Jurisprudence Commons^™

Cracking The Foundational Myths: Independence, Autonomy, And Self-Sufficiency, Martha Albertson Fineman

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Cracking Foundations As Feminist Method , Katharine T. Bartlett

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Foreward, Adrienne D. Davis, Joan C. Williams

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

A Different Kind Of Sameness: Beyond Formal Equality And Antisubordination Strategies In Gay Legal Theory, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

Gay legal theory is at a crossroads reminiscent of the sameness/difference debate in feminist circles and the integrationist debate in critical race theory. Formal equality theorists take the heterosexual model as the norm and then seek to show that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals - except for their choice of partners - are just like heterosexuals. Antisubordination theorists attack the heterosexual model itself and seek to show that a society that insists on such a model is unjust. Neither of these strategies is wholly satisfactory. The formal equality model will fail to bring about fundamental reforms as long as sexual …

Connecting Grounds Of Discrimination To Real People's Real Experiences, Dianne Pothier

Dianne Pothier Collection

From the outset, the prevailing approach to human rights statutes in Canada has been predicated on a closed list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. The early drafts of s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms likewise had a closed list of enumerated grounds, but the final version qualifies those grounds as "in particular", opening the door for a broader application of s. 15. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court of Canada, with the exception of Justice L'Heureux-Dube, has insisted that establishing a prohibited ground, either enumerated or analogous, is a requisite condition to a s. 15 breach. In the …

Personal Rights And Rule Dependence: Can The Two Co-Exist?, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional doctrine is typically "rule-dependent." Typically, a constitutional litigant will not prevail unless she can show that a particular kind of legal rule is in force, e.g., a rule that discriminates against "suspect classes" in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, or that targets speech in violation of the First Amendment, or that is motivated by a religious purpose in violation of the Establishment Clause. Further, the litigant must typically establish a violation of her "personal rights." The Supreme Court has consistently stated that a reviewing court should not invalidate an unconstitutional governmental action at the instance of a claimant …

Bcgseu: Turning A Page In Canadian Human Rights Law, Dianne Pothier

Dianne Pothier Collection

The Supreme Court of Canada's decision in British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union (BCGSEU) v. British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission)' starts like a classic Lord Denning judgment. Within the first few lines, without even knowing what the legal issue really is, you know who is going to win because of how that person is presented. Justice McLachlin's judgment, speaking for a unanimous nine-person Court, begins by noting that the grievor, Tawney Meiorin, "did her work well" but nonetheless "lost her job."' It was that dissonance that made the facts of the case compelling for reinstatement. But what …

Sense And Nonsense: Standing In The Racial Districting Cases As A Window On The Supreme Court's View Of The Right To Vote, Judith Reed

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Congressional redistricting draws the lines within which battles for political power will be fought. It is no surprise, therefore, that the redistricting process has long been the subject of social debate and legal dispute. The Supreme Court has not been able to resolve this dispute, in part, because the Justices have conflicting interpretations of the right to vote. While some Justices view voting as an individual right, others maintain that voting is correctly perceived as group right. This lack of consensus regarding the definition of the right to vote has led to a confusing articulation of the harm implicated by …

Agency, Equality, And Antidiscrimination Law , Tracy E. Higgins, Laura A. Rosenbury

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court increasingly has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause as a mandate for the state to treat citizens as if they were equal-as a limitation on the state's ability to draw distinctions on the basis of characteristics such as race and, to a lesser extent, gender. In the context of race, the Court has struck down not only race-specific policies designed to harm the historically oppressed, but race conscious policies designed to foster racial equality. Although in theory the Court has left open the possibility that benign uses of race may be constitutional under some set of facts, in …

Dignity And Discrimination: Toward A Pluralistic Understanding Of Workplace Harassment, Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I of this article briefly examines some of the drawbacks and inconsistencies of Title VII sexual harassment jurisprudence and shows that Title VII does not provide an adequate framework for understanding many common forms of workplace harassment. Title VII is unquestionably a critical means of fighting against workplace discrimination; however, by emphasizing discrimination at the expense of dignity, the Title VII workplace harassment paradigm provides an incomplete understanding of the wrongs of workplace harassment.

Part II of this article asserts the importance of an approach to sexual harassment that distinguishes between the nature of the harm of workplace sexual …

Women In The New Millennium: The Promises Of The Past Are Now The Problems For The Millennium, Lundy R. Langston

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that the equality principle, while intended to promote gender equality, has failed to address the unique challenges and needs of women, particularly in legal and workplace contexts. Despite advancements in women's rights, structural disparities persist, with women bearing disproportionate burdens in caregiving, employment, and legal proceedings. The analysis critiques how courts and policies often ignore the biological and societal differences between men and women, leading to outcomes that perpetuate gender inequality. The article emphasizes the need for a more nuanced approach to equality that accounts for these differences and addresses systemic power imbalances.

Coming Out: Decision-Making In State And Federal Sodomy Cases, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

In 1791, American states were enacting laws against sodomy at the same time they ratified the Bill of Rights, the first ten constitutional amendments meant to safeguard fundamental rights of individuals in a free society. In a March 1789 letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson asserted that a bill of rights was necessary to give the judiciary the power to protect such individual rights. Ironically, that which the judiciary gives, it may also take away, since "[t]he legislator is a writer. And the judge a reader."

This Article deconstructs recent sodomy cases in order to challenge judicial adoption or reinscription …

A Clash Of The Titans: Judicial Deference To Arbitration And The Public Policy Exception In The Context Of Sexual Harassment, Stephen Buehrer

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Title Vii And Negative Job References: Employees Find Safe Harbor In Robinson V. Shell Oil Company, 31 J. Marshall L. Rev. 521 (1998), Matthew J. Cleveland

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Universalism, Liberal Theory, And The Problem Of Gay Marriage, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Liberalism, both contemporary and classical, rests at heart on a theory of human nature, and at the center of that theory lies one core commitment: all human beings, qua human beings, are essentially rational. There are two equally important implications. The first we might call the "universalist" assumption: all human beings, not just some, are rational -- not just white people, men, freemen, property owners, aristocrats, or citizens, but all of us. In this central, defining respect, then, we are all the same: we all share in this universal, natural, human trait. The second implication, we might call the "individualist" …

Foreword: "Racialism" And Reason, Frank I. Michelman

Michigan Law Review

Clueless, I am not; but still I can wonder why I, of all people, was recruited to write a foreword for this symposium - sight unseen, before its component papers had even been submitted. Neither legal representation nor the teaching of it has ever been for me a main activity or focus of scholarly reflection. Although I have written occasionally about race - in defense of busing, on the side of affirmative action - no one could mistake me for a critical race theorist. I am the original-model imperial scholar, as of last report only partially redeemed. "Liberal" is the …

Critical Race Praxis: Race Theory And Political Lawyering Practice In Post-Civil Rights America, Eric K. Yamamoto

Michigan Law Review

At the end of the twentieth century, the legal status of Chinese Americans in San Francisco's public schools turns on a requested judicial finding that a desegregation order originally designed to dismantle a system subordinating nonwhites now invidiously discriminates against Chinese Americans. Brian Ho, Patrick Wong, and Hilary Chen, plaintiffs in Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District, represent "all [16,000] children of Chinese descent" eligible to attend San Francisco's public schools. Their high-profile suit, filed by small-firm attorneys, challenges the validity of a 1983 judicial consent decree desegregating San Francisco's schools. Approved in response to an NAACP class action …

Lynching Ethics: Toward A Theory Of Racialized Defenses, Anthony V. Alfieri

Michigan Law Review

So much depends upon a rope in Mobile, Alabama. To hang Michael Donald, Henry Hays and James "Tiger" Knowles tied up "a piece of nylon rope about twenty feet long, yellow nylon." They borrowed the rope from Frank Cox, Hays's brother-in-law. Cox "went out in the back" of his mother's "boatshed, or something like that, maybe it was in the lodge." He "got a rope," climbed into the front seat of Hays's Buick Wildcat, and handed it to Knowles sitting in the back seat. So much depends upon a noose. Knowles "made a hangman's noose out of the rope," thirteen …

The Underrepresentation Of Minorities In The Legal Profession: A Critical Race Theorist's Perspective, Alex M. Johnson Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Over the last four years, I have taught a course in Critical Race Theory at the University of Virginia School of Law three times. Although each course is different, given the interplay between the teacher and the students and the integration of new developments into the course, there has been one constant subject that the students and I address: Of what import is the development of Critical Race Theory for the legal profession and larger society? Can Critical Race Theory have a positive or any effect for those outside legal academia? This article represents an attempt to explore that question …

Race-Based Jury Nullification: Rebuttal (Part A), 30 J. Marshall L. Rev. 923 (1997), Andrew D. Leipold

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

United States, Puerto Rico, And The Territorial Incorporation Doctrine: Reaching A Century Of Constitutional Authoritarianism, 31 J. Marshall L. Rev. 55 (1997), Gabriel A. Terrasa

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ex Post Facto Laws: Supreme Court New York County People V. Griffin (Decided December 5, 1996

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Prescriptive Equality": Two Steps Forward, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

In this Response to Professor Peters, Professor Greenawalt argues that prescriptive equality does have meaningful normative force. Prescriptive equality plays a reinforcing role when it agrees with nonegalitarian justice and is not incoherent when it pulls against nonegalitarian justice. Specifically, when one individual has been treated better than is required by nonegalitarian justice, a similarly situated and significantly related individual who is aware of that treatment may merit equivalent treatment because of widespread and deep-seated feelings about equality.

What’S The Use Of Calling Emerson A Pragmatist?, Stanley Cavell

Cardozo Law Review

I applaud the revival of interest in John Dewey and William James, on various intellectual and political grounds, and seek to learn what is at stake for others in their revival. But I also wish to suspend applause-doubtless more a transcendentalist than a pragmatist gesture on my part-for ideas that seem to be gaining prominence within this movement, expressed by writers and thinkers whom I admire, according to which Emerson is to be understood as a proto-pragmatist and Wittgenstein as, let's say, a neo-pragmatist. Perhaps I will be taken as struggling merely over labels; but sometimes labels should be struggled …

The Ten Precepts Of American Slavery Jurisprudence: Chief Justice Roger Taney's Defense And Justice Thurgood Marshall's Condemnation Of The Precept Of Black Inferiority, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.

Cardozo Law Review

Approximately twenty-five years ago, a group of thoughtful scholars, under the tutelage of Stanley Katz and Owen Fiss, met at the University of Chicago to discuss slavery law. Stanley Katz has previously noted that the conference generated extraordinary academic inquiries, as well as many books and articles. In this Article, I will describe briefly the intellectual journey I have traveled which was, in no small part, shaped by the conference and the interrelationships I have had since then, with so many scholars, as we have tried to get better insights into the interrelated issues of bondage, freedom, and the Constitution.

Are The Similarities Between A Woman's Right To Choose An Abortion And The Alleged Right To Assisted Suicide Really Compelling?, Marc Spindelman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this Article, Marc Spindelman examines the relationship between abortion and assisted suicide. He begins his discussion with the constitutional framework within which courts should consider the assertion that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects an individual's decision to commit assisted suicide. The Author then considers and, based on relevant Supreme Court doctrine, rejects the conception of personal autonomy that undergirds the claimed constitutional right to assisted suicide. Finally, the Author points out some legal and cultural distinctions between abortion and assisted suicide, arguing that these distinctions offer courts good reasons for holding that the Fourteenth Amendment's …

"Do Justice!": Variations Of A Thrice-Told Tale, Michael Herz

Articles

Although recent debates would suggest that narrative scholarship is brand new,4 lawyers, judges, and law professors, like all humankind, have always offered stories for illustration or support or to make a point in an indirect, and often more effective, way. Learned Hand's story about telling Justice Holmes to "do justice" is one widely-used example, offered by many writers in addition to Judge Bork and Professor Chayes. Its popularity is easy to understand. The story has a substantive message, pithily expressed, on a basic jurisprudential issue; it involves two members of the pantheon; and it crams a lot of human interest …

Establishing A Prima Facie Case Involving Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Threshhold Approach, 29 J. Marshall L. Rev. 441 (1996), Merilyn Brown

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making Equality Law More Effective: Lessons From The German Experience, Ninon Colneric

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the evolution and effectiveness of equality law in Germany, particularly focusing on gender equality. It highlights the significant influence of European Community (EC) law on German legislation and discusses the challenges in implementing these laws to achieve substantial gender equality. The analysis reveals that while progress has been made, there are persistent issues in effectively enforcing these laws.

The Denial Of A State Constitutional Right To Bail In Juvenile Proceedings: The Need For Reassessment In Washington State, Kathleen A. Baldi

Seattle University Law Review

Article I, section 20 of the Washington Constitution states that "[a]ll persons charged with crimes shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, except for capital offenses when the proof is evident, or the presumption great." Despite seemingly unequivocal language that this constitutional provision is applicable to "all persons," the Washington Supreme Court, in Estes v. Hopp, declared that juveniles do not have a constitutional right to bail. The Estes court engaged in little constitutional analysis, but instead, reasoned that juvenile proceedings are civil in nature and that article 1, section 20 applies only in criminal proceedings. Central to the Estes …