Law and Gender Commons^™

When Prenatal Care Becomes A Crime, Casey Hunter

Fordham Law Review

For decades, pregnant women have increasingly faced criminalization for their actions and conduct during pregnancy, with Alabama emerging as a focal point due to its aggressive use of section 26-15-3.2: Chemical Endangerment of Exposing a Child to an Environment in Which Controlled Substances Are Produced or Distributed. Originally intended to protect children from the dangers of methamphetamine labs, this law has been reinterpreted to prosecute pregnant women who test positive for controlled substances. Central to these prosecutions are positive drug tests obtained from prenatal health records, causing many women to avoid prenatal care for fear of legal consequences.

This Note …

A New Parlor Is Open: Microfeminisms Are Needed In Law School To Combat Gender Bias, Stephanie J. Thompson

Faculty Scholarship

A recent viral trend on TikTok has spotlighted women attorneys who are leveraging microfeminisms to uplift other women and challenge entrenched gender norms within the workplace. The hashtag #microfeminism has garnered over a billion views, underscoring a growing interest in this nuanced form of advocacy. Microfeminism encompasses the subtle, everyday actions individuals—regardless of gender—take to promote gender equity and disrupt traditional expectations, both personally and professionally. In contrast to broader feminist movements that often seek systemic reform, microfeminism focuses on the interpersonal and individual level, recognizing the transformative potential of seemingly small gestures. This Article aims to initiate a critical …

The Onondaga Nation's Land Claim: Rights Without A Remedy?, Larissa Speak

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Case Law On American Indians: September 2023 - August 2024, Thomas P. Schlosser

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Do Bans On Conversion Therapy Impose A Governmental "Orthodoxy" About Sex And Gender?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

In Part I, this Essay evaluates how orthodoxy arguments featured in Mr. Tingley’s challenge to Washington’s ban on conversion therapy. Part II offers a preliminary analysis of Chiles v. Salazar, ⁴² which the Court will hear during its 2025-2026 Term. I illustrate how the arguments made against Washington’s law by Chiles and her amici draw from the anti-orthodoxy and marketplace of ideas rhetoric found not only in Justice Thomas’s Tingley dissent and his NIFLA opinion but also in Justice Gorsuch’s majority opinion in the 303 Creative decision.⁴³ Woven together with these speech arguments are appeals to the Court’s …

Menstrual Justice After Dobbs, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article identifies and analyzes the category of state and private regulation that is invisible and subordinates women and other menstruators in ways that impact their privacy, liberty, and equality. Because this category of regulation is pervasive, bringing it to light is critical for considering how best to curb its harm. This Article considers potential legal strategies to counter such menstruation regulation and argues that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization offers some promise—but more cause for pessimism—regarding the U.S. Constitution’s power to do so. This Article therefore explains how subconstitutional law offers greater potential, while cautioning that political science …

They Managed A Protest: Prohibitory, Ethical, And Prudential Policing Of Academic Speech, David Schraub

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Gender-Affirming Care, Justin J. Soulas

Theses and Dissertations

As of recent, twenty-four states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care, restricting minors from accessing medically necessary treatment. Existing scholarship has begun to explore the profound impact of these bans on transgender youth, their parents or guardians, and the medical professionals who support them. However, the body of literature on this rapidly evolving issue remains limited. This thesis aims to fill that gap by offering a legal defense of gender-affirming care, grounded in judicial precedent. It argues that parental rights to make medical decisions for their children—recognized in constitutional jurisprudence—extend to decisions involving gender-affirming treatment. Additionally, it draws on anti-discrimination …

Splitting Equality: Access To Gender-Affirming Care In The Fourth Circuit, Gilbert D. Jones

Journal of Law and Health

This Note critically examines the evolving legal landscape surrounding transgender individuals' access to gender-affirming care in the United States, focusing on two pivotal cases before the Fourth Circuit: Kadel v. Folwell (North Carolina) and Fain v. Crouch (West Virginia). These cases present a constitutional and statutory challenge to the exclusion of medically necessary gender-affirming care from state health plans, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Note contextualizes these lawsuits within a broader historical trajectory of transgender rights, highlighting legal and cultural milestones that have shaped access …

Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

In the twenty-first century, it is common to see feminists and pro-sex work voices lauding prostitution and other forms of the sex industry as viable expressions of women’s sexual and financial agency. As long as every participating party consents, they argue, sex work is not only tolerable, but admirable and positive – a form of transaction or service deserving license, protection, and respect in the name of individual freedom and female agency. Such voices argue that prostitution can even be dignified, as the sex industry supposedly allows participants full freedom to express their sexuality. In this paper, I offer an …

Let's Get Personal: Due Process And Personal Jurisdiction As A New Path Forward For Extraterritoriality, Samy Abdelsalam

Northwestern University Law Review

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has put fundamental principles of federalism and state sovereignty under attack. Legislation and lawsuits in states nationwide aim to limit the rights of American citizens to travel freely between states in search of medical care. Further, these measures have extraterritorial reach, legally entangling the rights of private citizens in other states who provide medical care even while fully within their own state borders. Scholars have analyzed this development through various doctrinal lenses, including the Dormant Commerce Clause. But these frameworks fail to adequately protect those who are unfortunate enough …

Gendering The New International Convention On Cybercrimes And New Norms On Artificial Intelligence And Emerging Technologies, Rangita De Silva De Alwis

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The trifecta of the Digital Global Compact (2024), the UN General Assembly Resolution on AI for Sustainable Development (2024) and the new Cyber Crime Convention (2025) come at a time of what seems to be an inexorable march of new technology. It is also at a time of transborder disruption caused by data breaches and cyber threats, that binding international norms can respond to global challenge. However, it must be emphasized that digital violence, developer bias, and data bias are not new phenomena, they have existed since the origins of the internet. Data that is used to train machine-learning algorithms …

The Unconstitutional Impact Of Anti-Transgender Legislation On Native Hawaiians, Aaliah Moi-Matsumoto

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Cancer Alley: Solutions For Effective Regulation And Enforcement Of Air Pollution, Lisa Lee

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Cyber And Tech-Based Partner Stalking In Jefferson County, Norah Wulkopf

Undergraduate Theses

Since stalking laws were enacted in the 1990s, they have been historically difficult to enforce. As less and less of our lives become private due to our ever-present devices, stalkers frankly have more access to their targets than ever before. The tenuous nature of stalking laws and the growing resources for stalkers place targets of stalking in a very precarious situation: the legal system has never been adequately equipped to handle stalking cases, and local justice systems do not have the resources to handle tech-based crimes. Through interviews with actors in the criminal justice system, this presentation considers how these …

Self-Defense Or Served Justice? Kirstin Lobato Case, April L. Wayne

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Kirstin Lobato spent 16 years in prison for the crimes of voluntary manslaughter and sexual penetration of a dead body. The Innocence Project took on her case and helped to exonerate her in 2017. After critical evidence that was withheld during the original trial was brought forward, Lobato was retried and had her conviction reversed. She was awarded $34 million in retribution for her time in prison due to her mistrial.

Scientific Educations Among U.S. Judges, Christa Laser

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Should more judges have technical and scientific educations than are currently prevalent in the federal judiciary? This empirical study of the educational background of federal judges reports the undergraduate and graduate majors of active U.S. federal Article III judges. Information on the subject area of study is largely not publicly available, especially for judges appointed decades ago. This is the first and only publicly available research study of the subject areas of study of U.S. judges, collected via phone and email surveys to U.S. judges. The results of this study show that only 7.35% offederal judges have majors in science …

Does Name, Image, And Likeness Increase Gender Inequality In College Athletics?, Aimee Christenson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In June of 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association adopted its first interim policy regarding Name, Image, and Likeness. From here, college athletes have been able to benefit from opportunities regarding their brand as an athlete. While this development has been historic in its expansion of rights to athletes, it highlights the inequities between male and female athletes. Title IX requires equal opportunity for male and female students. This research raises questions about whether NIL is increasing the disparity between male and female athletes. To answer this question, I looked at NIL data collected by Kyle Ems on the NIL …

Beyond Politics: Rethinking The Conversation On Gender-Affirming Care For Youth, Olivia Sanders

Mercer Law Review

According to a study conducted in June of 2022 by the Williams Institute School of Law, nearly 300,000 youth members in the United States identify as transgender. According to these calculations, this statistic indicates that “[t]he number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years.” Gender‑affirming healthcare is usually administered to treat gender dysphoria, which is defined as “a state of distress or discomfort that may be experienced because a person’s gender identity differs from that which is physically and/or socially attributed to their sex assigned at birth.” A 2021 study conducted by Reuters exposed …

Gender Apartheid Under The Taliban: Key Elements Of An Ideology Designed To Disempower Afghan Women, Ilias Bantekas, Asiya Karimi

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

Despite its frequent use since 2021, the notion of ‘gender apartheid’ is misconceived in terms of existing international law. The type of abhorrent policies pursued by the Taliban regime against women and girls is best conceived as gender-based persecution. Even so, there is no reason why a new and distinct international crime of gender discrimination cannot be established through soft law, domestic law, or treaty-making in order to preserve the plight of women and girls around the world who are subjected to collective discriminatory practices that deny them fundamental human rights. The crime would arise where the discriminatory practices in …