Gender and the Law Prof Blog

Conference "Gender Equity In Law Schools"

Conference, Villanova Law School, Gender Equity in Law Schools

Friday, October 25, 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Arthur M. Goldberg '66 Commons Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law

Despite the significant demographic change in the gender composition of law faculty during the last 25 years, persistent questions of unequal treatment and unconscious bias continue to hamper the ability of female faculty to achieve full equality in law schools.

• The symposium will examine a broad variety of issues relating to gender equity in law schools, such as:
• Teaching issues — whether excellent teaching is valued in law schools, whether women faculty have a disproportionate teaching load, whether women are disproportionately present/absent in particular substantive courses, whether women are evaluated differently by students
• Scholarly issues — whether areas of particular interest to women are undervalued, whether the work of women is given equal weight by law reviews, and whether female faculty bring a different voice to legal scholarship
• Service issues — whether non-scholarly tasks performed by female faculty disproportionately disadvantage them with respect to status and compensation
• The gender disparity in legal writing and in clinical education, which also produces substantial pay disparities that fall disproportionately on women in legal education
• Intersections with issues of race, class, gender, and sexual identity

The symposium will also examine recent pay discrimination litigation at Denver Law School and focus on best practices for law schools that want to avoid similar litigation in the future.

This event takes place on Friday, October 25 from 8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. in the Arthur M. Goldberg '66 Commons at the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. The program is approved for 7 substantive CLE credits.

CFP AALS Women in Legal Education Section "A Century Since Suffrage"

Call for Presentations and Papers – Monday, September 23 Deadline

The Women in Legal Education (WILE) Section of the American Association of Law Schools Seeks submissions for the American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting January 2-5, 2020 in Washington, D.C.

The Section on Women in Legal Education is pleased to announce a Call for Papers from which presenters will be selected to participate in the Section’s main program at the AALS 2020 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The program, A Century Since Suffrage: How Did We Get Here? Where Will We Go? How Will We Get There?, will explore the legal accomplishments and failures of the women’s movement since 1920. A century ago, women won the right to vote. Since then, women garnered additional rights in virtually every legal area, including in the realms of employment, property, reproduction, education, caretaking, sexual freedom, and protection from violence. Despite significant success, much work remains.

This session will consider the future of the women’s movement through a critical examination of our past as guided by three multi-faceted inquiries:
(1) How did we get here?
Topics can include, for example: Who shaped the movement’s path? What were the movement’s guiding ideologies, practices, and priorities? Where did the movement fail? How did the exclusion of African American and other minority women shape the movement’s trajectory and goals? How did the prioritization of some issues over others impact women’s lives and the reality of sex equality?
(2) Where will we go?
Topics can include, for example: What are or should be our priorities as we move forward? How do we continue our work given the current political climate, assault on women’s rights, and status of our world? How will our understandings of gender shift the goals of the women’s movement? What impact will intersectionality have on the movement?
(3) How will we get there?

Topics can include, for example: Who will shape our actions and goals as we move forward? Which philosophies will guide us? What are the obstacles in our path? What have we learned from our past and how will that knowledge guide us into the future?
Submission guidelines: We welcome proposals for 30-minute presentations on these topics. Proposals for presentations should be sent as an e-mail file attachment in MS Word to

Professor Rona Kaufman at kitchenr@duq.edu by Monday, September 23, 2019. She will confirm receipt of all submissions. Proposals for presentations should be 500-1500 words long, and should denote the topic to be addressed, any special technological needs for the session, the presenter’s background, years of teaching, institutional affiliation, and contact information. All abstracts will be reviewed by members of the WILE Program Committee. Selected professors will present their work at the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting. Full drafts of articles based on conference presentations will be due by July 1, 2020. Final versions of the articles will be due by August 19, 2020. Accepted articles will be published in the Winter 2021 issue of the Duquesne Law

CFP Feminist Legal Theory CRN Law and Society 2020

Call for Papers – Friday, September 20 Deadline

The Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network

Seeks submissions for the

Law and Society Association Annual Meeting

May 28-31, 2020 in Denver, Colorado

Submission link: https://form.jotform.com/91827795835172

Dear friends and colleagues:

We invite you to submit a paper for a panel to be sponsored by the Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network at the 2020 Law and Society Annual Meeting in Denver. The Feminist Legal Theory CRN brings together law and society scholars across a range of fields who are interested in feminist legal theory. Information about the Law and Society meeting is available at https://www.lawandsociety.org/index.html. 

We will give preference to individual paper proposals over proposals for panels that are pre-formed.  One of the goals of the Feminist Legal Theory CRN is to encourage scholars to engage with the diverse work of others across the academy. Any proposals for a fully-formed panel should address specifically the efforts that the panel organizers have made to ensure diversity among presenters, including race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity; diversity in the institutions of presenters’ affiliation and/or primary training; diversity among positions in the academy such as senior vs. junior scholars, tenured vs. non-tenured participants, doctrinal vs. non-doctrinal faculty. 

This year’s meeting invites us to explore “Rule and Resistance.”  We are especially interested in proposals that explore the application of feminist legal theory to this theme, broadly construed. We are also interested in papers that will permit us to collaborate with other CRNs, such as the Critical Research on Race and the Law CRN. We welcome multidisciplinary paper proposals and proposals from scholars from all parts of the world.

Our goal is to stimulate focused discussion of papers on which scholars are currently working rather than to seek fully-formed panels.  Thus, while you may submit papers that are closer to publication, we are particularly eager to receive proposals for works-in-progress that are at an earlier stage and will benefit from the discussion that the panels will provide. We strongly encourage applications from junior scholars and graduate students – as well as people who are new to feminist legal theory.

 

The Planning Committee will assign individual papers to panels of four presenters, based on subject matter. Each paper presentation should run roughly 10 to 15 minutes to allow ample time for discussion. We will also assign a chair, and one or two commentators/discussants for each panel, to provide feedback on the papers and promote discussion.

 

In addition to traditional panels, we are open to proposals in the other formats that the LSA allows, including Author Meets Reader, Salon, or Roundtable sessions. If you have an idea that you think would work well in one of these formats, please also use the submission form above.  Organizers of these types of sessions should address in their proposal the same diversity criteria listed above.

 

Finally–and new this year–the FLT CRN welcomes submissions for roundtables on how to incorporate feminist principles into both teaching methods (pedagogical strategies as well as classroom practices) and course coverage across subject areas. Sessions could potentially address topics such as: (1) what feminist teaching can look like and (2) how to deal with the unique challenges of teaching in a hostile or indifferent environment to feminism. Preference will be given to proposals that involve materials or demonstrations.

 

Please also note that LSA rules limit each participant to a single conference appearance as a paper panelist or as a roundtable participant.

As a condition of participating as part of a program sponsored by the CRN, we also ask that you agree to serve as a chair and/or commentator/discussant for another panel or participant. We will of course take into account expertise and topic preferences to the degree possible.

 

Chairs are responsible for the primary organization of the panel. Chairs will develop a 100 to 250 word description for the session and submit the session proposal to LSA before the November 6 LSA deadline.  This will ensure that other participants accepted by the CRN can submit their proposal to LSA, using the panel number assigned by the CRN. The Chair may also serve as the Discussant for the panel, or there may be a separate Discussant.  Where possible, we will attempt to assign two Discussants to each paper panel. Discussants read the two to three papers assigned to them and prepare a short commentary to offer feedback and serve as a basis for discussion among the panelist and audience members as well as (to the extent relevant) identify ways that the papers relate to one another.

If you would like to present a paper as part of a CRN panel, please make your submission here https://form.jotform.com/91827795835172. The submission form will ask you to provide:

• A 500 word abstract or summary of your paper;
• Your paper’s title
• Your name and institutional affiliation;
• Number of years you have been in teaching/working as a grad student; and
• A list of your areas of interest and expertise within feminist legal theory.

Please note that for Author Meets Reader, Salon, or Roundtable sessions, organizers should provide a 500-word summary of the topic and the contributions they expect the proposed participants to make.

If you need to contact the CRN Planning Committee, please do so via  feministlegaltheory@gmail.com. (Please do not send submissions to individual committee members.) 

Please submit all proposals by Friday, September 20, 2019. Late proposals may not be considered for inclusion. This schedule will permit us to organize panels and submit them prior to the LSA’s deadline of November 6. In the past, we have accommodated as many panelists as possible, but have been unable to accept all proposals. If we are unable to accept your proposal for the CRN, we will notify you by early November so that you can submit an independent proposal to LSA.

We hope you’ll join us in Denver to share and discuss the scholarship in which we are all engaged and connect with others doing work on feminist legal theory.

Finally, please make sure to sign up for the Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research page on TWEN, as that is our primary platform for communication about the CRN’s activities.  If your primary academic affiliation is outside a U.S.-based law school, please contact Bridget Crawford (bcrawford@law.pace.edu), and she will arrange for you to have access to TWEN, if you provide your institutional email account.  The CRN welcomes participants from all parts of the academy.

 

 

2020 LSA Feminist Legal Theory CRN Planning Committee

 

Naomi Cahn (co-chair)

Bridget Crawford (co-chair)

David Cohen

Tugce Ellialti

Jessica Feinberg

Jessica Knouse

Shruti Rana

Jordan Woods

 

Video Recording Symposium on Applied Feminism and #MeToo

Center for Applied Feminism, Univ. of Baltimore, Video Recordings from Applied Feminism and #MeToo (April 2019)

 The center co-sponsored with the UB Law Review the 11th Feminist Legal Theory Conference: Applied Feminism and #MeToo. The conference mixed activism and scholarship focusing on sexual harassment and gender-based violence law. Sixteen scholars and practitioners presented papers concerning a wide array of legal topics, from sexual assaults during police searches to the credibility of survivors in courtrooms.

The keynote speaker was Debra Katz, the lawyer who represented Christine Blasey Ford during the confirmation hearings for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In addition, hotel workers from a union presented about being sexually harassed and their campaign to end such treatment in hotels. Center members continued to work with UB law students and the Reproductive Justice Inside coalition to create model policies for reproductive health care and menstrual hygiene product access for Maryland correctional facilities.

CFP Center on Applied Feminism 12th Legal Theory Conference on Applied Feminism and Privacy

The Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law seeks paper proposals for the Twelfth Feminist Legal Theory Conference.  We hope you will join us for this exciting conference on April 2 and 3, 2020.  The theme is Privacy. As always, the conference focuses on the intersection of gender and race, class, gender identity, ability, and other personal identities. We are excited that Dr. Leana Wen, President and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, has agreed to serve as our Keynote.

We are at a critical time for a broad range of privacy issues. State level abortion bans have put a spotlight on the importance of decisional privacy to women’s equality. Across America, advocates are fighting for reproductive justice and strategizing to preserve long-settled rights. At the same time, our informational privacy is increasingly precarious. Data brokers, app designers, and social media platforms are gathering and selling personal data in highly gendered ways. As a result, women have been targeted with predatory marketing, intentionally excluded from job opportunities, and subject to menstrual tracking by marketers and employers. In online spaces, women have been objectified, cyber-stalked, and subject to revenge porn.  With regard to physical privacy, the structural intersectionality of over-policing and mass incarceration impacts women of color and other women.  And while a man’s home may be his castle, low-income women are expected to allow government agents into their homes – and to turn over reams of other personal information -- as a condition of receiving state support. In addition, families of all forms are navigating the space of constitutionally-protected family privacy in relation to legal parentage, marriage and cohabitation, and child welfare systems.

 We seek submissions of papers that focus on the topic of Applied Feminism and Privacy.  We will interrogate multiple aspects of privacy, including its physical, decisional, informational, and family dimensions. This conference aims to explore the following questions:  Is privacy dead, as often claimed?  If so, what does this mean for women? How can privacy reinforce or challenge existing inequalities?  How has feminist legal theory wrestled with privacy and what lessons can we draw from past debates? What advocacy will best advance privacy protections that benefit women? How do emerging forms of surveillance impact women? Can intersectional perspectives on privacy lead to greater justice? Who defines the “right to privacy” and what do those understandings mean for women? How is privacy related to other values, such as autonomy, anti-subordination, vulnerability, justice, and equality?

 We welcome proposals that consider these questions and any other related questions from a variety of substantive disciplines and perspectives. The Center’s conference will serve as a forum for scholars, practitioners, and activists to share ideas about applied feminism, focusing on connections between theory and practice to effectuate social change. The conference will be open to the public.

To submit a paper proposal, by Friday, November 1, 2019, please complete this form and include your 500 word abstract: https://forms.gle/k4EPNLaYmEvo4KHUA

We will notify presenters of selected papers by early December. About half the presenter slots will be reserved for authors who commit to publishing in the annual symposium volume of the University of Baltimore Law Review, our co-sponsor for this conference. Thus, the form requests that you indicate if you are interested in publishing in the University of Baltimore Law Review's symposium issue. Authors who are interested in publishing in the Law Review will be strongly considered for publication. The decision about publication rests solely with the Law Review editors, who will communicate separately with the authors. For all presenters, working drafts of papers will be due no later than March 20, 2020. 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 majohnson@ubalt.edu. For additional information about the conference, please visit law.ubalt.edu/caf.

Register Now Center for Constitutional Law Conference on the 19th Amendment at 100: From the Vote to Gender Equality

Register now for the upcoming conference sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Law at Akron: The 19th Amendment at 100: From the Vote to Gender Equality

The conference examines both historic and legal contexts, exploring the advocacy for the 19th Amendment as well as residual legal problems with voting and women's public role continuing up to present day.  It explores issues of history, politics, voting, and public participation and the way in which gender was implicated in all.

Check out the terrific list of speakers here featuring law scholars and historians.

 

CFP AALS Legal History Section on A Century of Women's Suffrage

The AALS Section on Legal History is pleased to announce a call for papers for its section program, which will be held during the 2020 AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. The program is entitled “A Century of Women’s Suffrage.”

 

2020 marks one hundred years since the 19th Amendment was ratified, ushering in the last century of women’s suffrage in the United States. This program will bring together scholars writing on the history of women’s suffrage, broadly construed. Submissions should relate to any aspect of women’s suffrage, including exploring the suffrage movement that culminated in the 19th Amendment, addressing how the 19th Amendment affected political parties or politics in the subsequent century, and comparing the women’s suffrage movement to analogous social movements.

 

Eligibility and Submission Requirements: This Call for Papers is open to all faculty members from AALS member schools. Submissions should not exceed 30,000 words, including footnotes. You may submit a CV as well, but are not required to do so.

 

Submission Process: To be considered for participation as a panelist, please email a copy of your submission to Evan Zoldan at evan.zoldan@utoledo.edu by July 31, 2019. Participants selected by the Legal History section executive committee will be notified by September 1, 2019.

 

Questions: If you have any questions about the panel, please contact Evan Zoldan at evan.zoldan@utoledo.edu.  A link to the CFP can be found on the AALS website, here: https://am.aals.org/proposals/section-calls-for-papers/

Feminist Legal Theory CRN Engagement

A message from the organizers of the Feminist Legal Theory Critical Research Network:

Dear Feminist Legal Theory CRN members, 

First, thank you for a fabulous annual meeting!  Our twenty-two panels were an enormous success, generating tremendous interest and engagement.  The submission cycle for 2020 will come before we know it, so we need volunteers to plan the CRN panels for the LSA annual meeting in Denver in 2020. If you are interested in helping to plan next year’s meeting, please sign up here by Friday, June 7^th.  

 Second, we write to follow up on the evening of action.  As you know, we converted the CRN’s social event into a brainstorming session to explore what we can do – as CRN members – in our scholarship, teaching, and advocacy to further gender equality generally and especially in light of the Supreme Court’s current make-up. There was a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and we generated many terrific ideas (see below) for each track: scholarship, teaching, and advocacy.  Our next step is that we need volunteers to (1) play a leadership role for each track, and (2) serve on the committee for each track.  Our goal is for each committee to develop an action plan for achieving some of the ideas we identified.  Each committee will work separately and then present the action plan at a gathering that will coincide with the AALS annual meeting, in D.C. in January. If you are interested in either leading or participating in these efforts, please use this sign-up sheet and respond by Friday, June 7^th.  

 Finally, Susan Hazeldean volunteered (thank you, Susan!) to reactivate our TWEN site.  We will use this for all CRN communications from now on.  More information to come soon.   

 Many thanks,

 

Jamie Abrams 

Maxine Eichner

Clare Huntington

Daniela Kraiem

Elizabeth MacDowell

Maya Manian 

Seema Mohapatra

Register Now for Second Women's Leadership in Academia Conference

Registration Open: Second Annual Women’s Leadership in Academia Conference: July 18-19, 2019

Registration is open for the second annual conference on Women’s Leadership in Academia, to be held at UVA Law School on July 18-19, 2019. The conference is an event of the Women’s Leadership Initiative, which was developed with the goal of advancing women professors, librarians and clinicians in leadership positions in the legal academy. Conference programming is focused on building skills and providing tools and information that are directly applicable to women aspiring to be leaders in legal education. The conference will address the unique perspectives and challenges of women and provide programming that will be useful to developing leaders. Along with panels and workshops, the conference will feature CV review and advising with recruiters. Travel scholarships are available. Early bird registration is open through May 31, and regular registration continues until the conference reaches full capacity. More information is available here. For questions, please contact Leslie Kendrick at kendrick@law.virginia.edu.

 

Call for Panel Proposals

We are currently accepting proposals for panels on issues relating to women in legal academia for the second annual Women’s Leadership in Academia Conference, to be held at UVA Law School on July 18-19, 2019. The conference will address the unique perspectives and challenges of women and provide programming that will be useful to developing leaders. Conference programming is focused on building skills and providing tools and information that are directly applicable to women aspiring to be leaders in legal education. Proposals should include a panel title, description, and proposed panelists. Selected panels will be notified by May 15, and panelists’ conference registration and travel costs will be covered. More information on the conference, including a link to provide panel proposals, is available here. Proposals are due by May 1, 2019. For questions, please contact Leslie Kendrick at kendrick@law.virginia.edu

Women in the Law Conference at Northeastern Law

2019 Women in the Law Conference

By Women.  For Women.

This conference provides career guidance and professional development growth to women attorneys and other professionals at all stages of their careers and brings together powerful decisionmakers from Massachusetts, Alaska, Canada, California, Illinois, New York, Washington, DC, and beyond.

We emphasize practical, useful information to take away from the full day's programming to further develop your career.

• Top-notch panels, breakout sessions and speed mentoring with high level practitioners.
• Learn how to position yourself to take the leap into a power role and be inspired by our expert panelists as they touch on topics such as civil rights, pay equity, economic and social justice, and best practices for advocacy.
• Network, network, network – whether you want to advance where you are or move to a new opportunity, this is a great space to network for that next step

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Nancy Hogshead-Makar
CEO, Champion Women
Advocacy for Girls and Women in Sports

Nancy Hogshead-Makar is an Olympic champion, a civil rights lawyer, and CEO of Champion Women, a non-profit providing legal advocacy for girls and women in sports. Focus areas include equal play, such as traditional Title IX compliance in athletic departments, sexual harassment, abuse and assault, as well as employment, pregnancy and LGBT discrimination within sport.

In December, the American Bar Association (ABA) included Nancy Hogshead-Makar in its ABA Lawyers Who Inspired Us in 2018 list. 

FEATURED GUESTS INCLUDE: 

Debra S. Katz 
Partner, Katz, Marshall & Banks 

Kristen M. Gibbons Feden
Associate, Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young

Kristen Gibbons Feden is an associate in the Philadelphia office of Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, where she concentrates her practice on general and complex commercial litigation, employment discrimination, SEC enforcement, internal investigations, Title IX compliance and corporate compliance. Prior to joining Stradley Ronon, Kristen was Assistant District Attorney in the Trials Division of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. Her most notable case was Commonwealth v. William H. Cosby, where she played a critical role in the first trial, which resulted in a hung jury, and the second trial where a conviction was attained. In September 2018, Kristen was honored with a Leadership Award by the Victim Rights Law Center (VRLC).  Past VRLC Leadership Awardees include: Gloria Steinem, Professor Anita Hill, Congresswoman-elect Ayanna Pressley, MA Attorney General Martha Coakley and actress and activist Ashley Judd. 

11th Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference: Applied Feminism and MeToo

11th Feminist Legal Theory Conference: Applied Feminism and #MeToo, University of Baltimore School of Law

We are happy to announce the Eleventh Feminist Legal Theory Conference sponsored by The University of Baltimore School of Law's Center on Applied Feminism and The University of Baltimore Law Review. The theme of this year's conference is Applied Feminism and #MeToo  and it will be held at the University of Baltimore School of Law in Baltimore, MD, on April 11 and 12, 2019. The conference will focus on the #MeToo social movement, and its impact and limitations nationally and internationally. The conference will examine emerging proposals to change institutions where gender-based harassment and assault occur, are investigated, or are adjudicated, such as workplaces, universities, and courts. The conference will also explore and offer reforms regarding critical issues such as credibility discounting, survivor trauma, anger, contrition, restorative approaches for accountability, and the lack of visibility for all persons subjected to gender-based harassment and assault, such as those who are of color, immigrant, young, involved in the criminal justice system, and male or a gender minority. 

Program Schedule

 Conference Opening Remarks

                             Margaret E. Johnson, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center on
                             Applied Feminism, University of Baltimore School of Law

 9:15-10:45 a.m. Panel I:  Exploring Comparative Perspectives on #MeToo

                            Moderator: Nienke Grossman, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore
                            School of Law

                            Indigenizing The #Me Too Campaign: A South African Perspective , 
                            Penelope Andrews, Sabbatical Scholar, Columbia Law School, 
                            Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law, New York Law School

                            #MeToo and the Pursuit of Women’s International Human Rights, 
                            Benedetta Faedi Duramy, Professor of Law & Associate Dean for Faculty 
                            Scholarship, Golden Gate University School of Law

                            Recognizing Rage Surrounding the #MeToo Movement and Differing 
                            Approaches to Address It, Johanna Gusman, Visiting Research
                            Scholar, Georgetown University Legal Center

                            Misdirection and Misogyny:  Political Deployment of "Women's 
                            Issues" to Justify Nativist Goals, Dina Francesca Haynes, 
                            Professor of Law, New England Law

11-12:30 p.m.     Panel II:  Interrogating Intersectional Identities of #MeToo

                           Moderator: Elizabeth Keyes, Associate Professor of Law, University of 
                           Baltimore School of Law

                           Immigrant Women in the Shadow of the #MeToo Movement, Nicole 
                           Hallett, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, University at Buffalo School
                           of Law

                          There Are No Outsiders Here: Rethinking Intersectionality as 
                          Hegemonic Discourse in the Age of #MeToo, Teri McMurtry-Chubb,
                          Professor of Law, Mercer University Law School

                          Applying Lessons from #MeToo to Abusive Policing, Josephine Ross, 
                          Professor of Law, University School of Law

                          #WhoAmI? Harm & Remedy for Youth of the #MeToo Era, 
                          Charisa Smith, Associate Professor, City University of New York 
                          School of Law

12:30-2:00 p.m. Lunch Program (12th Floor)

                           Keynote Speaker: Debra Katz, Founding Partner, Katz, Marshall & 
                           Banks, LLP

2-3:30 p.m.        Panel III:  Tackling #MeToo Inside and Outside the Courtroom 

                           Moderator: Shanta Trivedi, Clinical Teaching Fellow, University of Baltimore 
                           School of Law

                          Third Generation Discrimination Part II:  An Empirical Analysis of 
                          Judicial Decision Making, Catherine Dunham, Professor of Law, Elon
                          University School of Law and Chris Leupold, Associate Professor of 
                          Psychology and Faculty Fellow for Law and Leadership, Elon University 
                          School of Law

                          #MeToo: The Path from Credibility Discounting to Systemic Change, 
                          Deborah Epstein, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Domestic Violence 
                          Clinic, Georgetown University Law Center

                          #MeToo, Sexual Harassment and Accountability: Considering the Role 
                          of Restorative Approaches, Julie Goldscheid, Professor of Law, 
                          CUNY Law School

                          Restorative Justice through Administrative Law: Male Military Sexual 
                          Assault and the Veterans Administration, Elizabeth Tarloski, Staff 
                          Attorney/Adjunct Professor, William and Mary Law School-Lewis B. Puller Jr., 
                          Veterans Benefits Clinic

3:45 -5:15 p.m.  Panel IV: Exploring #MeToo Relational Dynamics in the Workplace
                           and Beyond

                           Moderator: Zina Makar, Clinical Teaching Fellow, University of Baltimore 
                           School of Law

                           Sorry Not Sorry, Jamie Abrams, Associate Professor, University of 
                           Louisville Brandeis School of Law

                           Peer Retaliation in the Post #MeToo Era, Deborah Brake, Professor of
                           Law and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, University 
                           of Pittsburgh School of Law

                           #SororityToo: Breaking the Code of Silence about Relationship
                           Violence in Collegiate Greek Life, Tanya Cooper, Director, Restoration 
                           and Justice Clinic; Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Pepperdine 
                           University School of Law

                           Rethinking Institutional Response to Sexual Harassment in the Wake
                           of #MeToo, Joanna Grossman, Ellen K. Solender Endowed Chair in 
                           Women and Law & Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law

Legal Scholars Discuss Implications of Current Movement for ERA

Ms., Continuing the Fight for Constitutional Equality

The Equal Rights Amendment is making a comeback.

Nearly a century since the ERA was first introduced in Congress, and four decades since its unsuccessful ratification campaign, there is revived interest in enshrining the principle of gender equality in our Constitution.

Over the past two years, the Nevada and Illinois state legislatures ratified the ERA by comfortable margins, breathing new life into the proposed amendment. Advocates now believe that achieving the necessary 38 state ratifications is within reach. 

What’s in store for the ERA? And how might it advance the fight for gender equality in the U.S. today? These questions are being newly debated across the country—and in a day-long event organized by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law last November, an array of politicians, scholars, legal advocates and activists examined the implications of this modern movement for legal change.***

At the conference, panelists recalled [Martha] Griffith’s tireless efforts at time of extraordinary social change. Cary Franklin, professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, noted that her big push occurred against the backdrop of the Women’s Strike for Equality—“the biggest demonstration for women’s rights since the women’s suffrage movement… [in which] thousands of women across the country organized in cities and made a number of demands about women’s equal citizenship, including education, employment, reproductive rights and child care.”***

NYU School of Law Professor Melissa Murray put it aptly, explaining that gender equality has become “part of the conversations people are having around kitchen tables and with friends about no longer being willing to accept what has been the status quo for so long.” With Arizona, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia all vying to be the lucky 38th state, it’s a good time for the entire nation to reflect on what the long-overdue ratification of the ERA can and should mean for gender equality in the U.S. in the 21st century.

19th Women and Law Conference: The Way Forward-Gender, LGBTQIA Rights, and Religious Liberties

Thomas Jefferson School of Law, 19th Women and the Law Conference: The Way Forward: Gender, LGBTQIA Rights, and Religious Liberties, Feb. 1, 2019

Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s 19 th  Annual Women and the Law Conference, The Way Forward: Gender, LGBTQIA Rights, and Religious Liberties, will be held on Friday, February 1, 2019 at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. This conference brings together leading experts and practitioners to discuss critical federal and state legislative, executive, and judicial developments affecting women, the LGBTQIA community, and people concerned about religious liberties.  At a time when public discourse about these issues seems irreconcilably polarized, this event will focus on means to resolve these opposing views.

 

Former EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum will deliver the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecture. Before her appointment, Commissioner Feldblum was a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center.  Feldblum continues in a long line of illustrious speakers who have been honored as the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecturer, a lecture series Justice Ginsburg generously established for Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 2003.

 

Other speakers include:  Alan Brownstein, Emeritus Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law; Julie Greenberg, Emeritus Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law; Pamuela Halliwell, therapist at the San Diego LGBT Community Center; Shannon Minter, Legal Director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Jocelyn Samuels, Executive Director at the Williams Center UCLA School of Law; Maimon Schwarzchild, Law Professor at the University of San Diego School of Law; and Mattheus Stephens, Founding Partner of the Progressive Law Group.

Programs on Women and Law at AALS Annual Meeting

Thursday, January 3

 

10:30-12:15 WILE ("Women in Legal Education" Section), co-Sponsoring with the Section on Agricultural and Food Law: Worker Justice in the Food System.

One in six jobs in the U.S. is in the food supply chain, from restaurants, to grocery stores, to food processing, and production. These jobs offer low wages, little job security, and few benefits. In addition, they often include dangerous working conditions. And yet, food system workers are under protected by minimum wage and hour laws, workplace safety laws, and others. This panel will focus on three key issues facing food chain laborers today: sexual harassment, immigration restrictions and enforcement, and occupational health hazards.

Speaker: Jennifer M. Chacon, University of California, Irvine School of Law 

Speaker: Joan Flocks, University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law

Speaker: Tanya Kateri Hernandez, Fordham University School of Law 

Moderator: Margot Pollans, Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law

 

10:30-12:15pm Hot Topics: Narratives about Sexual Harassment & Sexual Violence: #MeToo, the Kavanaugh Allegations & Pending Changes to Title IX Enforcement  

Media coverage of the #MeToo movement and allegations that Justice Kavanaugh committed sexual assault fueled public discourse about sexual harassment and sexual violence throughout the past year. Two sets of competing narratives emerged about both the nature of sexual harassment and sexual violence and the appropriate institutional and public responses to disclosures and allegations. One set of narratives focused on survivors’ experiences of trauma, barriers to accessing resources, and inadequate responses following disclosures. The other set of narratives centered on individuals accused of committing sexual harassment or sexual violence, their identification as victims of false allegations, and claims of inadequate due process protections. In this presentation, scholars use the context of campus sexual misconduct and the proposed changes to Title IX guidance to address the wide range of narratives impacting sexual harassment and sexual violence law and policy.     

The Section on Civil Rights is co-sponsoring the session, and more information can be found at: https://memberaccess.aals.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=SesDetails&ses_key=97EB8580-018C-44C4-AD0E-B6D2F72B560F. 

 

1:30 pm - 3:15 pm AALS Discussion Group The Future of Sexual Harassment

This discussion group brings together scholars working on various dimensions of sexual harassment law at work and on campus. To ground the discussion, participants are encouraged to read and respond to the “Open Statement on Sexual Harassment” by Vicki Schultz, recently published in the Stanford Law Review at www.stanfordlawreview.org/metoo-symposium. The ensuing discussion will center on questions including: What is sexual harassment? What causes it? What makes a theory of harassment better or worse? Does harassment differ at work and on campus (and elsewhere), or by race, ethnicity, age, class, sexual orientation, gender non-conformity, or other factors? What can be done, in the law or elsewhere, to prevent and address harassment? How has activism and the law helped or hindered progress, whether historically and today? What are the dangers to be avoided in the future?

Discussion Group Participant: Rachel Arnow-Richman, University of Denver Sturm College of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Jessica Clarke, Vanderbilt University Law School 

Discussion Group Participant: Ann C. McGinley, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Melissa E. Murray, New York University School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Angela I. Onwuachi-Willig, Boston University School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Darren Rosenblum, Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Leticia Saucedo, University of California, Davis, School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Vicki Schultz, Yale Law School 

Discussion Group Moderator: Brian Soucek, University of California, Davis, School of

 

1:30 pm - 3:15 pm American Bar Foundation Program, Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral History Project

The Women Trailblazers Project (WTP) oral history collection is a rich new trove of research materials, now readily accessible to legal academicians, historians and other scholars. The WTP, a collaborative research project of the American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation, has taken comprehensive, full-life oral histories of over a hundred leading women pioneers in the legal profession nationwide. These senior women lawyers, judges and law professors were chosen for their exceptional career achievements and their contributions to opening opportunities for other women. They entered a male-dominated profession, graduating from law schools in the years ranging from the 1940s to the 1970s, and often faced blatant sex discrimination and a variety of other challenges. The Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford University has created a new website dedicated to displaying the WTP collection of oral histories and related materials.

Speaker: Barbara A. Babcock, Stanford Law School 

Speaker: Ms. Brooksley Born, Arnold & Porter LLP 

Speaker: Nancy Gertner, Harvard Law School 

Moderator: Ajay K. Mehrotra, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law 

Speaker: Beth Williams, Stanford Law School 

 

6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Women in Academic Leadership in Reception, Hosted by the University of Georgia School of Law

 

Friday, January 4

 

8:30 am - 10:15 am AALS Hot Topic Program, Religious Exemptions and Harm to Third Parties

Should the government be able to provide religious exemptions when they result in harm to third-parties? This question is particularly weighty at this moment in American history when religious exemptions have perhaps never been more controversial. In light of recent Supreme Court cases like Hobby Lobby and Masterpiece Cakeshop, some scholars have advanced new theories that would place strict limits on government’s ability to grant religious exemptions that result in harm (or externalities) to third parties who do not benefit from that religious practice. This program will explore the historical, theoretical, normative, and doctrinal arguments for and against a rule that would prohibit religious exemptions that result in more than de minimis harm to identifiable third parties.

 

8:30-10:15 Building Bridges with Shared Experiences: The Women in Legal Education Oral History Project. Business meeting will be held at the end of the session. 

For the past four to five years, a small group of Women in Legal Education Section Members, led by Professor Marie Failinger (Mitchell Hamline School of Law), have been recording oral histories of the women in the legal academy. The Oral History Project’s goal is to gather the stories of as many women in the academy as possible to develop a robust library of histories that can be used for research, study, or enjoyment. More than 40 women have been interviewed as of January 2018. In this session, panelists will explain the Oral History Project and share thoughts, reactions, and experiences, as we show clips from the Oral History Project about decisions that led women into the legal academy, often at a time where there were few women on law faculties.

 

9:00am to 12:15pm  AALS Socioeconomics Panel, co-sponsored by WILE Section, Gender, Race and Competition in the New Economy   

Anti-discrimination law took hold during an era in which “good jobs” involved “narrow portals of entry” into secure career ladders. The predominant economic theory of discrimination at the time suggested that different treatment involved employment and consumer “tastes” or dislike of other groups. Today’s economy has dismantled the secure employment and predictable career ladders of mid-century America. In the process, inequality has grown, and the dominance of white (and in some cases Asian) men has increased in the upper reaches of the economy. Indeed, while the gendered wage gap has narrowed overall, the gap has increased for college graduates since the early nineties. This panel will consider how to understand the redefinition of “good jobs” in a networked economy, the new remade terms of competition among employees, and the implications for gender and racial diversity.

The socioeconomics section will start at 9 with a brief intro.  We will get underway at 9:15 and run until  12:15, with two panels and a break in between..

The first panel will run from 9:15 to 10:40. That session will focus more on the corporate side of the topic and will address proposals for employee ownership, the importance of big data, and the relationship between diversity and corporate governance. The panelists will be: Lisa Fairfax, Josephine Nelson, Frank Pasquale, and Steve Ramirez.  

 

The second panel will address the relationships between the corporate developments and employment discrimination law and the question of whether employment discrimination is -- or should be -- designed to deal with these developments. This panel will begin at 10:50 and run until 12:15. The panelists will be: Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, Jessica Clarke, and Mike Selmi.

 

10:30 am - 12:15 pm AALS Discussion Group, Building Bridges Across Curricular and Status Lines: Gender Inequity throughout the Legal Academy

The goal of the program is to highlight persistent issues of gender inequity in the legal academy that disadvantage all women faculty and students, particularly those of color. In keeping with the conference theme of Building Bridges, panelists are representative of various ABA-categorized faculty, including traditional tenured faculty employed under ABA Standard 405(b), clinical faculty employed under ABA Standard (405(c)), and legal writing faculty subject to ABA Standard 405(d), as well as faculty holding administrative positions. Discussion participants hope to share common experiences and begin a conversation that will continue well beyond the Annual Meeting. Planned areas for discussion include gender inequities inherent in legal scholarship, institutional labor and leadership, perceptions and expectations applicable to female faculty, and hierarchies related to security of position.

Discussion Group Participant: Sahar Aziz, Rutgers Law School 

Discussion Group Participant: Mary Bowman, Seattle University School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Leslie P. Culver, California Western School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Meera Deo, Law School Survey of Student Engagement 

Discussion Group Participant: Darby Dickerson, The John Marshall Law School 

Discussion Group Participant: Susan Hanley Duncan, University of Mississippi School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Mary A. Lynch, Albany Law School 

Discussion Group Participant: Ann C. McGinley, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Deborah J. Merritt, The Ohio State University, Michael E. Moritz College of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Angela I. Onwuachi-Willig, University of California, Berkeley School of Law 

Discussion Group Participant: Alicia E. Plerhoples, Georgetown University Law Center 

Discussion Group Moderator: Kristen Konrad Tiscione, Georgetown University Law Center 

Discussion Group Moderator: Melissa H. Weresh, Drake University Law School 

 

10:30 am - 12:15 pm Criminal Justice, Rape and Sexual Assault in the Era of #MeToo

In 2015, the American Law Institute (ALI) sought to redefine the Model Penal Code’s definition of rape. To date, ALI’s membership has failed to reach consensus. They are not alone in struggling to define the crime of rape. State and federal actors have struggled with questions of how to define rape and how (or even whether) to construct processes around the crime. This panel considers these efforts in the era of the #MeToo movement, which has highlighted the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment, sexual assault, and attitudes that condone and promulgate this behavior. While not all of the behavior #MeToo addresses falls within proposed definitions of rape, the larger social norms the movement challenges nonetheless influence how criminal law defines the crime of rape. This panel will consider how #MeToo has changed the questions that legislators, police officers, practitioners, and scholars ask when considering the crime of rape.

Speaker: Bennett Capers, Brooklyn Law School 

Moderator: Jenny E. Carroll, Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law at The University of Alabama

Speaker: Erin Collins, The University of Richmond School of Law

Speaker: Cynthia M. Godsoe, Brooklyn Law School

Speaker: Aya Gruber, University of Colorado Law School

 

Speaker: Corey Rayburn Yung, University of Kansas School of Law 

 

12:15-1:30 Women in Legal Education Luncheon and Presentation of the 2019 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award to Chancellor Phoebe Haddon. This is a ticketed event; please purchase your ticket in advance.

 

1:30-3:15 Hot Topic Program: Civil Rights in the Aftermath of the Kavanaugh Hearings and Confirmation. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s September 27, 2018 hearing concerning Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's allegations that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh committed assault upon her person proved a watershed political and jurisprudential moment. We have now learned of Justice Kavanaugh’s positions on reproductive freedoms, immigrant rights, presidential power, and female testimonial credibility, which may well transform the protections afforded by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses and the Civil Rights Act. Furthermore, his performance at the September 27 hearing triggers issues about judicial temperament, ethics, and even the judge’s role as a creator of legal and social truth. 

 

In this Hot Topic Panel, legal scholars will address the ways in which Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination, hearings, and confirmation impact a wide variety of legal domains, including sexual harassment and assault laws, workplace equality, policing, substantive and criminal law, administrative law, the field of judicial ethics, and the standards of proof appropriate for criminal, legal, and political processes. We will also engage the ways in which Justice Kavanaugh’s role in today's political and legal climate intersects with jurisprudence, such as critical legal feminism and the moral theory of epistemic injustice. 

 

1:30-3:15 Co-Sponsoring with the Section on Aging and the Law: The Legal Consequences of Living a Long Life: The Differential Impact on Marginalized Communities. 

Thanks to advances in healthcare, people are living longer. Longevity has legal consequences. People can outlive their family, friends, and finances. Longevity has differing impacts on women, people of color, low-income people, and LGBT individuals. Statistically, women make less money than men and they live longer than men. People of color are less financially secure than most Americans. In the United States, approximately 80 percent of long-term care for older people is provided by family members, such as spouses, children, and other relatives. This places an undue financial burden on families and on low-income persons. LGBT individuals may face conscious and unconscious discrimination when seeking long-term care and other assistance, and they have had historically formed different family structures. This panel will explore the intersection of the legal system and longevity, examining systems that are in place or should be in place to help people plan for living longer.

Speaker: Ms. Donohon Abdugafurova, Emory University Islamic Civilizations Studies 

Speaker: Anne L. Alstott, Yale Law School 

Speaker: Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, Duquesne University School of Law 

Moderator: Browne C. Lewis, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University 

Speaker: Beverly I. Moran, Vanderbilt University Law School 

Speaker: Nancy E. Shurtz, University of Oregon School of Law 

Speaker: Jessica Dixon Weaver, Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law 

 

Saturday, January 5

 

10:30 am - 12:15 pm AALS Program, #MeToo - The Courts, The Academy and Law Firms

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, courts, law firms, and the academy are taking a serious look at how they address workplace conduct, including bullying and sexual harassment. Law firms are improving their practices for addressing the complex issues surrounding harassment. The federal judiciary is revising its ethics codes, stepping up training, and revamping its procedures for investigating complaints. Law schools are engaging with their students on this issue like never before. The key challenges remain the significant power disparities and the chilling effect of reporting. Law schools are in a unique position to serve as a bridge between students and the greater legal community to help reduce these risks. This panel will discuss practical and novel ways that law schools can partner with the courts and the legal community to address these issues. This discussion will also include the important voice of someone who has experienced sexual harassment.

Speaker: Ms. Hilarie Bass, American Bar Association 

Speaker: Ms. Marguerite Gilles, Yale Law School 

Speaker: Gillian L. Lester, Columbia Law School 

 

Speaker: The Honorable M. Margaret McKeown, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 

 

Moderator: Michael H. Schwartz, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law 

 

Speaker: Ms. Nicole VanderDoes, 

 

 

 

1:30-3:15 Building Bridges: WiLE Networking, Mentoring, and Discussion. 

 

This is a reboot of our Speed Mentoring session. This session will give us an opportunity to have focused discussion as well as more informal discussion about topics that impact all of us and our students and colleagues. The primary discussion topics grew out of the discussion on our Section's Listserv this past fall in the wake of the Kavanaugh hearings. We have four primary goals for this session:  

1. To address the meaning of the hearings for session participants in their roles as legal academics, lawyers, citizens, and for some, survivors of harassment or assault; 
2. To reveal challenges the participants faced in occupying those roles and charting a path forward; 
3. To mentor one another by sharing strategies that enabled the participants to cope with the challenges posed; and 
4. To provide a forum to network and form alliances in the wake of an event in American political history, which galvanized the country and the legal academy.

 

Sunday, January 6

 

8:30 am - 10:15 am Evidence, Problems of Proof: #MeToo and 'Who Me?'

The #MeToo movement has galvanized women and women's groups to call out, respond to, and challenge pervasive sexual harassment in workplaces as varied as Uber, Hollywood, and Congress. Charges, as well as civil lawsuits are being filed. But what will happen if and when these cases go to trial? Sexual harassment cases are notoriously "he said, she said," situations subject to the interpretations of the "reasonable" or "objective" person, and social standards and mores about what does and does not cross the line. Recent backlash against what constitutes harassment blurs the lines between actionable wrongs, poor judgment, and bad manners. This panel will examine the evidentiary basis for sexual harassment claims, the problems of proof with credibility issues, the evidentiary standards of civil and criminal cases, and the challenges and opportunities for litigants in the courtroom.

Speaker: Mr. Charles Gibbs, McMonagle Perri McHugh Mischak Davis 

Speaker: Christine Chambers Goodman, Pepperdine University School of Law 

Speaker: Aya Gruber, University of Colorado Law School 

Speaker: Catharine A. MacKinnon, The University of Michigan Law School 

Speaker: Ms. Sandra C. Munoz, Law Offices of Sandra C. Munoz 

Speaker from a Call for Papers: Julia Simon-Kerr, University of Connecticut School of Law 

Speaker: Deborah Tuerkheimer, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law 

Speaker: Maggie Wittlin, University of Nebraska College of Law 

 

10:30 am - 12:15 pm -Soci0-Economics Co-Sponsored by Minority Groups Race, Gender, and Socio-Economic Justice

 

This session explores the goals of greater minority and gender justice and empowerment and their relationship to socio-economic methodology. Socio-economic methodology recognizes that systemic race and gender injustice and the goals of minority and gender empowerment cannot be adequately understood or addressed by a legal analysis limited to the narrow neoclassical approach to law and economics. Would the aforementioned goals be substantially aided if the socio-economic methodology were to become the dominant academic approach to law-related economic issues? The panelists and audience will be invited to share their views.

 

Speaker: Deleso A. Alford, Southern University Law Center  Speaker: Deborah N. Archer, New York University School of Law  Moderator and Speaker: Robert Ashford, Syracuse University College of Law  Speaker: William K. Black, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law  Speaker: June Rose Carbone, University of Minnesota Law School  Speaker: Martha Albertson Fineman, Emory University School of Law  Speaker: Philip L. Harvey, Rutgers Law School  Speaker: Tayyab Mahmud, Seattle University School of Law

Registration Open for Georgia Women's Leadership in Academia Conference

Hello,

The University of Georgia School of Law and the Women’s Leadership in Academia initiative is proud to announce that our 2018 summer conference is now open for registration!

Please visit the conference website at http://www.law.uga.edu/womens-leadership-academia-conference to see the schedule, read about supplemental events such as a CV review opportunity and an optional book club, and register to attend! The conference website also has information about travel and available hotel blocks.

 

The Women’s Leadership in Academia Conference will be held July 19-20, 2018 at the University of Georgia’s School of Law in beautiful Athens, GA. This conference provides substantive leadership programming aimed at advancing women law professors, law librarians, and clinicians in leadership positions in the academy.

 

Please circulate this announcement widely to your friends and colleagues interested in advancing women in legal education. We hope you will be able to join us!

Conference: Noncompliant Bodies--Social Equity and Public Space

Yale School of Architecture, April 6-7, Noncompliant Bodies: Social Equity and Public Space

The discipline of architecture tends to overlook the needs of people who fall outside of white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied norms. This symposium, convened by Joel Sanders and Susan Stryker, will assemble a cross-disciplinary group of designers and scholars to explore the relationship between architecture and the demands for social justice voiced by people who have been marginalized and oppressed on the basis of race, gender and disability. The symposium will examine how designers working in collaboration with experts from related disciplines transform one of three architectural types: restrooms, museums, and urban streets. Our objective will be to propose alternative futures that rethink the relationship between bodies and built environments in ways that better serve the goals of social equity.

Guest Blogger: MeToo in the Legal Profession

#MeToo in the Legal Profession

Daniela Kraiem, Associate Director Women and the Law Program, American University Washington College of Law

 

Anita Hill testifying at the confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas was one of the events that shaped my life as a lawyer, a feminist, and a human being.  As the country watched this intelligent, competent black woman give her testimony, I saw what it meant to speak truth to power.  I understood that power would not pin laurels on you for bravery, but would instead denigrate you and spit on you and tell you to your face that your experience was a lie.   I learned that action requires much more than bravery, it requires sacrifice.

I also understood, when Clarence Thomas responded that the proceedings had descended into a high-tech lynching just how heavy weight of intersectional oppression is, and how it is always deployed in the service of protecting power. What white supremacy cannot accomplish, patriarchy will. 

At that time, as a young waitress, I had endured my own ration of sexual harassment.  But it wasn’t until much later, until I graduated from law school and started to make my way as a young lawyer and experienced a few very sketchy, borderline moments that I think I grasped the depths of what Anita Hill was up against.

Lawyers expect our profession to provide us with a kind of shield.  We are powerful, privileged people, even if we are also female or gay or a person of color or all or none of the above.  Our identity as a member of the bar provides us with the ability move freely in the halls of power….until we are harassed by someone even more powerful. 

The harassers within the legal profession are among the most powerful people on the planet—bar none.  When you’re harassed as a lawyer, it’s often by a judge, a legislator, the partner of your firm, the CEO of the company or the big client.  A person with unparalleled resources, cultural capital to burn, and ability to use the law as both a shield and a cudgel against you.   

We operate in a profession where confidentiality and discretion are paramount, refusing assignments is difficult, and our reputations are our currency.  Harassers use and abuse the ethical and social conventions of our profession to prevent victims from speaking out and speaking up.  The result? Persistent gender-based inequality among lawyers that seems to have no discernable cause. 

Much of the conversation around #MeToo starts to bleed—quite rightly in some cases—into conversation about crimes, about assault, and about a culture of violence.  But sexual harassment is also fundamentally an economic issue, one that warps our profession.  The cost is not just to the victims, who must figure out how to earn a living, despite the hostile environment they’re operating in. The cost is to all of us.  How many of us have not applied for a job, or turned down a plum assignment because taking it would have put us into close contact with someone who either the whisper network or gut instinct said would not be safe?  Avoiding sexual harassment shapes our choices, delimiting our options.  The language of choice (“You chose to turn down the assignment”; “You choose the less prestigious clerkship”) masks a sick, systemic tolerance for discriminatory behavior.  It’s not a leak in the pipeline, it’s the gaping hole.

The #MeToo moment is an opportunity for change, not just in the general law, but in lawyers.  There are specific and concrete steps that we can take now to make our workplaces exactly that—places where we work.  Where we represent our clients, or draft legislation, or decide cases.  Not places where we have to think about our basic safety and security. 

In February, a group of us came together to discuss concrete steps for change at #MeToo: Preventing Sexual Harassment in the Legal Workplace (February 19, 2018, American University Washington College of Law), sponsored by the Women and the Law Program at AU. I was inspired by these women and daunted by the amount of work to be done, starting with:

• Llezlie Green Coleman’s call to rethink the use of non-disclosure, confidentiality, and binding arbitration agreements in employment litigation;
• Cara Greene’s assessment that ethical obligations with teeth are needed to reinforce that our profession will not tolerate sexual harassment in any form; and
• Emily Martin’s reminder that of the need for federal legislation to create humane and effective procedures for reporting sexual harassment on the Hill, as well as her call to get involved with Time’sUp.

(See also these remarks by Daniela Kraiem, or watch the entire panel discussion complete with introductions by Kendra Brown, closing remarks by Ann Shalleck, and Q&A).

We also need to lead the change in our own workplaces.  Because of the immense cultural and political power wielded by harassers in the legal profession, we have to pay special attention to the even wider power differential for those who work with us, but who are not also lawyers. Court reporters, paralegals, administrative assistants, law clerks, interns, interpreters, bailiffs, correctional officers.  If a harasser is willing to risk harassing someone who is in any other context not afraid to sue your ass, how much more complicated is it for someone without our professional badges and power suits to shield them? We, as lawyers, have an especial obligation to the people we work with—to listen and watch and ask and to believe them when they tell us that something is making them uncomfortable—or worse.  Because of the power we possess, ours is a heightened obligation to not be complicit.

In the wake of #MeToo, I’ve thought often of Anita Hill and the lessons her experience etched on us. I’m looking for ways to repay the immense debt that I, at least, owe her for speaking out when doing so meant that she walked alone.  Working to end harassment in the legal profession—the context in which Clarence Thomas harassed Anita Hill, and the context in which Anita Hill fought back--is the right place to begin.

Gender Sidelining Symposium

A terrific lineup of speakers at the upcoming Gender Sidelining Symposium

 

Subtle, yet pernicious forms of unequal treatment exist wherein women may not experience adverse outcomes that are actionable under anti-discrimination or other laws, but nonetheless may find themselves hindered in their ability to advance and flourish. These myriad behaviors, policies, and practices lead to "Gender Sidelining"—a term recently coined by a group of law professors at California Western—whereby women experience obstacles that the law does not (and arguably should not) proscribe.

The Gender Sidelining Symposium on April 26-27, 2018 will highlight examples of and help us understand the process by which this phenomenon occurs. By bringing together academics and practitioners from a broad range of fields—employment and labor law, business law, criminal law, politics, and beyond—the symposium will take an innovative look at how existing social structures can lead to adverse treatment on the basis of gender when actions may not be motivated by gender-based animus or even by implicit bias.

Conference: Transnational Legal Feminisms

Cornell International Law Journal, Symposium: Transnational Legal Feminisms: Challenges and Opportunities

This symposium brings together feminist scholars from around the world to discuss, offer, critique or disseminate a vision of transnational legal feminisms and the challenges and opportunities it presents.

In particular, we seek to explore three contemporary developments. First, we are interested in the rise, paths, success and challenges of transnational feminism. The far and wide reach of different feminist legal ideas changed the world wherever they touched. 

 

A second development is the rise and maturation of critique within the feminist movement. Feminism has always been an introspective movement. Yet in recent years, some critical voices about feminist paths of power in the national and transnational sphere gained increased foothold within feminist thought.

 

A third contemporary development this symposium will explore, is the rise of right wing, populist, mostly conservative, politics, in many different parts of the globe, from center to periphery and back again. We are interested in exploring together the meaning of this political tidal wave to feminist politics, movement and national and transnational advocacy.

 

 

 

CFP Women's Leadership in Academia Conference

From Associate Dean Usha Rodrigues about the upcoming Women's Leadership in Academia Conference at the University of Georgia, and includes a call for proposals: 

We are happy to announce that Georgia Law will be hosting the first annual conference for Women's Leadership in Academia this summer on July 19-20.  The conference will emphasize giving attendees concrete skills in areas such as negotiation, as well as building a professional network.  Please visit the conference website for more details, and add your contact information in the “conference registration” section if you would like to be contacted as we finalize the details.

We are inviting you not only to attend our conference, but also to help shape it.  The conference website contains a call for panel proposals, and we are eager to hear your ideas to further our mission of promoting women leaders.