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Full-Text Articles in Law
Employment Discrimination Law In Perspective: Three Concepts Of Equality, John J. Donohue Iii
Employment Discrimination Law In Perspective: Three Concepts Of Equality, John J. Donohue Iii
Michigan Law Review
The essay begins with a discussion of which groups deserve the protection of employment discrimination law. With the protected categories of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act etched into the American consciousness, many might consider the appropriate categories to be fully self-evident. But of course, they are not, and many jurisdictions continue to struggle over whether certain dispreferred groups merit the law's solicitude.
The Anticaste Principle, Cass R. Sunstein
The Anticaste Principle, Cass R. Sunstein
Michigan Law Review
In this essay, I seek to defend a particular understanding of equality, one that is an understanding of liberty as well. I call this conception "the anticaste principle." Put too briefly, the anticaste principle forbids social and legal practices from translating highly visible and morally irrelevant differences into systemic social disadvantage, unless there is a very good reason for society to do so. On this view, a special problem of inequality arises when members of a group suffer from a range of disadvantages because of a group-based characteristic that is both visible for all to see and irrelevant from a …
Only Girls Wear Barrettes: Dress And Appearance Standards, Community Norms, And Workplace Equality, Katharine T. Bartlett
Only Girls Wear Barrettes: Dress And Appearance Standards, Community Norms, And Workplace Equality, Katharine T. Bartlett
Michigan Law Review
In this essay I study both the judicial rationales and the scholarly criticisms thereof, agreeing with critics that community norms are too discriminatory to provide a satisfactory benchmark for defining workplace equality, but also questioning the usual implications of this critique. Critics assume that it is possible, and desirable, to evaluate dress and appearance rules without regard to the norms and expectations of the community - that is, according to stable or universal versions of equality that are uninfected by community norms. I question this assumption, arguing that equality, no less than other legal concepts, cannot transcend the norms of …
Title Vii And The Complex Female Subject, Kathryn Abrams
Title Vii And The Complex Female Subject, Kathryn Abrams
Michigan Law Review
One strength of Title VII has been its capacity to accommodate the changing conceptions of discrimination and the self-conceptions of subject groups. In the first decades of its enforcement, advocates have raised - and courts have endorsed - a range of contrasting conceptions in order to broaden the employment opportunities of protected groups. This flexibility is particularly evident with respect to women.
After exploring recent doctrinal efforts to respond to complex claimants, I address these questions and assess the prospects of change. Although the unitary or categorical notions of group identity under which Title VII has historically been enforced might …
Caste And The Civil Rights Laws: From Jim Crow To Same-Sex Marriages, Richard A. Epstein
Caste And The Civil Rights Laws: From Jim Crow To Same-Sex Marriages, Richard A. Epstein
Michigan Law Review
In this essay I address the notion of caste in two separate contexts: in the traditional disputes over race and sex, and in the more modem disputes over sexual orientation. In both cases the idea of caste and its kindred notions of subordination and hierarchy are used to justify massive forms of government intervention. In all cases I think that these arguments are incorrect. In their place, I argue that the idea of caste should be confined to categories of formal, or legal, distinctions between persons before the law. This more limited notion of caste supplies no justification for the …
Structuralist And Cultural Domination Theories Meet Title Vii: Some Contemporary Influences, Martha Chamallas
Structuralist And Cultural Domination Theories Meet Title Vii: Some Contemporary Influences, Martha Chamallas
Michigan Law Review
This essay first looks at three important theoretical approaches - motivational, structural, and cultural - that mark the scholarly discourses on workplace equality since 1965. The motivational or individual choice theory is well established and has dominated legal discourse throughout this period. I concentrate in this essay on the other two visions, dating structuralist accounts from the mid1970s and cultural domination theories from the mid-1980s.
The Michael Jackson Pill: Equality, Race, And Culture, Jerome Mccristal Culp Jr.
The Michael Jackson Pill: Equality, Race, And Culture, Jerome Mccristal Culp Jr.
Michigan Law Review
This chronicle is in tribute to the work of Derrick Bell, past, present, and future. I have borrowed his character Geneva Crenshaw as part of that tribute, and I hope she helps me raise some of the issues that he has taught us are important.
All characters in this chronicle are fictional, including Professor Culp and Professor Bell. Any relationship they may have to the real Professor Bell and Professor Culp is dictated by the requirements of creativity and the extent to which reality and fiction necessarily merge. I know that the real Derrick Bell is wiser than the one …
The Lenses Of Gender: Transforming The Debate On Sexual Inequality, Jill M. Dahlmann
The Lenses Of Gender: Transforming The Debate On Sexual Inequality, Jill M. Dahlmann
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality by Sandra Lipsitz Bem
Only Words, David C. Dinielli
Only Words, David C. Dinielli
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Only Words by Catharine A. MacKinnon
Verbal Sexual Harassment As Equality-Depriving Conduct, Keith R. Fentonmiller
Verbal Sexual Harassment As Equality-Depriving Conduct, Keith R. Fentonmiller
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Part I of this Note argues that commentators like Browne and some courts have mischaracterized the harm of verbal sexual harassment as mere "offense." Rather, the true harm of a sexually hostile environment created by words and expressive conduct extends beyond offense, emotional distress, and economic displacement; at bottom, the harm is equality-deprivation.
Part II explains how a sexually hostile environment is equality-depriving by arguing that words which create a sexually hostile environment must be understood in historical and social context. Words can be used not only to communicate ideas but also to perform acts of coercion and sexual abuse. …
Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash Of Cultures Or A Clash With A Construct?, Ann Elizabeth Mayer
Universal Versus Islamic Human Rights: A Clash Of Cultures Or A Clash With A Construct?, Ann Elizabeth Mayer
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article examines the recent trend proposing that Islam and Islamic culture mandate a distinctive approach to human rights. It offers critical assessments of selected civil and political rights in two recent products of this trend: (1) the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, issued by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and endorsed by Iran and Saudi Arabia; and (2) the rights provisions in the Saudi Arabian Basic Law promulgated in 1992. These legislative initiatives will be examined in conjunction with constructs of an Islamic culture necessarily at odds with international human rights norms. These constructs have …
Operation Rescue Versus A Woman's Right To Choose: A Conflict Without A Federal Remedy?, Randolph M. Mclaughlin
Operation Rescue Versus A Woman's Right To Choose: A Conflict Without A Federal Remedy?, Randolph M. Mclaughlin
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article discusses the need for federal protection of women seeking abortion-related services and the denial of protection of those women by the Supreme Court's narrow holding in Bray. Part II examines the precedents leading up to the Bray decision. A review of these cases demonstrates that Operation Rescue is a national conspiracy aimed at eliminating the right to abortion. The group uses physical force and blockades clinics in order to deny women and health care workers access to these facilities. In light of the inability or unwillingness of local law enforcement agencies to provide access to the clinics and …