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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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University of Louisville

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Supreme Court

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Replacing Notorious: Barret, Ginsburg, And Postfeminist Positioning, Calvin R. Coker Apr 2023

Replacing Notorious: Barret, Ginsburg, And Postfeminist Positioning, Calvin R. Coker

Faculty Scholarship

This essay offers a rhetorical reading of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings to make sense of how widespread outrage over replacing the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a conservative idealogue was resolved through the invocation of postfeminist motherhood. I argue that GOP Senators and Barrett herself positioned her nomination as the achievement of feminist goals, justified through rhetorics of choice and the idealization of (white) motherhood. These strategies cement Barrett as the logical and defensible successor to both Ginsburg’s seat and her legacy of feminist work. I conclude with the implications of this circulation of postfeminist motherhood, with focus on …


“She Blinded Me With Science”: The Use Of Science Frames In Abortion Litigation Before The Supreme Court, Laura Moyer May 2021

“She Blinded Me With Science”: The Use Of Science Frames In Abortion Litigation Before The Supreme Court, Laura Moyer

Faculty Scholarship

While much of the work on amicus briefs focuses on whether such briefs affect Supreme Court outcomes or doctrine, much less is known about the content of these briefs, particularly how groups opt to frame issues as part of their litigation strategy. In this study, I leverage an approach to content analysis that has previously been used to analyze judicial opinions and use it to assess the frames used by amicus groups in a single policy area over four decades. Using an original dataset of amicus briefs filed in Supreme Court cases on the right to abortion, I test the …