Gender and the Law Blog

LAT CRIT and SALT Conference

I received a request from Prof. Charlotte Garden at Seattle to post about the upcoming Lat Crit-SALT conference, which I am happy to do.  

Twelfth Annual LatCrit-SALT
Call for Participation
Junior Faculty Development Workshop
October 9, 2014
University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV 

LatCrit, Inc. and the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) are pleased to invite interested participants to the Twelfth Annual Junior Faculty Development Workshop (FDW), immediately preceding the SALT Teaching Conference.  This annual workshop is designed for critical, progressive, and social justice oriented pre-tenure professors, including clinicians and legal writing professors, as well as those who may be contemplating a teaching career.  However, we also encourage more senior members of the profession to attend, share their experience, and serve as resources and mentors.

The FDW is designed to familiarize critical, progressive, and social justice oriented junior faculty with LatCrit and SALT principles and values and support them in the scholarship, teaching, and service aspects of professional success.  In addition, the FDW seeks to foster scholarship in progressive, social justice, and critical outsider jurisprudence, including LatCrit theory, among new and junior faculty, students, and practitioners.  Finally, the FDW aims to cultivate a community of scholars interested in the continuation of this and similar projects over the years.

To facilitate community building through shared experiences and the exchange of ideas, we strongly encourage all participants to attend the entire workshop.

If you have questions about the workshop or would like to attend, please email [email protected].  Although we will make efforts to accommodate all interested participants, RSVPs are strongly suggested by September 30, 2014. 

Registration for the SALT Biennial Teaching Conference is available at http://www.saltlaw.org/conference_registration/

 

Gender Neutral Bathrooms on Austin's Agenda

The story: 

City Council today (Thursday, Aug. 28) could make Austin the first city in Texas to pass a resolution (Item 84) requiring single-stall public restrooms to be gender-neutral. Sponsored by Council Member Chris Rileyand co-sponsored by Bill Spelman and Sheryl Cole, the draft resolution directs the city manager to "process any necessary code amendments to require gender-neutral signage for single-occupancy restrooms, to create an implementation plan, and to report back to Council by September 25."

And: 

The Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT civil rights organization, has led the call for gender-neutral restroom requirements across the country. Members of the transgender community may face harassment and even violence when using gender-segregated restrooms, when suspicious onlookers decide they've entered the "wrong" restroom. According to a statement from Riley's office, "Austin has demonstrated leadership on LGBTQ issues, and gender-free restrooms are one more way that we can lead. This change will make our city safer and more inclusive, which is better for all Austinites."

Texas Judge Rejects Abortion Law

From the NYT: 

A federal judge in Austin, Tex., blocked a stringent new rule on Friday that would have forced more than half of the state’s remaining abortion clinics to close, the latest in a string of court decisions that have at least temporarily kept abortion clinics across the South from being shuttered.

And: 

The Texas rule, requiring all abortion clinics to meet the building, equipment and staffing standards of hospital-style surgery centers, had been set to take effect on Monday. But in his opinion, Judge Lee Yeakel of the United States District Court in Austin said the mandate placed unjustified obstacles on women’s access to abortion without providing significant medical benefits.

The rule “is unconstitutional because it imposes an undue burden on the right of women throughout Texas to seek a pre-viability abortion,” he wrote.

NFL Adopts Stricter Penalty for Players' Domestic Abuse

NFL Lays Out New Penalty for Domestic Violence: 6-Game Suspension

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has announced new guidelines for how the league will handle incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault. The change in policy, explained an open letter to team owners, come a month after the NFL was criticized for how it handled player Ray Rice's arrest on domestic violence charges.

 

Goodell says that the new policies were developed after conversations with outside experts, team owners and the NFL Players Association. The open letter describes several ways in which the NFL plans to provide training, support and resources to personnel, players and their families. It also sets down guidelines for how sexual assault and domestic abuse will be punished in the future.

SCOTUS and Women's Rights Litigation from Ohio in the 1970s

I have posted my recent book chapter, The Struggle for Gender Equality in the Northern District of Ohio included in Justice and Legal Change on the Shores of Lake Erie: A History of the District Court of the Northern District of Ohio (Paul Finkelman & Roberta Alexander, eds. 2012).

From the abstract: 

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, like many of its sister courts, was reluctantly drawn into the national debate over sex equality in the 1970s. The court’s response mirrored the greater social response, initially showing a hostility to claims of gender discrimination that was slowly displaced by recognition and endorsement of sex equality rights. Three of the district’s cases on women’s rights ended in the U.S. Supreme Court and helped navigate this shift toward gender equality. These cases are the focus of this book chapter written for a book collecting the "greatest hits" of Northern District court. The chapter provides the backstory, including oral narratives and original archival research, for the cases on mandatory maternity leave, LaFleur v. Cleveland School Board; informed consent abortion restrictions, Akron Center for Reproductive Health v. City of Akron; and abortion laws for minors, Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health.

These three cases from Ohio together offer a snapshot of the larger societal change for women’s rights. The nascent women’s movement in the courts proceeded initially along dual fronts of employment and abortion. The Northern District cases show the tensions and commonalities between these approaches and exemplify the development of broad-scale gender litigation across the nation.

Victims of Domestic Abuse Now Eligible for Asylum

NY Times, In First for Court, Woman is Ruled Eligible for Asylum in US on Basis of Domestic Abuse

The nation’s highest immigration court has found for the first time that women who are victims of severe domestic violence in their home countries can be eligible for asylum in the United States.

 

The decision on Tuesday by the Board of Immigration Appeals in the case of a battered wife from Guatemala resolved nearly two decades of hard-fought legal battles over whether such women could be considered victims of persecution. The ruling could slow the pace of deportations from the Southwest border, because it creates new legal grounds for women from Central America caught entering the country illegally in the surge this summer in their fight to remain here.

Book Review: The Woman Suffrage Movement in America: A Reassessment

From the review:

In The Woman Suffrage Movement in America: A Reassessment, Corrine M. McConnaughy sets out to “develop a general framework for understanding why politicians act to widen the democratic circle, and use that framework to explain the politics of woman suffrage” (p. 4). She argues that previous studies of the woman suffrage movement focused too closely on the suffragists and not enough on the lawmakers who actually gave women the right to vote. To fill this void, she examines the legislative process in several states to discover how and why a majority of their legislators were convinced to support woman suffrage. 

 

McConnaughy’s study begins with a general discussion of suffrage in America and analyzes how the electorate expanded over the decades. In connection with this, she offers what she describes as two models of enfranchisement: strategic enfranchisement and programmatic enfranchisement. She defines strategic enfranchisement as when “a single political party acts to enfranchise new voters expecting to reap electoral rewards” (p. 34). As an example, she describes how the Republican Party fought for suffrage for African Americans in the years following the Civil War and was rewarded with the votes of these new members of the electorate. Programmatic enfranchisement, on the other hand, is when pressure for change  comes from the voters. A third party appears that holds so much leverage with voters that the major parties are forced to address the key issues presented in that new party’s platform or face the defection of a large number of voters.

 

After rejecting strategic enfranchisement as a framework to explain how women gained the vote, McConnaughy turns to individual states to build a case for programmatic enfranchisement. 

More Protection for Pregnant Women in Illinois

The story from The Nation:

Once upon a time, when a working woman became pregnant, she’d typically be expected to leave her job and retreat into full-time domestic duties. These days, white-collar career women sport proud baby bumps under power suits, and across the workforce, women now regularly serve as the main breadwinners, and must work before, during, and after pregnancy. Yet many workplaces are still stuck in a Victorian mindset about what pregnant women can and can’t do on the job. Now a new law in Illinois is set to modernize the way bosses deal with pregnant employees.

And: 

The so-called Pregnancy Fairness law, which Governor Pat Quinn signed into law yesterday, establishes distinct civil rights protections for pregnant workers who require a modest adjustment to their duties to do their jobs. The employer still has the right to refuse but only if it could prove that the accommodation “would impose an undue hardship” on the business.

 

"4 Interesting Facts about Louisiana's Abortion Law"

From NOLA.COM:

Officials with three Louisiana abortion clinics head into a Baton Rouge federal court Thursday morning seeking to delay new state abortion restrictions slated to go into affect Sept. 1.

The new restrictions could shut down most -- if not all -- of Louisiana's abortion clinics next week due to an absence of physicians legally able to provide abortions.

And: 

Under the new state law, signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal in June, physicians who perform abortions must have permission to admit patients at a local hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic where they work. Abortion clinic officials said their doctors are still waiting to hear back from local hospitals about whether they will be granted admitting privileges, which is why the law should be put on hold for now. 

There's more--including the 4 interesting facts in NOLA.COM.  

Lifting the Statute of Limitations for Rape

Wendy Davis Proposes Lifting the Statute of Limitations for Rape

State Sen. Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor who rose to national fame last year by spearheading a fight against a draconian abortion bill,held a press conference Wednesday to highlight her ideas on how to fight sexual assault. Talking about her legislative efforts to process the estimated backlog of 16,000 untested rape kits in the state, Davis said she wanted to take the solution a step further. She proposed lifting the statute of limitations for sexual assault entirely, in no small part to make sure that rapists don't escape justice just because a rape kit lingered untested for so long that the window for prosecution closed. 

Cheryl Hanna's Words on Recommitting to the Law

As we begin this new academic year, a reminder of the power and beauty of the law from a past address of Professor Cheryl Hanna. (Re)Committing to a Life of the Law

But more importantly, I don’t just love the law, I love lawyers. I have the greatest admiration and respect for what you do. Now, that is not to say that we don’t have problems in the profession . . . . But it is my humble opinion the law and those who practice it are among the most important people in our democracy.

 

But I have been very disturbed lately by what I see as unjustified attacks on the profession. . . .

 

To that end, Todd asked me to give an inspirational talk. I am not sure that I can do that, but as a professor, I can give you homework. In the medical field, there is something that is called the model of the reflective practitioner. The premise is simple: professionals who intentionally reflect upon what they do and why they do it learn in more profound ways and express greater satisfaction with their profession. Doctors are being trained to actively engage in professional reflection as part of their medical education. However, law schools have not done a good job of implementing similar training for lawyers, and thus, lawyers often don’t have the tools or guidance to become a reflective practitioner, and, as a result I think, often experience greater ambivalence about the legal profession and their role in it.

 

So, I’d like to introduce some concept about intentional reflection to you and give you some tools to use to try to become a reflective practitioner with the hope that you will do yourselves justice and find more meaning in your professional lives.

[h/t Jackie Gardina]

 

 

You can't register for classes at Ohio University until....

.....you--a college student--complete an education program intended to prevent sexual assault.  The story: 

Bill Arnold, graduate assistant for bystander intervention and prevention education with the OU Survivor Advocacy Program (OUSAP), said Thursday the Not Anymore program is akin to the mandatory Alcohol EDU course all freshmen must take. The online course takes about two hours to complete, and features video lessons on topics including consent, alcohol, sexual assault, bystander intervention and rape culture.

And: 

Arnold said the mandatory program is a required part of the Violence Against Women Act's grant funding for the OU Women's Center, which supports OUSAP. He said the average cost per student to the university for the Not Anymore program, depending on final enrollment totals at OU, is around $3 to $4.

Catholic Website Condemns Transgenderism

From the Catholic Online: 

In a culture where freedom has been redefined as a right to choose anything and liberty has degenerated into license, the newspeak of the age has declared the instrumental use of the body of another to be sexual freedom. It is not freedom. It turns people into objects of use and degrades the dignity of human sexuality. 

And: 

Sadly, the same spirit of the age fails to recognize the integral unity of the human person, body, soul and spirit, and has turned the human body into a machine with parts which the revolutionaries think can simply be interchanged.  Removal of genitals and attachment of artificially constructed ones which are absolutely incapable of ovulation or conception, does not change the structure of reality. The removal constitutes mutilation and the construction of artificial organs with no reproductive function does not alter the gender or sex of the person.

Akron Program on the Social and Legal Implications of Same Sex Families Featuring Stephanie Coontz

Program Schedule: The Social and Legal Implications of Same Sex Families

Families and Communities Interdisciplinary Seminar
The Social and Legal Implications of Same Sex Relationships
September 11, 2014 – 7 hours CLE and CEU

8:00 a.m.	Registration & Continental Breakfast Sponsored by The University of Akron School of Law, Law Association for Women
8:25 a.m.	Introductory Remarks – Gary Rosen, Partner, Goldman & Rosen
8:30 a.m.	How Did We Get Here? Historical Context and Contemporary Implications of the Spread of Same-Sex Marriage Featured Speaker:  Stephanie Coontz, Author; Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families; Professor at The Evergreen State College, Washington
9:30 a.m.	State of the Law Today Presenter: Marc Spindelman, Isadore and Ida Topper Professor of Law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
10:30 a.m.	Break – Sponsored by Akron Family Institute
10:45 a.m.	Religious & Social Issues Presenters:   Gizelle Jones, Executive Director, Jewish Family Services Rabbi Emeritus David M. Horowitz, DD, Temple Israel; PFLAG, National Board and past president, Akron Chapter Dr. Joe Coffey, Lead Pastor, Christ Community Chapel
11:30 a.m.	Lunch – Sponsored by Summit County Probate Court Structured Discussion Activity
12:30 p.m.	Case Study Nancy Reeves, Assistant Director, Academic Success Program The University of Akron School of Law
12:45 p.m.	Probate Issues Presenters:   Jennifer L. Branch, Equire, Partner, Gerhardstein & Branch Co. LPA, Cincinnati   The Honorable Elinor Marsh Stormer, Judge, Summit County Probate Court Emily M. Hete, Esquire
1:30 p.m.	Domestic Relations – Divorce, Parentage, Domestic Violence  Presenters:   The Honorable John P. Quinn, Judge, Domestic Relations Court of Summit County  Thomas J. Addesa, Esquire Artz Dewhirst & Wheeler, Columbus
2:15 p.m.	Break – Sponsored by CANAPI
2:30 p.m.	Juvenile Issues: A Child’s Perspective Presenters: The Honorable Linda Tucci Teodosio, Judge Summit County Juvenile Court Dr. Erich Merkle, School Psychologist and Student Support Services & Security, Akron Public Schools Julie Barnes, Executive Director Summit County Children Services Board
3:15 p.m.	Q&A – Written questions collected from audience
3:45 p.m.	Closing Panel – Where do we go from here? Presenter: Stephanie Coontz and other speakers
4:15 p.m.	Adjournment

This course has been approved by the Supreme Court of Ohio Commission on Continuing Legal Education for 7.00 total CLE hours instruction.

 

REGISTER HERE.

Is Alimony Anti-Feminist?

Is Alimony Anti-Feminist?

The concept of alimony, also referred to as “maintenance” in some countries, dates back thousands of years and was first referenced in texts in ancient Babylon. Though gender roles and traditional marriage definitions have evolved greatly since then, the traditional meaning of alimony has remained largely the same. A marriage ends and one party pays the less financially solvent party some sort of means of support. In ancient times when it was not feasible for women to obtain meaningful work or to remarry easily due to cultural norms, alimony served as an important form of security. But today, in an age in which women serve in the cabinet and are now obtaining college degrees at higher rates than men, the idea that women (who receive alimony at much higher rates than men) should be awarded a post-divorce allowance from a spouse strikes many as outdated and an embarrassment to feminist principles.

Faculty Thoughts and Thoughts on Faculty as we go Back to School

As we start back to school, lots of thinking about what faculty do.

• What goes through a professor's mind. TaxProfBlog, Shadow Syllabus
• Professors should stop assigning textbooks.  ATL, Professors, The Cause Of and the Solution To the Great Textbook Scam
• Elite education has become only about achievement, not expanding minds.  NYT Book Review, The Enclosure of the American Mind
• Online education rush requires faculty to give away their intellectual property rights. Chronicle, The Erosion of Faculty Rights

Feminist Goes Mainstream

Slate, Why It Felt So Amazing When Beyonce Stood in Front of that Glowing "Feminist" Sign at the Video Music Awards.

CFP Feminist Legal Theory at Law & Society 2015

Call for Papers

Friday September 19th Deadline

Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network
at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting
Seattle, May 28 - 31, 2015

Dear friends and colleagues,

We write to invite you to participate in panels sponsored by the Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network at the Law and Society Annual Meeting in 2015.

Information about the Law and Society meeting (including registration and hotel information) is at: http://www.lawandsociety.org/Seattle2015/seattle2015.html 

Within Law & Society, the Feminist Legal Theory CRN seeks to bring together scholars across a range of fields who are interested in feminist legal theory. There is no pre-set theme to which papers must conform. We would be especially happy to see proposals that fit in with the LSA conference theme, which is the role of law and legal institutions in sustaining, creating, interrogating, and ameliorating inequalities. We welcome proposals that would permit us to collaborate with other CRNs, such as the Critical Research on Race and the Law CRN or the Gender, Sexuality and the Law CRN. Also, because the LSA meeting attracts scholars from other disciplines, we welcome multidisciplinary proposals.

Our goal is to stimulate focused discussion of papers on which scholars are currently working. Thus, while proposals may reference work that is well on the way to publication, we are particularly eager to solicit proposals for works-in-progress that are at an earlier stage and will benefit from the discussion that the panels will provide.

Our panels will use the LSA format, which requires four papers, but we will continue our custom of assigning a commentator for each individual paper. A committee of the CRN will assign individual papers to panels based on subject and will ask CRN members to volunteer to serve as chairs of each panel. The chair will develop a 100-250 word description for the session and submit the session proposal to LSA before their upcoming deadline on October 15, so that each panelist can submit his or her proposal, using the panel number assigned. Chairs will also be responsible for recruiting commentators but may wait to do so until panels have been scheduled later this winter.

If you would like to present a paper as part of a CRN panel, please submit a 400-500 word abstract, with your name and a title, on the Feminist Legal Theory CRN TWEN page (details provided below). If you would like to serve as a chair or a commentator for one of our panels, or if you are already planning a LSA session with four panelists (and papers) that you would like to see included in the Feminist Legal Theory CRN, please let Cynthia Godsoe know ([email protected]).

In addition to these panels, we may try to use some of the other formats that the LSA provides: the “author meets readers” format, salon, or the roundtable discussion. If you have an idea that you think would work well in one of these formats, please
let us know.

TWEN is an online resource administered by Westlaw. If you have access to Westlaw but haven’t yet registered for the TWEN page, signing up is easy: Sign onto Westlaw, hit the tab on the top for “TWEN,” then click “Add Course,” and choose the “FLT CRN 2014” from the drop-down list of National TWEN Courses. Once you arrive at the Feminist Legal Theory CRN TWEN page, look to the left hand margin and click on “Law & Society 2015 – Abstracts.” If you do not have a Westlaw password, please email Aziza Ahmed at [email protected] and ask to be enrolled directly.

Please submit all proposals for paper presentations by Friday, September 19. This will permit us to organize panels and submit them prior to the LSA’s deadline on October 15. If we cannot accept all proposals for the CRN, we will notify you by early October so that you can submit an independent proposal to LSA.

We hope you’ll join us in Seattle to discuss the scholarship in which we are all engaged and connect with others doing work on feminism and gender.

Best,
LSA Planning Committee

Aziza Ahmed
Cynthia Godsoe
Leslie Harris
Courtney Joslin
Ummni Khan
Dara Purvis
Julie Shapiro

CFP: Applied Feminism and Work

CALL FOR PAPERS: "APPLIED FEMINISM AND WORK"

 

The University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center on Applied Feminism seeks submissions for its Eighth Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference.  This year’s theme is “Applied Feminism and Work.”  The conference will be held on March 5 and 6, 2015.  For more information about the conference, please visit law.ubalt.edu/caf.

 

As the nation emerges from the recession, work and economic security are front and center in our national policy debates.  Women earn less than men, and the new economic landscape impacts men and women differently.  At the same time, women are questioning whether to Lean In or Lean Out, and what it means to “have it all.”  The conference will build on these discussions. As always, the Center’s conference will serve as a forum for scholars, practitioners and activists to share ideas about applied feminism, focusing on the intersection of theory and practice to effectuate social change.  The conference seeks papers that discuss this year’s theme through the lens of an intersectional approach to feminist legal theory, addressing not only the premise of seeking justice for all people on behalf of their gender but also the interlinked systems of oppression based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, class, immigration status, disability, and geographical and historical context.

 

Papers might explore the following questions:  What impact has feminist legal theory had on the workplace? How does work impact gender and vice versa?  How might feminist legal theory respond to issues such as stalled immigration reform, economic inequality, pregnancy accommodation, the low-wage workforce, women’s access to economic opportunities, family-friendly work environments, paid sick and family leave, decline in unionization, and low minimum wage rates?  What sort of support should society and law provide to ensure equal employment opportunities that provide for security for all?  How do law and feminist legal theory conceptualize the role of the state and the private sector in relation to work?  Are there rights to employment and what are their foundations?  How will the recent Supreme Court Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Harris v. Quinn decisions impact economic opportunities for women?  How will the new EEOC guidance on pregnancy accommodation and the Young v. UPS upcoming Supreme Court decision affect rights of female workers? 

 

The conference will provide an opportunity for participants and audience members to exchange ideas about the current state of feminist legal theories.  We hope to deepen our understandings of how feminist legal theory relates to work and to move new insights into practice.  In addition, the conference is designed to provide presenters with the opportunity to gain feedback on their papers. 

 

The conference will begin the afternoon of Thursday, March 5, 2015, with a workshop.   This workshop will continue the annual tradition of involving all attendees as participants in an interactive discussion and reflection.   On Friday, March 6, 2015, the conference will continue with a day of presentations regarding current scholarship and/or legal work that explores the application of feminist legal theory to issues involving health.   The conference will be open to the public and will feature a keynote speaker. Past keynote speakers have included Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Dr. Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sheryl WuDunn, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Amy Klobuchar, and NOW President Terry O’Neill.

 

To submit a paper proposal, please submit an abstract by Friday, 5 p.m. on October 31, 2014, to [email protected].  It is essential that your abstract contain your full contact information, including an email, phone number, and mailing address where you can be reached.  In the “Re” line, please state:  CAF Conference 2015.  Abstracts should be no longer than one page.  We will notify presenters of selected papers in mid-November.  We anticipate being able to have twelve paper presenters during the conference on Friday, March 6, 2015. About half the presenter slots will be reserved for authors who commit to publishing in the symposium volume of the University of Baltimore Law Review.  Thus, please indicate at the bottom of your abstract whether you are submitting (1) solely to present or (2) to present and publish in the symposium volume.  Authors who are interested in publishing in the Law Review will be strongly considered for publication.  Regardless of whether or not you are publishing in the symposium volume, all working drafts of symposium-length or article-length papers will be due no later than February 13, 2015.   Abstracts will be posted on the Center on Applied Feminism’s conference website to be shared with other participants and attendees.   Presenters are responsible for their own travel costs; the conference will provide a discounted hotel rate, as well as meals. 

 

We look forward to your submissions.  If you have further questions, please contact Prof. Margaret Johnson at [email protected].

 

 

33 states don't protect LGBT youth from bullying

According to Vox: