Law and Gender Commons^™

Queer Intersectionality And The Failure Of Recent Lesbian And Gay "Victories", Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Amidst the juridical heterosexism of our legal system, the few successful lesbian and gay cases stand out as brilliant, hopeful harbingers of the future. With good cause, lesbian and gay people have hailed state cases that indicate Bowers v. Hardwick has not contaminated all American courts. Although termed "victories" for the lesbian and gay community, several recent New York cases exclude many queer legal needs. Four cases, Braschi v. Stahl Assoc., In the Matter of the Adoption of Evan, M.A.B. v. R.B. and Thomas S. v. Robin Y., embody the law's progress on lesbian and gay issues. This essay …

On Privilege, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mascaras, Trenzas, Y Grenas: Un/Masking The Self While Un/Braiding Latina Stories With Legal Discourse, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

This article uses Critical Race Theory methodologies, such as autobiographical narratives, and analytical approaches, such as critical pedagogy. Using personal narrative, this Article examines the various masks ("mascaras") used to control how people respond to us and the important role such masks play in the subordination of Outsiders. The first part of the Article tells stories; the second part of the Article unbraids the stories to reveal an imbedded message: that Outsider storytelling is a discursive technique for resisting cultural and linguistic domination through personal and collective redefinition. The Article explores how transculturation creates new options for expression, personal identity, …

Paradise Lost, Paradox Revisited: The Implications Of Familial Ideology For Feminist, Lesbian, And Gay Engagement To Law, Shelley A. M. Gavigan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In this article the author addresses the theoretical and political challenges issued to feminists and feminist scholarship by recent debates and litigation concerning "family" and "family-based" benefits. The argument proceeds in four parts: first, the discussion is relocated within socialist feminist theory. The implications of the qualified pro-family stance in the critiques advanced or influenced by women of colour is considered next, followed by an examination of some proposals to extend the definition of "spouse" and "family" to lesbian and gay relationships. The author is critical of both "critiques" and illustrates with reference to Canadian welfare and immigration law that …

Colonization, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Civil Rights Act Of 1991: A “Quota Bill,” A Codification Of Griggs, A Partial Return To Wards Cove, Or All Of The Above?, Kingsley R. Browne

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

An Imperfect Remedy For Imperfect Violence: The Construction Of Civil Rights In The Violence Against Women Act, David Frazee

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Along with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) could be the most significant addition to federal civil rights laws in the last century. While potentially revolutionary, the VAWA's civil rights remedy forges two problematic legal concepts-traditional civil rights jurisprudence and "perfect" violence-into a super-remedy that risks combining the worst aspects of each. Those who utilize and interpret the Act can avoid this outcome by situating individual violent acts in the broader social and historical context of gender-motivated violence.

Prostitution: Where Racism & Sexism Intersect, Vednita Nelson

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Black women find themselves in a unique and extremely difficult position in our society. They are forced to deal with the oppression that arises from being Black in a white-supremacist culture and the oppression that arises from being female in a male-supremacist culture. In order to examine the experience of being Black and female, this paper attempts to describe that very difficult, tight space where Black women attempt to survive-that space where racism and sexism intersect.

Battered Women: A Perspective On Injustice, Michael Dowd

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the historical and legal challenges faced by battered women, particularly in the context of self-defense claims. It traces the roots of spousal abuse to early social and religious norms that subjugated women, leading to a legacy of systemic injustice. The traditional self-defense doctrine, based on an assumption of equal physical confrontation, often fails to protect battered women, forcing them to rely on mental disease defenses. Expert testimony on battered woman syndrome has gained recognition, aiding some women who kill their abusers, but its impact varies. The article critiques the legal system's inadequate support for battered women, emphasizing …

Illiberal Education: The Politics Of Race And Sex On Campus, Bruce Goldner

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus by Dinesh D'Souza

Two Legal Constructs Of Motherhood: "Protective" Legislation In Mexico And The United States, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

The theme of this symposium, "Reconstructing Motherhood," requires an examination of laws designed to further traditional motherhood roles. Societal constructs of motherhood-women as child bearers and nurturers-have profoundly affected women's involvement in paid employment. Conversely, women's participation in paid employment affects how women experience motherhood. For example, a woman who does not work outside the home has a dramatically different mothering experience than a woman who works outside the home and leaves her children with a day-care provider. The legal system can affect the relationship between motherhood and employment opportunities for women by means of employment laws and policies. Sometimes …

Civil Rights In The Islamic Constitutional Tradition: Shared Ideals And Divergent Regimes, 25 J. Marshall L. Rev. 267 (1992), Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na' Im

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Race, Gender, And Sexual Harassment, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Faculty Scholarship

I would like to thank Anita Hill and express my deep respect to her for having the courage to shatter the silence on sexual harassment. I am certain that I speak for millions of women in saying that I have been inspired and renewed by her strength and integrity.

I have looked forward to addressing you tonight on a critical issue at this very important juncture in our political history. Sexual harassment has captured our attention over the last several weeks and has of course galvanized women in a way that scarcely could have been imagined only a few short …

The Challenges Of Multiplicity, Jennifer Nedelsky

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought by Elizabeth V. Spelman

A Road Map To Achieve Enhanced Cultural Diversity In Legal Education Employment Decisions, Bruce Comly French

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

Voluntary Affirmative Action In Employment For Women And Minorities Under Title Vii Of The Civil Rights Act: Extending Possibilities For Employers To Engage In Preferential Treatment To Achieve Equal Employment Opportunity, 24 J. Marshall L. Rev. 731 (1991), Chris Engels

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unwelcome Imports: Racism, Sexism, And Foreign Investment, William H. Lash Iii

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will address the problems minorities and women face from Japanese foreign direct investment. This article focuses on Japanese direct investment because the rapid rise in Japan's direct investment in the United States, combined with a record of discrimination by Japanese firms in Japan and abroad, makes Japanese investment the best example of the problems addressed in this article. However, the discriminatory attitudes described here may well be held by other foreign investors, and therefore, the legislation proposed later in this article addresses a broader problem.

Workplace Discrimination: Truthfulness And The Moral Imagination, Emily Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.

O'Connor: A Dual Role - An Introduction, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Iroquois Great Law Of Peace And The United States Constitution: How The Founding Fathers Ignored The Clan Mothers, Renée Jacobs

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gender, Legal Education And Legal Careers, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez, Lee Teitelbaum, Jeffrey Jenkins

Faculty Scholarship

Much of the literature on the careers of women generally-as well as the smaller literature on the experiences of women in legal education and legal practice-supposes that women will follow different paths and have different experiences than men, and that this is and will be true because they are women. Some commentators on the relation between gender and the experience of legal professionals believe that women have distinctive modes of cognition or value orientations that shape their experience in the workplace, while others believe that social and cultural assumptions (held not only by employers but often by women themselves) are …

Women And Aids - Racism, Sexism, And Classism, Taunya L. Banks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Women In The Aids Epidemic: A Portrait Of Unmet Needs, Arlene Zarembka, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

While rarely a month goes by that the topic of AIDS escapes discussion in the legal literature, a survey of legal publications reveals that the implications of AIDS for women has received scant treatment by legal commentators. Unfortunately, this neglect is not unique to the legal community, but reflects a larger societal disinterest in women with AIDS.

In fact, this epidemic looks quite different from the perspective of women. The medical, social, and legal needs of women affected by AIDS are in many ways needs that preexisted AIDS, but which have been magnified by the threat and implications of HIV …

Proving Discrimination After Price Waterhouse And Wards Cove, Candace Kovacic-Fleischer

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION Anyone involved in litigation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 19641 or similar state statutes may wonder what is entailed in proving or disproving discrimination after the United States Supreme Court's October 1988 Term. In fact, in the pending Civil Rights Act of 1990, Congress is considering reversing some of what the Supreme Court did during that Term. One of the issues that the Supreme Court addressed during the 1988 Term involved allocating burdens of proof in two major types of Title VII claims, dis- parate-treatment and disparate-impact. Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, dealt with a disparate-treatment …

Gender And Race Bias Against Lawyers: A Classroom Response, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

In reviewing other clinicians' approaches to teaching about bias, I identified problems that eventually led me to design a two-hour class session on bias against lawyers. The following is a review of a few other teaching methods and a description of my own approach, detailing its own strengths and weaknesses. This is not an exhaustive review of all possible approaches to bias. It is offered to promote classroom discussion of bias against lawyers and to invite the development of innovative alternatives to my approach.

The Obliging Shell: An Informal Essay On Formal Equal Opportunity, Patricia Williams

Michigan Law Review

I am struck by the Court's use of the word "equality" in the last line of its holding. It seems an extraordinarily narrow use of "equality," when it excludes from consideration so much clear inequality. It, again, resembles the process by which the Parol Evidence Rule limits the meaning of documents or words by placing beyond the bounds of reference anything that is inconsistent, or, depending on the circumstances, even that which is supplementary. It is this lawyerly language game of exclusion and omission that is the subject of the rest of this essay.

Finding A "Manifest Imbalance": The Case For A Unified Statistical Test For Voluntary Affirmative Action Under Title Vii, David D. Meyer

Michigan Law Review

This Note analyzes the "manifest imbalance" standard developed in Weber and Johnson and the various approaches the lower courts have taken in trying to apply the test. Part I examines the Weber and Johnson opinions in some detail, and argues that the Court intended to permit affirmative action aimed at remedying the evident effects of past discrimination, regardless of whether the employer or society at large is to blame. Section I.A describes the diverging constitutional and statutory standards for evaluating voluntary affirmative action programs, and the policies behind the divergence. Sections I.B and I.C take a closer look at the …

Demarginalizing The Intersection Of Race And Sex: A Black Feminist Critique Of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory And Antiracist Politics, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Faculty Scholarship

One of the very few Black women's studies books is entitled All the Women Are White; All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave. I have chosen this title as a point of departure in my efforts to develop a Black feminist criticism because it sets forth a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis. In this talk, I want to examine how this tendency is perpetuated by a single-axis framework that is dominant in antidiscrimination law and that is also reflected in feminist theory and …

Privacy And The Regulation Of The New Reproductive Technologies: A Decision-Making Approach, Antoinette M. Sedillo Lopez

Faculty Scholarship

This article maps out the territory that must be explored in this very complex area and analyzes the implications of governmental regulation of the new reproductive technology. It suggests that the central issue for analysis is the extent to which authority to make decisions concerning reproductive potential should be allocated to individuals rather than to the government. The article describes approaches to allocating decision-making authority with respect to procreative issues. The first is a rights-based approach which emphasizes individual autonomy; this approach will not permit governmental regulation which interferes with personal autonomy in decision making, at least without good reason. …

The 1986 And 1987 Affirmative Action Cases: It's All Over But The Shouting, Herman Schwartz

Michigan Law Review

For the moment, the affirmative action wars are over. In a ten-year set of decisions, culminating in five during the last two terms, the Court has now legitimated almost all types of race and gender preferences, even if they benefit nonvictims, including voluntarily adopted preferences in hiring, promotion, university admissions, and government contracting; hiring and promotion preferences in consent decrees; and court-ordered hiring and promotions. It has approved preferences by both public and private bodies, and for both racial-ethnic minorities and women. It has barred only layoffs of white (and presumably male) employees who have more seniority than employees hired …