Law Commons^™

Rich Dad, Gay Dad: The Wealth Traps Of Gay Fatherhood, Aloni Erez

All Faculty Publications

While legal and societal progress has enabled gay fathers to form families, there remains a critical blind spot in our understanding of their financial wellbeing. Specifically, there are indications that a wealth gap may exist among gay father households. This article introduces a novel taxonomy of the mechanisms that likely contribute to a wealth gap for these households, including surrogacy and adoption costs, legal recognition expenses, parental leave policies, discrimination in housing and borrowing, and limited support from families of origin. These obstacles reflect the structural features and prejudices that disproportionately affect households led by non-heterosexual fathers. The article highlights …

Pregnant People?, Jessica A. Clarke

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In their article Unsexing Pregnancy, David Fontana and Naomi Schoenbaum undertake the important project of disentangling the social aspects of pregnancy from those that relate to a pregnant woman’s body. They argue that the law should stop treating the types of work either parent can do — such as purchasing a car seat, finding a pediatrician, or choosing a daycare — as exclusively the domain of the pregnant woman. The project’s primary aim is to undermine legal rules that assume a gendered division of labor in which men are breadwinners and women are caretakers. But Fontana and Schoenbaum argue their …

Interstate Recognition Of Parent-Child Relationships: The Limits Of The State Interests Paradigm And The Role Of Due Process, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

How secure are the legal relationships between gay or lesbian parents and their children when those families move from one state to another? What happens when a non-biological parent who has been legally recognized as a full parent under the laws of one state moves with her same-sex spouse and their child to a different state where public policy is unfriendly toward same-sex relationships? Or what happens when a same-sex couple adopts a child, thus becoming its full legal parents, then seeks recognition of their parental status in a different state?

In this Article I argue that the traditional doctrines …

Where Cultures And Sovereigns Collide: Balancing Federalism, Tribal Self-Determination, And Individual Rights In The Adoption Of Indian Children By Gays And Lesbians, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article analyzes the complex interplay between adoption (traditionally a matter reserved to state family law) and the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in the context of adoptions by gays and lesbians.

As a federal statute that partially preempts state law for the benefit of Native Americans, ICWA implicates three sovereigns: the United States, the state where the adoption petition is brought, and the tribe whose child is the focus of the proceeding. This interplay of sovereigns in itself makes Indian child welfare law complicated and interesting. Beyond these sovereign interests, also to be considered are the interests and rights …

Foreword: Assisted Reproductive Technology And The Law, Mary P. Byrn

Faculty Scholarship

This foreword introduces Issue 2: Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Law of the 35th Volume of the William Mitchell Law Review. It begins by outlining the author's personal experience with ART, and contrasts her reasoning for using ART with the traditional need for ART. Finally, it lists some of the many legal questions yet to be conclusively answered.