Law Commons^™

Gender Diversity In The Patent Bar, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the state of gender diversity across technology and geography within the U.S. patent bar. The findings rely on a new gender-matched dataset, the first public dataset of its kind, not only of all attorneys and agents registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, but also of attorneys and agents on patents granted by the USPTO. To enable follow-on research, the article describes all data and methodology and offers suggestions for refinement. This study is timely in view of renewed interest about the participation of women in the U.S. innovation ecosystem, notably the provision …

Diversity And Supreme Court Law Clerks, Tony Mauro

Marquette Law Review

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Corporate Boardroom Diversity: Why Are We Still Talking About This?, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

What exactly is board diversity and why does it matter? How does diversity fit in an attempt to build the best board for any organization? What attributes and skills are required by law and what mix of experiences and talents provide the best corporate governance? Even though most companies say they are looking for diversity, why has there been such little progress? Are required director attributes, which are a must for all boards, consistent with future diversity gains and aligned with achieving high performance and optimal board composition? My goal is to provide answers to these questions, and to discuss …

Norway’S Companies Act: A 10-Year Look At Gender Equality, Kristen Carroll

Pace International Law Review

This analysis assesses the amendment to Norway’s Companies Act, in light of the 10-year anniversary of the mandate of female representation on corporate boards. First, I discuss the implementation of the quota, Section 6-11a. Second, I compare three statistical studies that analyze the effects of the quota on corporate profitability, overall firm performance, and the changing dynamics of the managerial positions. Finally, I evaluate the various avenues to fully achieving diversity, such as the successes and failures of a quota-type system and possible initiatives that governments and companies can enact to achieve gender-balance in the workplace. While some hypothesize that …

Corporate Governance Sex Regimes: Peripheral Thoughts From Across The Atlantic, Horatia Muir Watt

Pace International Law Review

The very recent and highly mediatized “Declaration of the 343 Salauds”, where 343 (male) signatures in support of prostitution in a form designed to echo the highly significant declaration of as many women in 1971 in favor of the legalization of abortion, sheds particularly interesting light upon debate about sex regimes in connection with French law. France has recently introduced compulsory quotas for women in corporate boards after imposing la parité for public appointments. A comparative perspective, confronting this recent legislative development from across the Atlantic with policy views on affirmative action and philosophical conceptions of diversity in the United …

Gender Quotas For Corporate Boards: Options For Legal Design In The United States, Anne L. Alstott

Pace International Law Review

Recently, U.S. activists, scholars, and policy makers have turned their attention to one notable effort to address the gender gap in management: gender quotas for corporate boards of directors. Twelve European countries have pioneered quotas in this context. France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium now have mandatory quotas ranging from 30%-40%. Spain, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Austria, and Slovenia have voluntary quotas, and Germany and the EU are considering legislation to mandate quotas. Gender quotas for corporate boards represent an intriguing option, even if the case for quotas is not airtight. The argument for gender quotas rests on a …

Gender Diversity On Corporate Boards: How Racial Politics Impedes Progress In The United States, Cheryl L. Wade

Pace International Law Review

The excellent conference organized by Darren Rosenblum comparing global approaches to board diversity inspired me to think about how progress in this context has unfolded in the United States. Even though the issue of diversity on corporate boards has become a global issue, few U.S. boards have moved beyond mere tokenism when it comes to female directors. One reason for the lack of diversity among corporate directors is that board selection has been based on membership in a particular network. This essay, however, focuses on the persisting problem of discrimination—a more invidious explanation for the fact that very few corporate …

A Difficult Conversation: Corporate Directors On Race And Gender, Kimberly D. Krawiec, John M. Conley, Lissa L. Broome

Pace International Law Review

This symposium essay summarizes our ongoing ethnographic research on corporate board diversity. This research is based on fifty-seven interviews with corporate directors and a limited number of other persons of interest (including institutional investors, executive search professionals, and proxy advisors) regarding their views on race and gender diversity in the boardroom.

Using a method rooted in anthropology and discourse analysis, we have worked from a general topic outline and conducted open-ended interviews in which respondents are encouraged to raise and develop issues of interest to them. The interviews range from forty-five minutes to two hours in length and each interview …

Diversity In The Boardroom: A Content Analysis Of Corporate Proxy Disclosures, Aaron A. Dhir

Pace International Law Review

My work in this field has focused on regulation by quota and regulation by disclosure. With regard to quotas, strikingly, the Norwegian law is not located in regulation that explicitly deals with human rights or equality issues; rather, it is found in the heart of the legal regime that gives life and personality to corporations – in Norwegian corporate law. I have conducted qualitative, interview-based research with Norwegian corporate directors, both men and women. It is only through understanding how the goals of the law have translated into the day-to-day existence of these individuals that we can begin to consider …

Comparative Sex Regimes And Corporate Governance: An Introduction, Darren Rosenblum

Pace International Law Review

In February 2013, on the day of the worst snowstorm in many years, Pace International Law Review conducted a symposium on “Comparative Sex Regimes and Corporate Governance.” Despite a total shutdown of all transport networks and the consequent absence of a few stranded scholars, we met to discuss the fraught questions posed by corporate board quotas and formulate answers.

Led by Norway in 2003, several nations have begun to mandate certain levels of women’s inclusion on corporate boards. In the face of widespread exclusion of women from corporate power that suggests structural biases, these quotas appear radical and compelling. The …

Dan Subotnik, Toxic Diversity: Race, Gender, And Law Talk In America, Hannah Abrams

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing Higher Education: Black Feminism And The Intersectionality Of Race And Gender, Heidi Safia Mirza

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Drawing on black feminist theory, this paper examines the professional experiences of postcolonial diasporic black and ethnicized female academics in higher education.1 The paper explores the embodiment of gendered and racialized difference and reflects on the power of whiteness to shape everyday experiences in such places of privilege. The powerful yet hidden histories of women of color in higher education, such as the Indian women suffragettes and Cornelia Sorabji in late nineteenth century, are symbolic of the erasure of an ethnicized black feminist/womanist presence in mainstream (white) educational establishments. The paper concludes that an understanding of black and ethnicized female …

Still Unconstitutional: Our Nation's Experiment With State-Sponsored Sex Segregation In Education, David S. Cohen, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

Since federal regulations authorized single-sex education in 2006, there has been an explosion of single-sex schools and classes. Although the Supreme Court has not ruled, three federal court decisions have addressed the constitutionality of single-sex classes, and the issue will percolate toward Supreme Court review soon. The arguments are that parents should have choices and “diversity” of educational options, that “brain research” shows that boys and girls are so biologically different to need sex-specific educational environments, that educational outcomes are better, and single-sex learning environments allows boys and girls to break through gender stereotypes. This article dissects these arguments within …

The Exploratory Study Of Custody And Visitation Rights For Children In Same-Sex Families, Valencia Tamir Johnson Dr.

Dr. Valencia T Johnson, PhD, EdD, Hon. D.Div, LLM, MS, BS

In today’s society, same-sex marriages are being legalize in some states with certain stipulations and statutory requirements in respected states. Since there are more states legalizing same-sex marriages, the courts are facing tougher challenges in Family Law that pertains to the Custody and Visitation Rights for Children in Same-Sex Families. Due to the lack of legal and judicial interpretation of statutory laws in the Custody and Visitation Rights for Children in Same-Sex Families, further research need to be explored. In addition, the article addresses the legal and judicial authority of interpreting the law in various states. The article provide a …