Law and Gender Commons^™

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 …

Phyllis Schlafly And How Forgetting Women's Struggles For Equality Perpetuates Inequality, Jill Elaine Hasday

Articles

In a nation whose Constitution purports to speak for “We the People,” too many of the stories that powerful Americans tell about law and society include only We the Men. A long line of judges, politicians, and other influential voices have ignored women’s struggles for equality or distorted them beyond recognition by wildly exaggerating American progress. Even as sexism continues to warp constitutional law, political decisionmaking, and everyday life, prominent Americans have spent more than a century proclaiming that the United States has already left sex discrimination behind.

This symposium essay draws on my book, We the Men, to …

Interview Of Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, And Nancy Levit, Moderated By Claire Hill And Matthew Bodie, Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, Nancy Levit, Claire Hill, Matthew Bodie

Faculty Works

This conversation occurred at the start of the conference on "Women at Work" on Thursday, October 24, 2024, from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m. The conference, sponsored by the University of Minnesota Law School, was inspired by the new book, Fair Shake: Women & The Fight to Build a Just Economy, by Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Nancy Levit. The co-authors were interviewed by two members of the University of Minnesota School of Law faculty, Claire Hill and Matt Bodie. What follows is the conversation, edited for clarity. Questions to the panelists are in italics, while their responses are in regular …

Presumed Guilt: Epistemic Closure In Pregnancy Prosecutions, M. Eve Hanan

Scholarly Works

Criminal law and reproductive justice scholars are calling attention to the increase in prosecutions for pregnancy outcomes in the United States. Trace amounts of controlled substances in newborns are prosecuted as child abuse. Miscarriages are prosecuted as illegal abortions or homicides. This area of criminal law existed side-by-side with Roe v. Wade for late-term pregnancy outcomes. The Dobbs decision has further emboldened these prosecutions by removing the protections of the Due Process Clause from the pre-viability phase of the pregnancy.

Using a case study of a woman who was pressured to plead guilty to manslaughter and sentenced to eight years …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

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 …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

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

Minor V. Happersett, Dobbs V. Jackson Women's Health Organization, And The Supreme Court's Refusal To Reconstruct America, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

One hundred and fifty years ago, in the wake of the ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments, the United States Supreme Court decided Minor v. Happersett. In Minor, the Court ruled Missouri could continue to deny women the right to vote based on their sex. The decision was simply reasoned. In the absence of clear constitutional text requiring Missouri to provide the right to vote to women or proof that the right to vote was a right of citizenship, Missouri had no obligation to allow women to vote. Some states had banned women citizens from voting since the country’s founding. Missouri …

Gender Discrimination In The Workplace: A Retrospective Analysis Of 'Young V. United Parcel Service, Inc., 575 U.S. 206 (2015)’ Through The Lens Of Feminist Jurisprudence, Christina Jackson

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Book Review - Quiet Rebels: A History Of Ontario Women Lawyers. Mary Jane Mossman. Published By Wilfrid Laurier University Press. £82.00, Yemisi Dina

Librarian Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Comstock Act’S Equal Protection Problem, Danny Y. Li

Michigan Law Review Online

Following its victory in Dobbs, the antiabortion movement has set its sights on a national abortion ban. Affiliates of the second Trump Admin- istration—including the vice president-elect—have endorsed the re- newed enforcement of the 1873 Comstock Act as one avenue for implementing such a ban. This Essay argues that contemporary enforce- ment of the Comstock Act as a national abortion ban would be unconsti- tutional. The Act violates the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee because it was enacted with the discriminatory purpose of in- hibiting illicit sex to promote women’s sexual purity. Only contemporary reenactment of the law without constitutionally …

Beyond Policy: Overcoming Challenges In Prosecuting Gender Persecution At The International Criminal Court, Milena Sterio, Yvonne Dutton

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

While the ICC’s jurisdictional and resource constraints undoubtedly pose significant obstacles to its ability to tackle all cases of gender persecution worldwide, the Court’s efforts serve as a catalyst for progress in the field of international criminal law. By shining a spotlight on the crime of gender persecution and prioritizing its investigation and prosecution, the ICC sets a precedent for national jurisdictions to follow suit. Furthermore, the ICC’s engagement with gender-based crimes underscores the unique intersectionality of gender discrimination and conflict, highlighting the broader societal ramifications of such crimes, and the imperative to address them comprehensively.

In moving forward, the …

Faking It: A Proposed Solution To Counter Nonconsensual Pornographic Deepfakes, Rena Song

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

2024 Louise A. Halper Award Winner for Best Student Note.

Deepfakes have become popular due to their user-friendly nature and accessibility, allowing anyone to create one by installing deepfake software programs on their phones or laptops. Deepfake software programs allow creators to create hyper-realistic multimedia featuring anyone whose image they can find. Some industries have drawn positive uses from deepfakes; however, deepfakes also create harms that can have detrimental effects on people’s mental health, employment, and reputation. Women and children, including those without a large online presence, have become the target for nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes. Congress has yet to pass …

The Expressive Power Of Protecting Intimate Privacy: A Comparative Study Of Legal And Platform Measures, Danielle Keats Citron, Jonathon W. Penney, Alexis Shore Ingber

Articles & Book Chapters

Intimate privacy violations exact profound costs to freedom, including chilling victims into silence; denying them sexual agency; and eroding trust critical to intimate expression and sharing. Effective intimate privacy protections could mitigate these harms via law’s expressive function—sending a message or “signal” that victims of intimate privacy invasions are valued, and their expressions worthy of protection. However, without proof, skepticism is warranted about potential expressive functions as there has been an absence of proof to back up these claims. This Article aims to help fill this void, making a theoretical and empirical case for a positive expressive impact of both …

Paternity, Protection, And Pirates: A Queer Theory Analysis Of Intellectual Property Metaphors, Eden Sarid

IP Theory

Intellectual Property and queer theory share a fundamental concern with the interplay between private and public, tangible and intangible, and language and form. Queer theory emphasizes how language impacts the construction of identity and belonging, highlighting that discourse plays a pivotal role in structuring gender, sexuality, and normativity. Intellectual Property is often portrayed as strictly neutral, laser-focused on spurring creativity and innovation. However, is this portrayal reflective of reality? And does this purported neutrality hold up in IP’s rhetoric? By examining two principal IP terminologies through a queer lens – the term “protection” to describe IP legal privilege, and the …

Courting Bias: Effects Of Gender Socialization And Judges' Genders On Litigants And The Judiciary, Ellie Barmes

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Transnational Legal Violence: Undocumented Women V. U.S. Immigration Law, Luis A. Mendoza

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how undocumented women, particularly Latinas, experience "transnational legal violence" within the U.S. immigration system. Transnational legal violence extends the framework of legal violence by identifying how immigration policies weaponize absence and distance across national boundaries, forcing women to choose between physical safety and legal recognition. The thesis is guided by a central question: What immigration system are migrant women, specifically Latinas, responding to?

The analysis rooted in the intersections of gender and citizenship reveals how immigration law remains rooted in coverture traditions that historically rendered immigrant women dependent on male U.S. citizens. For these women, deportation presents …

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 …

(Doesn't) Gotta Be This Or That: The Updated Mhra Versus The Gender Binary, Phil Duran

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fighting Fgm In Minnesota: Minnesota Legislation Vs. Model Legislation, Molly Rosenfield

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Power Struggle: The Disproportionate Burden State Surrogacy Requirements Impose Upon Women, Courtney Harper Turkington

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

The use of gestational surrogacy as a means to grow a family is increasing each year as fertility rates decline and single individuals and same-sex couples seek to have children who are genetically related to them. The United States does not have a uniform law governing surrogacy, leaving states to enact their own. While twenty-four states in this country have passed legislation permitting surrogacy and twenty-four others allow surrogacy in practice, the vast majority of states impose laws or practices that unduly burden women. In particular, Louisiana has the most restrictive surrogacy regime in the country. The state’s gestational carrier …

Dobbs V. Brown, Benjamin H. Barton

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization1is the most important and impactful Supreme Court decision since at least Roe v. Wade, and potentially since Brown v. Board of Education. Past survey data show that most Americans can only name two Supreme Court opinions: Roe and Brown. Dobbs will surely join that list. This Article compares the history, drafting, and opinions of Dobbs and Brown to show what a missed opportunity Dobbs represents. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the opinion, it should be clear that Dobbs was one of those unique times (like that of Brown) where the Court …

Let's Talk About Sex: Investigating Radical Feminist Theories On Prostitution In The United States, Anna E. Peterson

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores the feminist debates surrounding prostitution through an analysis of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin’s abolitionist theories, juxtaposed with critiques from Wendy Brown, Janet Halley, Susie Bright, and Marxist feminist abolitionist Esperanza Fonseca. The text examines the systemic forces of patriarchy and capitalism that commodify women’s bodies and the challenges of legislative approaches to the sex trade. While MacKinnon and Dworkin identify the structural inequalities underpinning prostitution, their legislative proposals often fail to address the stigma and systemic conditions that perpetuate the marginalization of prostituted people. Critics like Brown and Halley highlight the limitations of punitive measures, calling …

Title Ix And Athlete Compensation In The Postamateurism Era, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay argues that Title IX applies to all manners of compensation that universities provide and facilitate to their athletes because of their athletic participation. This includes paying wages (when and if that becomes permissible), paying for NIL (when that permission takes effect), and facilitating payments from booster collectives that are working on those universities’ behalf (as happens now). The statute and its implementing regulations create a structure of substantive equality that is flexible enough to address even the changing landscape of college athletics as it applies to matters of compensation that were not contemplated by the drafters of the …

The Next Chapter Of Apartheid Is "Gender Apartheid", Naheed A. Farid

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.