Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons^™

Removing State Constitution Badges Of Inferiority, Allan W. Vestal

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Our state constitutions contain archaic, ineffective, and unnecessary provisions that assign badges of inferiority to some citizens. Using Thomas Jefferson’s standard for when constitutional imperfections justify amendment, this Article identifies two groups of clauses. The first are provisions that were substantially exclusionary as enacted and relate to unconstitutional practices. Included are provisions relating to religious tests for public office, segregated schools, bars to marriage equality, and religious tests for witness competency. The second group are provisions that were symbolically exclusionary as enacted and are redolent of a prejudiced history. Examples involve the use of gendered language, clauses which make inappropriate …

“Sex” Is Messy (And Always Has Been): A Textualist Argument For Application Of Title Vii To Sexual Orientation Discrimination, Rebecca J. Ok

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Three recent cases have created a circuit split as to whether Title VII’s prohibition on discrimination “because of . . . sex” applies to sexual orientation discrimination, priming this issue for Supreme Court review. Events suggesting a textualist turn on the Supreme Court mean the advocate must consider whether a textualist argument can be made for application of Title VII to sexual orientation discrimination. Treatment of the topic of sexual orientation by the medical community, the commercial film industry, and the mainstream news media in the 1960s is examined. It is argued that treatment of the topic of sexual orientation …

Equal Work, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Most Americans have heard of the gender pay gap and the statistic that, today, women earn on average eighty cents to every dollar men earn. Far less discussed, there is an even greater racial pay gap. Black and Latino men average only seventy-one cents to the dollar of white men. Compounding these gaps is the “polluting” impact of status characteristics on pay: as women and racial minorities enter occupations formerly dominated by white men, the pay for those occupations goes down. Improvement in the gender pay gap has been stalled for nearly two decades; the racial pay gap is actually …

Book Review: Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation By Renate Klein, Kate Rose

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Eliminating Racism And The Diversity Gap In The Video Game Industry, 51 J. Marshall L. Rev. 863 (2018), Elizabeth Hackney

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Faith-Based Emergency Powers, Noa Ben-Asher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores an expanding phenomenon that it calls Faith-Based Emergency Powers. In the twenty-first century, conservatives have come to rely heavily on Faith-Based Emergency Powers as a legal strategy in the culture wars. This typically involves carving faith-based exceptions to rights of women and LGBT people. The novel concept of Faith-Based Emergency Powers is developed in this Article through an analogy to “traditional” emergency powers. In the war-on-terror, conservatives have argued that judges, legislators and the public must defer to the President and the executive branch in matters involving national security. As scholars have shown, this position has three …

How Is Sex Harassment Discriminatory?, Noa Ben-Asher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

What is sexual harassment, and what is its actual harm? Since the 1980s, these two questions have perplexed lawmakers, policymakers, feminists, and the public. Today, with the rise of #MeToo, and with increased national attention to Title IX claims regarding sexual violence on college campuses, these questions are once again in the spotlight. As some commentators have observed, in the last several years lawmakers and policymakers have been increasingly influenced by a feminist antisubordination approach to sexual harassment and assault. This growing influence is currently reflected in more strict standards of consent (“affirmative consent”) to sex, in higher procedural and …

Our National Psychosis: Guns, Terror, And Hegemonic Masculinity, Stewart Chang

Scholarly Works

In this Article, Professor Stewart Chang, through the examination of three recent mass shooting, proposes that mass shootings driven by hegemonic masculinity should be classified and addressed as acts of terrorism. Professor Chang defines hegemonic masculinity as patterns or practices that promote the dominant social position of men and the subordinate social position of women and other gender identities. In this Article, he examines how hegemonic masculinity is allowed to become mainstream and flourish unchecked based on our characterization, classification and reaction to mass shootings and their perpetrators.

Gender Justice: The Role Of Stories And Images, Linda L. Berger, Kathryn M. Stanchi

Scholarly Works

In this book chapter, Professor Berger argues for thoughtful metaphor-making and storytelling in legal writing. Exploring legal rhetoric with an eye for gender justice, she argues metaphor and narrative shape perspective and ask the reader to join the writer in the imaginative work of seeing one thing as another. The same shift in perspective that leads to re-conception—a shift that takes advantage of metaphor and narrative’s ability to say what only they can say—is what writers aim to achieve when they use metaphor and narrative for feminist and social justice advocacy.

Cisgender Students Rebuffed In Illinois Bathroom Case, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Equal Protection Under The Carceral State, Aya Gruber

Publications

McCleskey v. Kemp, the case that upheld the death penalty despite undeniable evidence of its racially disparate impact, is indelibly marked by Justice William Brennan’s phrase, “a fear of too much justice.” The popular interpretation of this phrase is that the Supreme Court harbored what I call a “disparity-claim fear,” dreading a future docket of racial discrimination claims and erecting an impossibly high bar for proving an equal protection violation. A related interpretation is that the majority had a “color-consciousness fear” of remedying discrimination through race-remedial policies. In contrast to these conventional views, I argue that the primary anxiety …

How Is Sex Harassment Discriminatory?, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

What is sexual harassment, and what is its actual harm? Since the 1980s, these two questions have perplexed lawmakers, policymakers, feminists, and the public. Today, with the rise of #MeToo, and with increased national attention to Title IX claims regarding sexual violence on college campuses, these questions are once again in the spotlight. As some commentators have observed, in the last several years lawmakers and policymakers have been increasingly influenced by a feminist antisubordination approach to sexual harassment and assault. This growing influence is currently reflected in more strict standards of consent (“affirmative consent”) to sex, in higher procedural …

Faith-Based Emergency Powers, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

This Article explores an expanding phenomenon that it calls Faith-Based Emergency Powers. In the twenty-first century, conservatives have come to rely heavily on Faith-Based Emergency Powers as a leading legal strategy in the Culture Wars. This strategy involves carving faith-based exceptions to rights of women and LGBT people. The concept of Faith-Based Emergency Powers is developed in this Article through an analogy to the “War on Terror.” In the War on Terror, conservatives typically have taken the position that judges, legislators, and the public must defer to the President and the executive branch in matters involving national security. This argument …

Biased Damages Awards: Gender And Race Discrimination In Tort Trials, Goran Dominioni

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

Current U.S. tort law incentivizes potential tortfeasors to target members of underprivileged social groups by using gender and race-based statistical tables life expectancy; work-life expectancy and average wage) to award damages. Legal scholars have long criticized this practice from the point of view of distributive justice but supported it on welfarist grounds. Recent research in law and economics has however cast doubts on the efficiency of this practice. On this basis, some propose abandoning it in favor of gender and race neutral tables. In this article, I contribute to this debate by analyzing from a behavioral law and economics perspective …

Gender Equality Menace Under Liberia Domestic Relations Law, Yah-Yeplah Dolo-Barbu

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Like most Africa countries, Liberia has a dual legal system, that is, the customary and statutory. Cultural and traditional practices influence some of the laws. Laws in both legal systems discriminate against women in overt ways, especially laws that deal with the private sphere, such as marriage, divorce, custody, domestic violence, property, legitimacy, and inheritance. This dissertation seeks to identify inequality in the Liberian Domestic Relation laws that arise from facially discriminatory laws, facially neutral laws and omissions in the law. It also posits that the court’s role in interpreting these issues has been inadequate, and the legislature is reluctant …

Decisive Win For Lesbians In Oregon Cake Case, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Two New Job Discrimination Petitions To Scotus, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

Gay City News

http://gaycitynews.nyc/two-new-job-discrimination-petitions-scotus/

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Trump Anti-Trans Regs Vulnerable To Challenge, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Why The Religious Right Can't Have Its (Straight Wedding) Cake And Eat It Too: Breaking The Preservation-Through-Transformation Dynamic In Masterpiece Cakeshop V. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Kyle C. Velte

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Decriminalization Of Prostitution: The Soros Effect, Jody Raphael

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article explores the activities of George Soros and his charitable organization, Open Society Foundations (OSF), in advocating for the full decriminalization of the sex trade industry. Research finds that OSF spends only a small amount of money on grass roots “sex worker” groups around the world advocating for full decriminalization, but the foundation awards larger amounts of funds to large human rights groups whose reports and policies have a wider reach. OSF’s rationale for full decriminalization fails to consider violence and coercion in the sex trade industry, misreads research, and does not include research from venues where full decriminalization …

Book Review: The Pimping Of Prostitution: Abolishing The Sex Work Myth By Julie Bindel, Roger Matthews

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Arguing With The Building Inspector About Gender-Neutral Bathrooms, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

Conventional interpretations of building codes are among the greatest barriers to building the gender-neutral bathrooms of the future. Focusing on the example of schools, this Essay argues for a reinterpretation of the International Building Code in light of its policy goals: safe, private, and equitable access to public bathrooms. Under this reinterpretation, the Code allows all public bathrooms to be gender-neutral.

Ending Harassment By Starting With Retaliation, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

This Essay posits that the fear of retaliation significantly contributes to the problem of harassment—we cannot hope to end harassment without starting by addressing the reality of retaliation. Although some scholars have argued that the fear of retaliation is one reason women don’t report harassment, and some scholars have discussed the inadequacies of anti-retaliation law, this Essay breaks new ground by arguing that ending harassment must start with preventing retaliation. Part I backs up what seems to be a commonsense proposition: Many victims of harassment do not report it because they fear retaliation.5 Part II then describes the difficulty in …

Lessons From Labor Feminists: Using Collective Action To Improve Conditions For Women Lawyers, Marion Burke

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

A Critical Analysis Of The Women's Constitutional And Legal Rights In Zimbabwe In Relation To The Convention Of The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Amy S. Tsanga

Maine Law Review

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) comprehensively outlines the international standards on the rights of women that are to be pursued by State Parties to the Convention. Adopted by the General Assembly in 1979, it entered into force in 1981 and set the scene for a comprehensive approach to the human rights of women by State Parties that have ratified the Convention. The underlying spirit of the Convention is that discrimination against women violates principles of equality and respect for human dignity and presents obstacles to the advancement of women in the political, …

Rectifying The Tilt: Equality Lessons From Religion, Disability, Sexual Orientation, And Transgender, Chai R. Feldblum

Maine Law Review

The joy and the challenge of being located in an academic setting is that I am also able to engage in forays (albeit intermittent forays) into scholarly analysis. Delivering this lecture, and publishing this piece, provides an excellent opportunity for me to engage in such a foray. This piece, then, is a scholarly reflection on my advocacy experiences. My goal is to use my experiences in advocacy as fertile soil from which to create, I hope, a lovely flower of theory and conceptual thought. Before setting out on this endeavor, however, I would like to offer two postulates. There are …

Caring For Workers, Martha T. Mccluskey

Maine Law Review

This essay examines the question of conflict between market work and family care from the angle of family caretaking labor for workers rather than for dependents. Feminist legal scholars and activists have been concerned for generations about the effect of women's unpaid caretaking work on women's participation and success in the wage labor market. Better public support for this gendered family care work is crucial to many leading visions of feminist legal and economic change. Recent welfare reforms, however, have increased the extent to which public policy treats caretaking instead as a personal responsibility (or a sign of personal irresponsibility) …

Caretaking And The Contradictions Of Contemporary Policy, Michael Selmi, Naomi Cahn

Maine Law Review

Contemporary social policy relating to women's employment remains strikingly ambivalent. Those in favor of traditional family structures, a position that is generally associated with conservative political agendas, have often expressed a preference for a family model that emphasizes the woman's role as a homemaker, or to use the more recent term, a caretaker. At the same time, as the 1996 Welfare Reform Act demonstrates, if the choice is between providing financial support that would enable lower-income women to stay in the home and forcing those women into the labor market, the conservative agenda will opt for the latter. More recently, …

Telecommuting: The Escher Stairway Of Work/Family Conflict, Michelle A. Travis

Maine Law Review

According to Working Mother magazine, telecommuting is a “wonderful arrangement for working moms.” Advertisements for telecommuting jobs and related technologies show us pictures of these happy telecommuting moms, who are conducting important business on the telephone or typing busily at their computers, as their smiling toddlers play quietly by their sides or sit contentedly in their laps. Some employers have offered this wonderful experience in direct response to concerns raised by “women's issues” committees. That was probably just what Jack Nilles had in mind when he first coined the term “telecommuting” in the 1970s and described it as a way …

Job Segregation, Gender Blindness, And Employee Agency, Tracy E. Higgins

Maine Law Review

Almost forty years after the enactment of Title VII, women's struggle for equality in the workplace continues. Although Title VII was intended to “break[] down old patterns of segregation and hierarchy,” the American workplace remains largely gender-segregated. Indeed, more than one-third of all women workers are employed in occupations in which the percentage of women exceeds 80%. Even in disciplines in which women have made gains, top status (and top paying) jobs remain male-dominated while the lower status jobs are filled by women. This pattern of gender segregation, in turn, accounts for a substantial part of the persistent wage gap …