Law and Gender Commons^™

"Playing It Safe" With Empirical Evidence: Selective Use Of Social Science In Supreme Court Cases About Racial Justice And Marriage Equality, Russell K. Robinson, David M. Frost

Northwestern University Law Review

This Essay seeks to draw connections between race, sexual orientation, and social science in Supreme Court litigation. In some respects, advocates for racial minorities and sexual minorities face divergent trajectories. Among those asserting civil rights claims, LGBT rights claimants have been uniquely successful at the Court ever since Romer v. Evans in the mid-1990s. During this period, advocates for racial minorities have fought to preserve earlier victories in cases such as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and have failed to overturn precedents that strictly limit equal protection possibilities, such as McCleskey v. Kemp. Nonetheless, we argue …

Things Invisible To See: State Action & Private Property, Joseph William Singer, Isaac Saidel-Goley

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article revisits the state action doctrine, a judicial invention that shields “private” or “non-governmental” discrimination from constitutional scrutiny. Traditionally, this doctrine has applied to discrimination even in places of public accommodation, like restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores. Born of overt racial discrimination, the doctrine has inflicted substantial injustice throughout its inglorious history, and courts have continuously struggled in vain to coherently apply the doctrine. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has not fully insulated “private” or “horizontal” relations among persons from constitutional scrutiny. The cases in which it has applied constitutional norms to non-governmental actors should be celebrated rather …

Equal Work, Stephanie Bornstein

Maryland Law Review

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 …

A Tribute To Hope Lewis, Karen E. Bravo

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Invisible Victims Of The School-To-Prison Pipeline: Understanding Black Girls, School Push-Out, And The Impact Of The Every Student Succeeds Act, Bianca A. White

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Prisoner's Dilemma—Exhausted Without A Place Of Rest(Itution): Why The Prison Litigation Reform Act's Exhaustion Requirement Needs To Be Amended, Ryan Lefkowitz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) passed in 1996 in an effort to curb litigation from prisoners. The exhaustion requirement of the PLRA requires prisoners to fully exhaust any administrative remedies available to them before filing a lawsuit concerning any aspect of prison life. If a prisoner fails to do so, the lawsuit is subject to dismissal. The exhaustion requirement applies to all types of prisoner lawsuits, from claims filed for general prison conditions to excessive force and civil rights violations. It has been consistently and aggressively applied by the courts, blocking prisoners’ lawsuits from ever going to trial. Attempts …

Federalism And The State Police Power: Why Immigration And Customs Enforcement Must Stay Away From State Courthouses, George Bach

Faculty Scholarship

The Trump Administration’s rhetoric and increased immigration enforcement actions have raised the level of fear in immigrant communities. The increased enforcement has included having United States Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents appear at state and local courthouses to detain undocumented immigrants when they arrive for court. This presence has had an adverse effect on domestic violence victims who are immigrants, as they fear encountering immigrations officials at the courthouse. In El Paso, for example, agents detained a woman who was bringing a case of domestic violence against her abuser. There were claims that ICE was tipped off about the …

Gender Nonconforming Expression And Binary Thinking: Understanding How Implicit Bias Becomes Explicit In The Legal System, Considering The Shooting Death Of Philando Castile, Patrick C. Brayer

Faculty Works

Theorists, poets, and artists are taking the lead in advancing the conversation about gender fluidity and the plight of people with non-binary gender identities. This essay is about what practitioners who combat implicit bias in the legal profession can learn from artists and thinkers on the cutting edge of gender non-conforming expression. Understanding how individuals stigmatize, and at times discriminate against, gender fluid people by limited and binary thinking is an important progression in comprehending how implicit bias (specifically against people of color) becomes explicit and influences legal actors including law enforcement and jurors. The tragic shooting of Philando Castile …

The Heat Of Passion And Blameworthy Reasons To Be Angry, Jonathan Witmer-Rich

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article seeks to resolve a longstanding conceptual puzzle plaguing the "heat of passion" doctrine--how courts should determine which features, beliefs, or characteristics of a defendant are properly relevant to assessing whether the defendant was sufficiently provoked, and which of those features should be disregarded. This article argues that provocation is not adequate if the reason the defendant became extremely angry is due to some blameworthy belief or attribute of the defendant. A belief is blameworthy if it contradicts the fundamental values of the political community. The blameworthiness principle distinguishes those aspects of the defendant that cannot form a basis …

Personhood Seeking New Life With Republican Control, Jonathan F. Will, I. Glenn Cohen, Eli Y. Adashi

Indiana Law Journal

Just three days prior to the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States, Representative Jody B. Hice (R-GA) introduced the Sanctity of Human Life Act (H.R. 586), which, if enacted, would provide that the rights associated with legal personhood begin at fertilization. Then, in October 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services released its draft strategic plan, which identifies a core policy of protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception. While often touted as a means to outlaw abortion, protecting the “lives” of single-celled zygotes may also have implications for the practice …

Rape In Context: Lessons For The United States From The International Criminal Court, Caroline Davidson

Cardozo Law Review

The law of rape is getting a rewrite. Domestically and internationally, major efforts are underway to reform rape laws that have failed to live up to their promises of seeking justice for victims and deterring future sexual violence. The cutting edge of international criminal law on rape eschews inquiries into consent and instead embraces an examination of coercion or a coercive environment. By contrast, in the United States, rape reform discussions typically center on consent. The American Law Institute's proposed overhaul of the Model Penal Code's provision on sexual assault carves out a middle ground and introduces, in addition to …

Global Intersections: Critical Race Feminist Human Rights And Inter/National Black Women, Hope Lewis

Maine Law Review

In this brief essay, I illustrate how Critical Race Feminist analysis could reconceptualize the human rights problems facing “Inter/national Black women” --in this case, Black women who migrate between the United States and Jamaica. This focus on Jamaican American migrants is very personal as well as political; I was raised by Jamaican American women. However, I have begun to focus on such women in my research not only in a search for “home” but also because there are important lessons to be learned from those who are the least visible in the legal literature. I draw the framework for a …

On Margaret Montoya & Jerome Culp: An Appreciation, Angela P. Harris

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

“Who Is A Latcrit?”: Jerome Culp And Angela Harris Provide Answers And Ways Of Being, Margaret Montoya

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Uncompromising Hunger For Justice: Resistance, Sacrifice, And Latcrit Theory, Edwin G. Lindo, Brenda Williams, Marc-Tizoc Gonzalez

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Intersectionality As An Institution: Changing The Definition Of Feminism, Holly Sanchez Perry Esq.

DePaul Journal of Women, Gender and the Law

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: 'You Can't Help Being In Awe' 1-30-2018, Michael M. Bowden, Edward Fitzpatrick

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

How Defendant Characteristics Affect Sentencing And Conviction In The Us, Payton Kuenzli

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research study analyzes whether or not there is any relationship between sentencing and conviction and certain defendant characteristics in the US legal system. In the midst of a time where the nation is strongly divided politically, the topic is often the center of research projects and discussions in academic journals. Specifically, this research explores the 3 characteristics- race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Within this article, multiple case studies from other journals are cited in which research and experiments have suggested that these factors do have influence on both whether or not a defendant gets convicted or for how long …

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 …

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.

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.

A Genealogy Of Programmatic Stop And Frisk: A Discourse-To-Practice-Circuit, Frank Rudy Cooper

Scholarly Works

President Trump has called for increased use of the recently predominant policing methodology known as programmatic stop and frisk. This Article contributes to the field by identifying, defining, and discussing five key components of the practice: (1) administratively dictated (2) pervasive Terry v. Ohio stops and frisks (3) aimed at crime prevention by means of (4) data-enhanced profiles of suspects that (5) target young racial minority men. Whereas some scholars see programmatic stop and frisk as solely the product of individual police officer bias, this Article argues for understanding how we arrived at specific police practices by analyzing three levels …

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 …

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority Of Bridewealth In A Post-Apartheid South African Community, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines the persistent authority of the customary practice for forming recognized marriages in many South African communities, centered on bridewealth and called “lobola.” Marriage rates have sharply fallen in South Africa, and many South Africans blame this on the difficulty of completing lobola amid intense economic strife. Using in-depth qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu-Natal, where lobola demands are the country’s highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola’s authority survives because lay actors, and especially women, have innovated new repertoires of lobola behavior that allow them to pursue emerging needs and desires for marriage …

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 …

The Violence Against Women Act, Implicit Bias, And Judicial Training, Lorena Espino-Piepp

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) must be amended to include implicit bias training for Family Court judges and staff to address the systemic barriers faced by undocumented Latina immigrant women in accessing justice. These women often face compounded discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and immigration status, which undermines their ability to obtain immigration relief through VAWA protections. The author contends that without such training, the judicial system perpetuates inequities, as judges and court personnel rely on stereotypes that disproportionately harm women of color.

The Economic Justice Imperative For Lawyers In Trump Country, Priya Baskaran

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article serves as a call to action for rural law schools to meaningfully incorporate economic justice into transactional legal education, and in doing so, train much needed rural advocates, legal experts, and local leaders. Rural areas are continuously portrayed as “Trump Country” in today’s mainstream media coverage, which largely focuses on socio-cultural differences between urban and rural areas. Many rural scholars and activists are troubled by the “Trump Country” label as it masks the structural poverty issues that lead to housing insecurity, water insecurity, poor public health indicators, unemployment, underemployment, troubled public education systems, and environmental degradation impacting both …

Radical Feminist Harms On Sex Workers, I. India Thusi

Faculty Scholarship

Sex work has long been a site for contesting womanhood, sexuality, race, and patriarchy. Its very existence forces us to examine how we think about two very dirty subjects-money and sex. The radical feminist literature highlights the problems with sex work and often describes it as a form of "human trafficking" and violence against women. This influential philosophy underlies much of the work in human trafficking courts, was evident in a letter signed by several Hollywood starlets in opposition to Amnesty International's support for decriminalization, and is the premise of several movies and documentaries about "sex slavery." Radical feminists aim …

Feminism And The Tournament, Jessica A. Clarke

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Naomi Bishop, the protagonist of the 2016 film "Equity," is the rare "she-wolf of Wall Street."' At the beginning of the film, Bishop appears on a panel at an alumni event. She explains her career choices to the young women in the audience as follows: I like money. I do. I like numbers. I like negotiating. I love a challenge. Turning a no into a yes. But I really do like money. I like knowing that I have it. I grew up in a house where there was never enough. I was raised by a single mom with four kids. …

Centering Women In Prisoners' Rights Litigation, Amber Baylor

Faculty Scholarship

This Article consciously employs both a dignity rights-based framing and methodology. Dignity rights are those rights that are based on the Kantian assertion of “inalienable human worth." This framework for defining rights spans across a number of disciplines, including medicine and human rights law.30 Disciplinary sanctions like solitary confinement or forced medication might be described as anathema to human dignity because of their degrading effect on an individual’s emotional and social well-being.

This Article relies on first-person oral histories where possible. Bioethics scholar Claire Hooker argues that including narratives in work on dignity rights “is both a moral and an …