet elegant principle that all civil-rights laws are founded.

Freedom of religion presents a particularly complex problem in this context. On the one hand, it is—itself—a universally recognized member of the human rights family, and is protected under civil-rights laws. On the other hand, it is— because of its possible invocation by …

Sex-Selective Abortion Bans Are Not Associated With Changes In Sex Ratios At Birth Among Asian Populations In Illinois And Pennsylvania, Arindam Nandi, Sital Kalantry, Brian Citro

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Legal prohibitions on sex-selective abortions are proliferating in the United States. Eight state legislatures have banned abortions sought on the basis of the sex of the fetus, 21 states have considered such laws since 2009, and a similar bill is pending in U.S. Congress. These laws have been introduced and enacted without any empirical data about their impact or effectiveness. Prior studies of U.S. Census data found sex ratios among foreign-born Chinese, Korean and Indian immigrants were skewed in favor of boys, but only in families where there were already one or two girls. Using the variation in the timing …

Sex Selection In The United States And India: A Contextualist Feminist Approach, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Seven states in the United States have passed sex selection abortion bans, bills are pending in several other states, and a bill has been reintroduced in the U.S. Congress. In analyzing state legislative hearings, this article documents how the wide-spread practice of sex selection in other countries, particularly India and China, is being used by anti-abortion groups as a way to restrict women's right to autonomy in the United States. The dominant feminist paradigm in the United States takes a universal position on sex selection bans - these bans contravene women's right to autonomy and should not be permitted in …

Law And The Creation Of Meaning: A Brief Reflection On The Work Of Jane Larson, Gerald Torres

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Women In Prison In Argentina: Causes, Conditions, And Consequences, Cornell Law School. Avon Global Center For Women And Justice, DefensoríA General De La NacióN (Argentina), University Of Chicago. Law School. International Human Rights Clinic

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

In recent years, the number of women in prison has increased throughout the world, including in Argentina. In Argentina’s federal prisons, the population of female prisoners has expanded nearly 200% in the past two decades, a much higher rate than the increase in the number of incarcerated men. It is important to understand why these numbers have increased so significantly and to recognize the gender-specific needs and challenges of women prisoners.

This report offers a valuable contribution towards our understanding of the causes, conditions, and consequences of women’s imprisonment in Argentina. It is based on extensive research, including desk research, …

The Case For Reforming The Program's Spouse Benefits While "Saving Social Security", Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

The Social Security Act currently provides secondary benefits to the wives or widows of covered workers who retire, become disabled, or die. To qualify, a woman must have been married to the worker for a short period and must be old (sixty-two, dropping to sixty in the case of a widow, fifty in the case of a disabled widow) or caring for children under sixteen. If a wife’s or widow’s primary retired-worker or disability benefits equal or exceed her secondary benefit entitlement, she receives only the primary benefits. However, if her secondary benefit amount is greater she receives both her …

The Legal Revolution In American Women’S Rights—And The Problems That Remain, Sonia Pressman Fuentes

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

No abstract provided.

Women In Robes, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article presents statistics on the number of women in the judiciary and argues for gender parity to further equality, enhance courts' legitimacy, and strengthen the rule of law.

Changing Social Security To Achieve Long-Term Solvency And Make Other Improvements: Background Factors, Issues, Options, Peter W. Martin

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

For years those responsible for Social Security and policy analysts have acknowledged that the present statutory framework for determining and financing program benefits is unsustainable. Nonetheless, despite the work of Presidential commissions, countless Congressional hearings, proposals for reform advanced by individuals and groups across the political spectrum, changes to Social Security that would restore its fiscal balance into the foreseeable future have repeatedly been deferred or deflected by the nation's law-makers.

This paper aims to assist analysis of and reflection on the range of options for ensuring Social Security's future while not adding yet another solvency proposal to the already …

From Multiculturalism To Technique: Feminism, Culture, And The Conflict Of Laws Style, Karen Knop, Ralf Michaels, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The German Chancellor, the French President, and the British Prime Minister have each grabbed world headlines with pronouncements that their states' policies of multiculturalism have failed. As so often, domestic debates about multiculturalism, as well as foreign policy debates about human rights in non- Western countries, revolve around the treatment of women. Yet feminists are no longer even certain how to frame, let alone resolve, the issues raised by veiling, polygamy, and other cultural practices oppressive to women by Western standards. Feminism has become perplexed by the very concept of "culture." This impasse is detrimental both to women's equality and …

Law On The Books Vs. Law In Action: Under-Enforcement Of Morocco's Reformed 2004 Family Law, The Moudawana, Ann Marie Eisenberg

Cornell Law Library Prize for Exemplary Student Research Papers

This Note focuses on women’s family law rights in Morocco, a country located in northwestern Africa, and often regarded as the western boundary of the Muslim-Arab world. Significantly, despite Morocco’s shared roots with nations such as Saudi Arabia in culture, religion, and language, the Moroccan government has interpreted similar traditions to yield a starkly different stance: gender equality is desirable. Morocco’s new Moudawana, the 2004 legislation on family law with provisions largely derived from Islamic sources, confers unprecedented rights on Moroccan women.

Part I of this Note evaluates the Moudawana in light of its break with traditional Shari’a, alongside its …

From Protection To Punishment: Post-Conviction Barriers To Justice For Domestic Violence Survivor-Defendants In New York State, Tamar Kraft-Stolar, Elizabeth Brundige, Sital Kalantry, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Avon Global Center For Women And Justice At Cornell Law School, Women In Prison Project (Correctional Association Of New York)

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

No abstract provided.

Veil Or No Veil? Are We On The Right Track?, Rayhan Asat

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

In recent years, it is ironic that a simple Muslim headscarf became one of most contentious and controversial political, culture, religious and human rights issue in various countries around the world. The Muslim headscarf affair has given rise to heated debate in Europe in particular. Extensive scholarship literature contributed to this debate from various aspects, including from the banning of the Niqab from a public sphere, to institutional education and from the courtroom context. One has to acknowledge that few expressions of faith today cause as much fear and loathing in plural democracies as the Muslim headscarf has. I intend …

Biases In Domestic Violence Criminal Decision Making: Are System Actors Lenient In Domestic Violence Cases?, Silvana Del Valle

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

This essay makes a review of studies about the presence of biases against victims in the Judicial Decisionmaking of Domestic Violence (DV) crimes. The global recognition of the phenomenon has promoted a legal reform movement, in which the United States has been part. The first reform in the topic in the US was the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1991. This federal statute detected biases not only in the judges, but also in other criminal prosecution actors -police departments and prosecutors. Then, it introduced research funds and legal tools to fight against biases, under the premise that DV is …

Sks Microfinance And For-Profit Mfis, Unscrupulous Predators Or Political Prey? Examining The Microfinance Credit Crunch In Andhra Pradesh And Assessing The Applicability Of The Un Global Compact "Protect Respect Remedy" Framework, Ashley Feasley

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Microfinance is the practice of originating small loans and capital infusions in developing countries to poor individual families and small businesses that are outside traditional banks. Today microfinance has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry that has stakeholders in the financial services industry, private international organizations (including non-governmental organizations ("NGOs")) and global politics. The successful initial public offering ("IPO") of SKS Microfinance, ("SKS") a for-profit microfinance institution ("MFI") in August 2010 marked the pinnacle of success for the theory that for-profit MFIs could eradicate poverty while simultaneously making a huge profit through microfinance. The extremely successful SKS IPO bolstered the …

Combating Acid Violence In Bangladesh, India, And Cambodia, Sital Kalantry, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

This Report is the first comprehensive, comparative study of acid violence that examines the underlying causes, its consequences, and the multiple barriers to justice for its victims. Acid attacks, like other forms of violence against women, are not random or natural phenomena. Rather, they are social phenomena deeply embedded in a gender order that has historically privileged patriarchal control over women and justified the use of violence to “keep women in their places.”

Through an in-depth study of three countries, the authors of the Report argue that the due diligence standard can be a powerful tool for state and non-state …

African Customary Law, Customs, And Women's Rights, Muna Ndulo

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The sources of law in most African countries are customary law, the common law and legislation both colonial and post-independence. In a typical African country, the great majority of the people conduct their personal activities in accordance with and subject to customary law. Customary law has great impact in the area of personal law in regard to matters such as marriage, inheritance and traditional authority, and because it developed in an era dominated by patriarchy some of its norms conflict with human rights norms guaranteeing equality between men and women. While recognizing the role of legislation in reform, it is …

Sex Lex: Creating A Discourse, Gerald Torres

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Untold Truths: The Exclusion Of Enforced Sterilizations From The Peruvian Truth Commission's Final Report, Jocelyn E. Getgen

Cornell Law School Berger International Speaker Papers

This presentation argues that the exclusion of enforced sterilization cases from the Peruvian Truth Commission's investigation and Final Report effectively erases State responsibility and decreases the likelihood for justice and reparations for women victims-survivors of State-sponsored violence in Peru. In a context of deep cultural and economic divides and violent conflict, this presentation recounts how the State's Family Planning Program violated Peruvian women's reproductive rights by sterilizing low-income, indigenous Quechua-speaking women without informed consent. This presentation argues that these systematic reproductive injustices constitute an act of genocide, proposes an independent inquiry, and advocates for a more inclusive investigation and final …

To Whom Do We Refer When We Speak Of Obligations To "Future Generations"? Reproductive Rights And The Intergenerational Community, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that an analysis of reproductive rights in the context of future generations yields three insights. First, potential people (who may or may not come into being) do not-by any prevailing approach to morality-have a right to be created by us. They may therefore be ethically "prevented" from coming into existence with what I call the "Offspring Selection Interest" ("OSI"). Second, the OSI is often conflated with the distinct reproductive rights interest in protecting one's body against unwanted intrusion, the "Bodily Integrity Interest" ("BII"), with resulting confusion for reproductive rights discourse. And third, once we distinguish the OSI …

The Beginning Of The Second Wave Of The Women's Movement And Where We Are Today: A Personal Account, Sonia Pressman Fuentes

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

The second wave of the women’s movement, which started in the early 1960s, revolutionized women’s legal rights in the U.S. and reverberated in the rest of the world. Ms. Fuentes, a founder of NOW (National Organization for Women) and the first woman attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), discusses the beginning of this movement, her role in it, the changes that have occurred since then, and the problems that remain in the US and throughout the world today.

Gender Equality In Reconciling Work And Childcare In South Korea, Kook Hee Lee

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

This paper presents an ideal legislative model for South Korea to realize gender equality in reconciling work and childcare. The comparative study on the U.S. and German system is the basis for the legislative model. This paper selects the U.S. and German systems as a comparison group because they are representing the equal treatment approach and special treatment approach in the feminist legal theory. The current system in South Korea fails to realize gender equality because it provides maternity leave exclusive to women to limit women’s right to work and lacks financial support for parental leave. Maternity leave limits women’s …