Law and Gender Commons^™

Us V. Rahimi, Originalism's Loaded Weapon, And The Lost Boys Of The Supreme Court, Mary Anne Franks

Articles

No abstract provided.

Retrenchment By Diversion: The New Politics Of Parental Rights, Mary Ziegler, Maxine Eichner, Naomi Cahn

Michigan Law Review

For the past century, the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the importance of parents’ rights to direct their children’s upbringing and education. Yet suddenly the rhetoric of parental rights is being used to ground a broad range of claims on issues such as what can be taught in public schools, when minors can access gender-affirming care, or who will be punished for helping minors travel for abortion care. Why have parental-rights claims surged so visibly in contemporary law and politics? And are all the new arguments made under the banner of parental rights equally rooted in constitutional precedent?

This Article …

Transformative Experiences, Anticipatory Regret, And Informed Consent, Elizabeth Lanphier, Shannon Fyfe

Scholarly Articles

Regret risk is not consistently part of information sharing within informed consent. Yet two kinds of decisions that often invoke concerns about future regret, abortion and sterilization, raise considerations for the role of regret in clinical decision-making and informed consent, particularly regarding decisions about potentially transformative experiences. We distinguish between first-personal and second-personal anticipatory regret and argue that first-personal anticipatory regret can play a productive role, but second-personal anticipatory regret can function in ways that are pernicious. Introducing second-personal anticipatory regret into medical informed consent processes is, we argue, not only not required for informed medical decision-making, but impermissible within …

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

The Tenth Anniversary Of Marriage Equality: How Traditional Marriage Law Led To Constitutional Protection For Same-Sex Marriage, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This essay explores how the history of interstate marriage recognition law was central to the Supreme Court’s recognition of constitutional protection for the right of same-sex couples to marry. Prior to the 1990s, there were essentially no laws on same-sex marriage in the United States. That changed in the 1990s, when the Hawaii Supreme Court issued a ruling in Baehr v. Lewin that made authorization of same-sex marriage seem inevitable in that state. The threat fueled the adoption first of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 and then mini-DOMAs in most states. Those laws were broad and …

Who Decides: The Role Of Parental Rights In Abortion And Gender-Affirming-Care Decisions For Minors, Joanna L. Grossman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The American legal system presumes that children’s interests are best protected by their parents and, secondarily, by the state’s parens patriae authority. Yet this structure falters when parental authority and state power are infused with political and ideological agendas. This Essay examines how these dynamics have distorted decision-making authority in two contexts—minors’ access to abortion and gender-affirming medical care—and allowed children’s welfare and autonomy to be sacrificed to partisan aims. The law is inconsistent on the role of parental rights—typically empowering parents to grant or withhold consent to a minor’s abortion but categorically stripping them of the power to consent …

A Woman’S Body Is Not Her Husband’S: Marital Duty And The Right To Refuse At The Ecthr, Dionejala Muhammad

Human Rights Brief

The European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) issued a decision in H.W. v. France on January 23, 2025, ruling that under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“ECHR”), specifically Article 8(1), a woman is not required to provide sex to her husband to fulfill marital duty.

An Ethnography Of Love Jihad: The Governance Of Interfaith Marriages In Times Of Hindutva, Snehal Sharma

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

My doctoral research focuses on the violations of human and citizenship rights of women and religiously marginalized communities (based on religious differences) in the backdrop of right-wing movements in India. I assess the Hindu nationalist propaganda named “love jihad” to demonstrate the way it weaponizes religious exogamy. This propaganda legitimizes violence against Indian religious minorities and women as it claims that marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men are acts of terrorism against Hindus with the sole aim of increasing the Muslim population using Hindu women's bodies. I have used ethnographic research methods to explore the legal process of interfaith …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

The Employees’ Dilemma: Balancing Internal Reporting, Whistleblowing, And Insider Trading Risks, Geeyoung Min

Seattle University Law Review

The Essay examines how recent developments in insider trading regulations and whistleblower reward programs can lead to unintended and counterproductive results of discouraging employees from using internal reporting channels within corporate compliance programs. While the presence of a robust and well-functioning corporate compliance program is a critical factor both in mitigating the level of public enforcement actions against companies and in protecting corporate managers from liability in private litigation, these programs often provide little incentive for employees to report potential misconduct internally.

Corporate compliance programs are designed to promote the upward information flow within the company, which is essential for …

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

Understanding The Big Three’S Wavering Support Of Environmental And Social Shareholder Proposals, Jeff Schwartz, Jefferson Jensen

Seattle University Law Review

Because of their substantial equity portfolios, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (the Big 3) are central players in corporate governance. It is, therefore, critical to understand how they vote. One puzzle is that their support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters appears to waiver. In 2020, for instance, BlackRock supported 11.1% of environmental proposals at S&P 500 firms. In 2021, it seemingly reversed course, supporting 55.2%. It then flipped again, supporting 32.1% in 2022. Such statistics suggest that the Big 3 are constantly changing their views on these topics. This Article seeks to better understand whether this is …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Green Dividends: A Case Study In Green Dividends And The Conditions For Private Ordering Solutions, Anne M. Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay introduces a novel private ordering solution to facilitate corporate investments in pro-social and environmental initiatives: Green dividends. Green dividends are an optional increase in shareholder dividends that are returned to the company to be reinvested in environmental initiatives or kept by a shareholder.

Green dividends pose an alternative to the current gridlocked debate that corporations can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, and shouldn’t even try to act in pro-social or environmental ways. Turning the common refrains on their head converts each narrative into an element for a successful private ordering solution: authority, accountability, shareholder buy-in, and government- backed enforcement. With Green …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Refundable Tax Credit Design: Cohabitating Parents And Gender Presumptions, Michelle Lyon Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This Essay is meant to encourage further thinking to improve upon design options for unmarried cohabitating parents. Are there better ways to recognize the needs of unmarried co-parents (whether living together or not) and to provide support for shared parenting? The policy considerations for providing support to unmarried cohabitating parents are different than those for supporting married couples, given that these individuals lack the financial protections of a formal partnership.

One solution is to have a default rule whereby the CTC is awarded to the primary caregiver. Canada’s gender presumption provides a degree of administrative simplicity, but the IRS could …

Being Pregnant In Someone Else's Body, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

No abstract provided.

Being Pregnant In Someone Else's Body, Jennifer S. Hendricks

FIU Law Review

In the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning the right to abortion, now is a critical time to re-assess how legal feminism theorizes the pregnant body. Before Dobbs, feminist legal scholarship had blazed a path of anti-maternalism, a stance rooted in liberal, formalist notions of equality that denigrates the “feminine” and too often minimizes the importance of reproductive issues both as tools of sex-based subordination in the present and as foundations for liberation in the future. Anti-maternalism is attractive to legal scholars because it minimizes sex and gender differences and may appear to be gender-inclusive. It has produced arguments that …

Fifty Years Of Protecting The Surviving Spouse: The Origin And Evolution Of Florida's Elective Share, Flavia Argamasilla

FIU Law Review

Currently, Florida’s elective share framework calculates the amount a surviving spouse is entitled to based on a decedent’s “elective estate.” Although this “elective estate” represents a significant improvement from previous law, where a decedent was free to completely disinherit a surviving spouse, issues still loom regarding the fairness of the framework. Granting a surviving spouse a fixed share of 30 percent of the decedent’s “elective estate” regardless of the length of the marriage can lead to inequitable outcomes. For instance, a surviving spouse who was married to the decedent for any period of time, one month even, can elect to …

Formal Victories And Roads Not Taken: Excavating Departures And Throughlines In Challenges To The Place Of Marriage, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

A decade after Obergefell, Professor Mayeri’s fascinating and meticulously detailed new book, Marital Privilege: Marriage, Inequality, and the Transformation of American Law, tells the stories of “marriage’s challengers,”from the 1960s to the beginning of the twenty-first century.¹⁶ Along with the stories of some “well-known” lawyers, advocates, and scholars, Mayeri also “rescu[es]” the stories of now “obscure” Americans who “pushed marital boundaries” to protect their parental rights, their careers, or their “freedom to make decisions about their bodies and families.”¹⁷ Such rescue allows readers to “see change as a bottom-up as well as a top-down process.”¹⁸ Mayeri …

Into The Sunset: Divorcing Families Need Their Slice Of The Tcja Reversions, John C. Mcdonald

BYU Law Review

On its path to sufficiently offsetting its major cut to the corporate income tax rate in 2017, Congress turned to a surprising source for funds: the alimony support payments of recently divorced families. Alimony’s inclusion/deduction regime in §§ 71 and 215 of the Code allowed divorcing couples to reach mutually beneficial divorce agreements for over half a century until it was unceremoniously repealed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 with a striking lack of satisfying legislative justifications. This Note suggests that in evaluating the impact of the repeal, Congress and others have failed to consider an important …

Contesting And Controlling Abortion In China’S Courts, Molly Bodurtha, Benjamin L. Liebman, Li Chenquian, Xiaohan Wu

Faculty Scholarship

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has brought renewed global attention to how legal systems protect and restrict women’s reproductive autonomy. Central themes have included how the rollback of reproductive rights in the United States coincides with the judiciary’s embrace of a broader “jurisprudence of masculinity” and the relationship between abortion restrictions and authoritarianism, as multiple countries have enacted restrictive measures while undergoing democratic backsliding.

Yet, the scholarly conversation on abortion, democracy, and how courts reflect and entrench gender disparities entirely omits China — the largest authoritarian state and a country …

Introduction—Bioethics After Dobbs, James Toomey

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.