Gender and the Law Blog

Symposium 10/15 Reproducing Injustice: Covid-19, Reproduction, and the Law

Reproducing Injustice: Covid-19, Reproduction, and the Law, Drexel Law School, Oct. 15

Reproductive rights are under attack in the United States, with a record number of restrictive abortion bills introduced in state legislatures this year alone. The United States continues to report high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, with pregnant people of color at greater risk of adverse health outcomes related to childbirth and experiencing mistreatment by their health care providers at disproportionately high rates. In addition, gaps in access to health care, legal services, and other critical resources mean that many poor people and people of color face particular burdens as parents trying to raise their children in safe and healthy environments. Political divisions regarding reproduction have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we look forward to a post-pandemic future, it seems important to ask: What kinds of trends do we see as we consider reproductive health and rights through the lens of the pandemic? How can lessons from the COVID-19 era inform future efforts to increase access to health services, defend reproductive rights, and promote reproductive justice? The Drexel Law Review Volume XIV presents Reproducing Injustice: COVID-19, Reproduction, and the Law, a symposium designed to facilitate a conversation about reproductive health and rights in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what we can take away from the past year and a half to advocate for reproductive justice moving forward.

RSVP

ABA Webinar Today on Women's Rights, Cultural Heritage Preservation, and Economic Relief in Afghanistan

Today from 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. EST the ABA is hosting a free webinar titled Afghanistan on the Brink: Risk Assessments for Women’s Rights, Cultural Heritage Preservation and Economic Relief. The program description looks timely and relevant to blog readers. 

This panel of experts considers the urgency for women’s rights, cultural heritage preservation, and economic relief in Afghanistan. As of 2020, approximately 90% of Afghans lived below the poverty level of $2 per day, according to the US Congressional Research Service. At the same time, minerals generate just $1 billion in Afghanistan per year. Analysts estimate that 30% to 40% of returns are siphoned off by corruption as well as by warlords and the Taliban, which has presided over small mining projects. The World Bank warned that the economy remains "shaped by fragility and aid dependence.” Additionally, this panel explores how climate change has served as a threat multiplier for conflict and regional instability. Despite these obstacles, experts share insights on how to move beyond the current situation to harness potential for female education, women’s economic empowerment, and cultural heritage preservation. Information will be shared on how to assist those impacted directly through ABA and ABA partner institutions. 

Midwest Political Science Conference Now Accepting Submissions

Many scholars of Gender & the Law may be working on projects that align with the upcoming Call for Papers posted by the Midwest Political Science Conference. The conference will be held in a hybrid format from April 7-10 based in Chicago, Illinois. Proposals are due by October 8, 2021.  

The MPSA Annual Conference historically hosts more than 5,000 attendees from 60+ countries across more than 90 political interest areas. The conference brings together scholars, researchers and decision makers in the political science community to exchange information and address the latest scholarship in political science.

 

CFP Applied Feminism and The Big Idea

APPLIED FEMINISM AND “THE BIG IDEA”

The Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law seeks paper proposals for the Thirteenth Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference.  We hope you will join us for this exciting conference on Friday, April 8, 2022.  This year, we aim to capture, develop, and disseminate cutting edge theorizing around issues of gender equity and intersectionality. 

We are in a tumultuous period of history in which we are grappling with a global health pandemic and sharp political polarization, while also experiencing flourishing movements for racial and gender justice.  This is a time for innovation and creativity — for highlighting ideas that create a more just society. We want to explore how feminist legal theory is responding and growing during this time and bridging toward a future of greater gender and intersectional justice. Thus, we seek submissions of papers that have “big ideas” about issues related to feminist legal theory and other critical legal theories from a variety of substantive disciplines and perspectives. As always, 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 and will feature a keynote speaker. Past keynote speakers have included Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Dr. Maya Angelou, and Gloria Steinem.

To submit a paper proposal, by Friday, October 29, 2021, please complete this form and include your 500 word abstract: https://forms.gle/L4rdht7te3WuRTtPA 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. Thus, the form requests that you indicate if you 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. For all presenters, working drafts of papers will be due no later than March 18, 2022. 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. Michele Gilman at mgilman@ubalt.edu. For additional information about the conference, please visit law.ubalt.edu/caf.

Feminist Legal Theory Sessions at Law & Society Meeting this Week

This week at the Law & Society Association annual meeting (by Zoom), the Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network will offer 26 sessions from May 26 to May 30.

Here is a listing and description of the FLT Program.

Download FLT-CRN events at LSA 2021

For more information about the rest of the Law & Society program, see Law & Society Conference 2021

Conference: Beyond Western Hegemonies of International Law and Feminist Theory

Cornell Law School & London South Bank University are hosting an exciting global online conference on Friday, March 26, 2021, entitled  "Beyond Western Hegemonies of International Law and Feminist Theory." The central theme of this conference will focus on the legacies and repercussions of the hegemony of Western thought within both feminist research and practice in the sphere of international law and attempts and proposals for overcoming these. Professor Chandra Mohanty, a pioneer and expert in women's and gender studies will be delivering the keynote entitled “Transnational Feminism as Insurgent Praxis.”

The full conference schedule and registration details are available here: https://support.law.cornell.edu/conferences/TLF/

Symposium: Intersections in Legal Gender Equality and Voting Rights One Hundred Years After the Nineteenth Amendment, Minnesota Law Review

Symposium “Glass Ceilings, Glass Walls: Intersections in Legal Gender Equality and Voting Rights One Hundred Years After the Nineteenth Amendment," Minnesota Law Review, April 1 & 2, 2021

The Nineteenth Amendment was a milestone for women’s rights but has often been criticized for being passed at the expense of people of color. Our 2020-21 Symposium will look back on the one hundred years since women were given the right to vote using a rough chronological approach. We will open the day with a historical overview of the Nineteenth Amendment, discussing who contributed to its ratification and who was left out after its passage. This background will create a basis for our subsequent gender equality conversations around the Equal Rights Amendment, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation, and the #MeToo Movement, culminating in a panel discussing the current state of voting rights. Our Keynote speaker Desmond Meade will present about his role in fighting for legislative change in Florida to restore the right to vote to 1.4 million Floridians.

Registration for the Symposium is free and CLE credits are expected.

Symposium Speakers and Authors

Keynote Speaker: Desmond Meade, President and Executive Director of Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC)

As President and Executive Director of FRRC, which is recognized for its work on voting and criminal justice reform issues, Desmond led the FRRC to a historic victory in 2018 with the successful passage of Amendment 4, a grassroots citizen’s initiative which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions. Amendment 4 represented the single largest expansion of voting rights in the United States in half a century and brought an end to 150 years of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida. Desmond is the author of the book “Let My People Vote” which shares the great journey of him crossing the finish line in restoring 1.8 million citizens’ right to vote.

Kat Calvin, Founder and Executive Director of Spread The Vote and Co-Founder and CEO of the Project ID Action Fund

Jessica Clarke, Professor of Law and FedEx Research Professor and Co-Director of the George Barrett Social Justice Program, Vanderbilt Law School

Jill Elaine Hasday, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Centennial Professor in Law, University of Minnesota Law School

Phylicia H. Hill, Counsel, Economic Justice Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History and the SNF Agora Institute, John Hopkins University

Serena Mayeri, Professor of Law and History, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Terry Ao Minnis, Senior Director of Census and Voting Programs, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, and Senior Fellow, Democracy Fund

Tracy A. Thomas, Seiberling Chair of Constitutional Law and Director of the Center for Constitutional Law, University of Akron School of Law

Kyle C Velte, Associate Professor of Law, University of Kansas School of Law

Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, Hastings Foundation Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings Law

12th Feminist Legal Theory Conference: Applied Feminism and Privacy

Conference 12th Feminist Legal Theory Conference: Applied Feminism & Privacy

We hope you will join the Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law for this exciting conference on April 22-23, 2021. The theme is Applied Feminism and 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 Fatima Goss Graves , president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, has agreed to serve as our keynote speaker.

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.

In this conference, we will explore such questions as: 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?

Register for Thursday's sessions here.
Register for Friday's sessions here.

12th Annual Feminist Legal Theory Conference Applied Feminism and Privacy April 22 & 23, 2021 via Zoom
Thursday, April 22, 2021
4:00-6:30	Achieving Menstrual Justice: Law and Activism
	Panel One: Menstrual Justice and Activism Across Employment, Homelessness, Education, and Data Privacy Margaret E. Johnson, Associate Dean for Experiential Education, Professor of Law, and Co-Director, Center on Applied Feminism, University of Baltimore School of Law, Menstrual Justice Marcy Karin, Jack and Lovell Olender Professor of Law and Director of the Legislation Clinic, David A. Clarke School of Law, University of the District of Columbia, Menstruation at Work Marni Sommer, Associate Professor, Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, Menstruation and Homelessness Michele Gilman, Venable Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center on Applied Feminism, University of Baltimore School of Law, Menstrual Apps and Privacy Panel Two: Focus on Menstrual Justice in Schools Laura Strausfeld, Co-Founder, Period Equity, Menstrual Equity, Comprehensive Sex Education, and Title IX Diana Philip, Executive Director, NARALProChoice Maryland, Menstrual Equity as Reproductive Justice Alana Glover, Symposium Editor, University of Baltimore Law Review, Menstrual Equity & UB Law Christopher A. Cotropia, Dennis I. Belcher Professor of Law, Director, Intellectual Property Institute, University of Richmond School of Law, Period Poverty & School Attendance/Performance

Friday, April 23, 2021
9:00-9:15	Welcome and Opening Remarks
	Ronald Weich, Dean, University of Baltimore School of Law Margaret E. Johnson, Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Experiential Education, and Co-Director, Center on Applied Feminism, University of Baltimore School of Law J.J. Lucido, Editor-in-Chief, and Christian Coward Symposium Editor, University of Baltimore Law Review
9:15-10:15	Panel One: Controlling Personal Data in The Digital Age
	Kendra Albert, Clinical Instructor, Harvard Law School, The Double Binds of Transgender Privacy Cynthia Conti Cook, Civil Rights Lawyer and Law & Technology Resarcher, and Brook Kelly-Green, Program Officer, Gender, Racial and Ethnic Justice, Ford Foundation, Data for Reproductive Autonomy or Surveillance? The Role of New Technology in Criminalizing Pregnant People Lynn Daggett, Smithmoore P. Myers Chair and Professor of Law, Gonzaga University School of Law, Gender and Student Medical Privacy Nicole McConlogue, Associate Professor of Law and Clinic Director, West Virginia University College of Law (moderator)
10:15-10:45	Break Rooms Open for Coffee and Discussion
	Room 1:    Data Privacy as Social Justice Room 2:    Academic & Activist Social Mingle
10:45-12:00	Panel Two: Resisting Intrusions into Physical Privacy
	Jenny Brooke Condon, Professor of Law, Director, Equal Justice Clinic, Seton Hall Law School, Uncaging Privacy:  What "Me Too" Means for the Fight Against Sexual Violence and Coercion in U.S. Prisons and Jails Michelle Ewert, Associate Professor of Law, Washburn University School of Law, Their Home Is Not Their Castle: Subsidized Housing’s Intrusion into Family Privacy and Decisional Autonomy Susan Hazeldean, Associate Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School, Privacy as Pretext Sapna Khatri, Attorney, Advocacy and Policy Counsel at the ACLU of Illinois, From Rosary to Camera: The Shift in Protesting Tactics Jeopardizing the Privacy of Patients Shanta Trivedi, Clinical Teaching Fellow, Georgetown University Law Center (moderator)
12:00-12:30	Break Rooms Open for Lunch and Discussion
	Room 1:  Pitching and Writing Op-eds on Privacy Topics Room 2:  Reproductive Justice Agenda:  What’s Now/Next?
12:30-1:30	Keynote
	Fatima Goss Graves, CEO and President, National Women’s Law Center
1:30-1:45	Break
1:45-3:00	Panel Three: Protecting Decisional Autonomy To Shape Identity And Families
	Deborah Brake, John E. Murray Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, andJoanna Grossman, Ellen K. Solender Endowed Chair in Women and the Law and Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law, Beyond Pregnancy: Title IX and Reproductive Rights Laura Kessler, Professor of Law, University of Utah, Miscarriage of Justice: Early Pregnancy Loss and the Limits of U.S. Employment Discrimination Law Anibal Rosario Lebrón, Assistant Professor of Lawyering Skills, Howard University School of Law, Weaponizing Civil Liberties: A Crisis Lens Analysis to Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Equality Lynn Lu, Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director, Economic Justice Project, CUNY School of Law, Anti-Poverty or Anti-Privacy? Reimagining Welfare through Restorative Justice and “Radical Help” Emily Poor, Clinical Teaching Fellow, University of Baltimore School of Law (moderator)
3:00	Closing Remarks
	Michele Gilman, Venable Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center on Applied Feminism, University of Baltimore School of Law

 

 

 

Symposium: COVID Care Crisis and the Impact on Women in Legal Academia

Symposium, COVID Care Crisis, Jan. 14 & 15 (Zoom) (registration free)

The COVID care crisis and other multiplying effects of related shutdowns, embedded inequalities, and health and safety risks are likely disproportionately impacting people with caregiving responsibilities in academia. The division that separates work from home has collapsed, threatening the very notion of “work-life balance.” Increasingly, employers have begun to reshape what used to be the private domain of family and home through “work at home” or in-person presence requirements that disregard the ways in which care work happens.

At the same time, schools and other institutions providing support to families and marginalized groups are temporarily closed, permanently shutting down, or buckling in response to state or local mandates as well as financial and personnel pressures.

In the months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, women’s scholarly output and publications have dropped in various disciplines, while service and care responsibilities that fall disproportionately on junior or marginalized faculty and staff have likely increased. Compounding these pressures, Black faculty and faculty of color more generally have also been coping with the emotional effects of the police killings of George Floyd and others, at the same time that COVID-19’s health effects are concentrating along lines of race and inequality in these communities specifically. All of these factors threaten the output, visibility, status and participation of women and other primary caregiving faculty and staff in legal academia.

Left unaddressed, these disparities also have the potential to alter the landscape of legal academia and further marginalize women and the perspectives they bring to legal scholarship, education, and public dialogue. This symposium seeks to raise awareness of the current COVID care crisis and its impacts on academia, and to begin a dialogue on concrete and innovative responses to this crisis.

Conference-- Title IX, MeToo and Administrative Law: Responding to Backlash and Looking to the Future

Title IX, MeToo, & Administrative Law: Responding to Backlash & Looking to the Future

 

REGISTER HERE

 

Description

 

Welcome & Panel One (8:00-9:50am PT): “Due Process” Narratives, Standards of Evidence, & Other Backlash Controversies, 2014-2016

Panel Two (10:00-11:40am PT): Litigation Challenges to Trump/DeVos Administrative Actions, 2017-present

Panel Three (11:50-1:30pm PT): #MeToo, the Blasey-Ford/Kavanaugh Hearings & the National Impact of Sexual Harassment, 2017-present

Panel Four & Symposium Wrap-Up (1:40-3:30pm PT): The Future Under a Biden-Harris vs. Trump II Administration

Confirmed Panelists and Moderators:
· Lindy Aldrich, Ladder Consulting
· Kelly Behre, UC Davis Law
· Deborah Brake, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
· Hannah Brenner-Johnson, California Western School of Law
· Erin Buzuvis, Western New England University School of Law
· Sage Carson & Sarah Nesbitt, Know Your IX
· Shelley Cavalieri, University of Toledo College of Law
· Nancy Chi Cantalupo, California Western School of Law
· Jessica Fink, California Western School of Law
· Maha Ibrahim, Equal Rights Advocates
· William Kidder, UCLA Civil Rights Project
· Naomi Mann, Kelsey Scarlett & Lexi Weyrick, Boston University School of Law
· Victoria Nourse, Georgetown University Law Center
· Emily Martin & Shiwali Patel, National Women’s Law Center
· Amelia Parnell, NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
· Lynn Rosenthal, Co-chair, Obama Administration White House Task Force to Protect
· Samuel Bagenstos, University of Michigan Law School
Students from Sexual Assault
· Jodi Short, UC Hastings College of Law
· Amanda Walsh, Victim Rights Law Center
· Lua Yuille, University of Kansas School of Law

CFP Con Law Center Symposium: Examining Black Citizenship from Reconstruction to Black Lives Matter

Call for Papers: Examining Black Citizenship from Reconstruction to Black Lives Matter

The Center for Constitutional Law at Akron
Virtual Symposium (online)
Friday, Feb. 5, 2021, 9am to 5pm

This year celebrates 150 years of the Fifteenth Amendment, 100 years of the Nineteenth Amendment, 55 years of the Voting Rights Act, and just over 55 years of Title VII. Each of these laws brought some systemic change to the participation of Black citizens in the polity. This symposium will explore the ways in which the reconstructed Constitution intended or neglected to establish political and civil citizenship rights regardless of race. Drawing on current social movements like Black Lives Matter, MeToo, SayHerName, and Defund the Police, this academic discussion reflects on the role of law in creating, sustaining, and resolving the identified problems.

Topics for presentation in the broad umbrella of this symposium might include: how social movements transform or engage the law, how academics translate social movements, a reconstructed history of the 15th or 19th Amendment, the Jim Crow and Jane Crow eras and their continuing effects, current battles for voting rights regarding felons, polling restrictions, and other limitations with disparate impact, intersectional dimensions of justice including Black feminism, the causes and consequences of Black Lives Matter, vestiges of slavery, reparations for slavery, policing reform, mass incarceration, judicial remedies for citizenship violations, and/or the gendered differences of black citizenship rights.

The Virtual Symposium is sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Law at Akron. The Center is one of four national centers established by Congress on the bicentennial for the purpose of promoting scholarship and education on matters of constitutional law. The Center includes five affiliated faculty fellows, student fellows, an online journal, ConLawNOW, a JD certificate program in constitutional law, a social justice project, and a Masters of Law in social justice.

Papers presented will be published in a symposium edition of ConLawNOW. ConLawNOW is an online, open-access journal that is also indexed in Westlaw, Lexis, and Hein. It is designed to publish shorter works of 10-20 pages within a short editorial timeframe to get scholarship into the public discourse more quickly. Recent authors published in ConLawNOW include Larry Solum, Paula Monopoli, Ernie Young, Harold Koh, Helen Norton, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, Ruthann Robson, and Julie Suk.

Those interested in presenting a paper should submit a proposal detailing the intended presentation to Professor Tracy Thomas, Director of the Center for Constitutional Law, at thomast@uakron.edu by December 1.  Draft papers should then be submitted by January 20, 2021 for circulation among the other participants for the symposium. Final papers will be due by March 1, 2021, and expected to publish by early April.

Symposium 9/25: Two Centuries of the Equal Rights Amendment

Symposium, Fri. Sept. 25, Two Centuries of the Equal Rights Amendment, University of Florida School of Law

Please join scholars, legislators, and practitioners on Friday, September 25 for the Symposium, Two Centuries of the Equal Rights Amendment. This Symposium addresses many questions left unanswered after the recent ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by Virginia. It has taken 97 years for the ERA to meet the technical requirements of Article V. But will it take its rightful place as the Twenty-Eighth Amendment? And will it be Congress, or the courts, that make it happen?

Please visit the Symposium website for a detailed schedule. This Symposium may be attended on a per panel basis and is free and open to the public. Please register to receive the Zoom link and Outlook invitation. 6.5 Florida CLEs pending.

Zoom Webinar The Centenary of the 19th Amendment: New Reflections on the History and Future of Gender, Representation, and Citizenship Rights

Zoom webinar at Boston University School of Law, Friday, September 25, “The Centenary of the 19^th Amendment: New Reflections on the History and Future of Gender, Representation, and Citizenship Rights.” The speakers include law professors, political scientists, and political practitioners, and Rachel B. Tiven, a/k/a The Daily Suffragist. Here is the link for the program and registration:

https://www.bu.edu/law/2020/01/29/19th-amendment-program/

Several papers from the conference will appear in a mini-symposium issue of the Boston University Law Review, Volume 100, Issue 5, due out in October 2020:

https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/forthcoming/

NY Times Special Issue on Women's Suffrage and the 19th Amendment Challenges Myths and Offers More Inclusive Version of the Legal History

The NY Times features this special section on women's suffrage on the 100th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage:

 

 

The 19th Amendment: An Important Milestone in an Unfinished Journey

Historians who specialize in voting rights and African-American women’s history have played a welcome and unusually public role in combating the myths that have long surrounded the women’s suffrage movement and the 19th Amendment, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Tuesday.

In the lead-up to this centennial, these same campaigning historians have warned against celebrations and proposed monuments to the suffrage movement that seemed destined to render invisible the contributions of African-American women like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mary Church Terrell, Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells — all of whom played heroic roles in the late 19th- and early 20th-century struggles for women’s rights and universal human rights. In addition to speaking up for Black women of the past, these scholars have performed a vital public service by debunking the most pernicious falsehood about the 19th Amendment: that it concluded a century-long battle for equality by guaranteeing women the right to vote.

Americans who imbibed this fiction in civics classes are caught off guard when they hear the more complicated truth — that millions of women had won voting rights before the 19th Amendment was ratified, and millions more remained shut out of the polls after ratification. Indeed, as middle-class white women celebrated ratification by parading through the streets, African-American women in the Jim Crow South who had worked diligently for women’s rights found themselves shut out of the ballot box for another half century — and abandoned by white suffragists who declared their mission accomplished the moment middle-class white women achieved the franchise.

As the distinguished historian Nancy Hewitt has shown, a lengthy campaign and a range of subsequent laws was required to fully open ballot access to others, including Black women, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, Chinese-Americans and Korean-Americans. Among those necessary laws were the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 and the adoption of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the 24th Amendment in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, along with its amendments of 1970 and 1975. In other words, the 19th Amendment was one step in a long, racially fraught battle for voting rights that seemed secure a few decades ago but face a grave threat today.

Spotlight: Suffrage at 100

Including:

Maya Salam, How Queer Women Powered the Suffrage Movement

Martha Jones, Tackling a Century-Old Mystery: Did my Grandmother Vote?

Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, For Black Suffragists, the Lens Was a Mighty Sword

Meet the Brave, but Overlooked Women of Color Who Fought for the Vote

Cathleen Cahill & Sarah Deer, In 1920, Native Women Sought the Vote: Here's What was Next

Virtual Conference: The 15th & 19th Amendments on the Anniversary of their Ratifications

Massachusetts Historical Society, “Shall Not Be Denied”: The 15th and 19th Amendments at the Sesquicentennial and Centennial of Their Ratifications

“Shall Not Be Denied”: The 15th and 19th Amendments at the Sesquicentennial and Centennial of their Ratifications, October 12-16, 2020

Registration opens in August!

As a result of ongoing public health concerns, the Massachusetts Historical Society has altered its original plan for an in-person conference in October 2020. Rather than meeting for two days of sessions, we will host the conference panels online between Monday, 12 October and Friday, 16 October 2020. The originally scheduled keynote panel will be postponed until it is safe to hold the event in person at the MHS.

Download Conference Schedule 

The year 2020 marks the anniversaries of two critical amendments to the United States Constitution. Spaced fifty years apart, the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments, ratified in 1870 and 1920, respectively, prohibited the use of race or sex to deny American citizens the franchise. However, the amendments did not prevent states from adopting other methods of discrimination. Viewed as the product of two different movements—abolitionism and the Civil War on the one hand and the Progressive campaigns and the First World War on the other—these two periods and amendments are not often considered together. This conference revisits the long journey to secure voting rights for African Americans and women in United States history. It considers the legal precedents and hurdles that each amendment faced, the meaning and uneven outcomes of each, the social context that allowed for ultimate ratification, the role of key individuals and groups in these respective contexts, and how each amendment has been remembered over time.

At a later date, a keynote panel will feature feature Profs. Alison M. Parker (University of Delaware) and Lisa Tetrault (Carnegie Mellon University) and will be moderated by Prof. Alex Keyssar (Harvard).

Webinar: Past, Present and Future of the Law and Politics of Reproduction

The Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law is sponsoring a webinar with the Harvard Law and Policy Review on the past, present, and future of the law and politics of reproduction on June 30, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. ET.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision, June Medical Services v. Russo, we are convening the authors of four influential books on reproductive justice and health, Professors David S. Cohen, Michele Goodwin, Carol Sanger, and Mary Ziegler, for a timely conversation moderated by NPR’s Sarah McCammon. There will be time for questions from participants. 

To register for the webinar, please visit https://bit.ly/JuneMedicalCPHLR. 

What I'm Watching Today, Thursday, at Law & Society on Gender & Law

Law & Society Association, Virtual Conference Program

Gender and Punishment

May 28 - 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM
Moving away from antiquated perspectives that neglected to study gender because there were "so few" women in the criminal justice system, these papers use feminist perspectives to examine disparate treatment, gender gaps, and punitivism.
Chair/Discussant(s) Rupali Samuel, LLM, Harvard Law School

Gender Equality and the Shifting Gap in Female-To-Male Incarceration Rates Presenter(s) Heather McLaughlin, Oklahoma State University Co-Presenter(s) Sarah Shannon, University of Georgia
Negotiating Criminal Records: Access to Employment for Reintegrating Women in Canada Presenter(s) Anita Grace, Carleton University
The Gap Between Correctional Law & Practice: An Intersectional Feminist Analysis Presenter(s) Alexis Marcoux Rouleau, Université de Montréal
The Gendered Economy of Prison Intimacy Presenter(s) Joss Greene, Columbia University

 

Moving Rules: Struggles for Reproductive Justice on Uneven Terrain

May 28 - 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM
Moving Rules will consider how recent developments in the struggle for reproductive justice in Argentina, Poland, Ireland and Mozambique contribute to our understanding of legal rules as complex entities that move as they are made. The papers will consider how rules move across space and time as they are made through feminist cause lawyering, witnessing legal reproduction, communist legacies, and oppositional legal consciousness.
Chair(s) Paola Bergallo, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
Discussant(s) Ruth Fletcher, Queen Mary University of London
Presentations

Building Democracy and Legal Change: A Study of Feminist Cause Lawyering in Argentina Presenter(s) Paola Bergallo, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
We Were Communists - Historical, Political, and Ideological Determinants of Sexual Reproductive Rights Presenter(s) Carmeliza Rosario, CMI / Centre on Law and Social Transformation
Witnessing Legal Reproduction Presenter(s) Ruth Fletcher, Queen Mary University of London

 

Sexual Harassment: Victims and Survivors

May 28 - 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM

Sexual harassment and violence are pervasive problems in various institutional spheres. Many victims and survivors are discounted and ignored. The papers in this session explore a range of questions involving victims and survivors of sexual harassment, such as: what obstacles has the #MeToo movement encountered when confronting sexual assault and harassment in the military? What roles do and should victim impact statements have in revealing systemic institutional sexual abuse in specific cases and shaping broader policy to meet the needs of victims? What role does time have in shaping a victim's experience of sexual violence? Does the law represent an adequate feminist response to such violence? How do innovative multi-media exhibits,provide new ways for observers and bystanders to listen to survivors' stories and experiences?
Chair(s) Julie Goldscheid, City University of New York
Discussant(s) I. India Thusi, California Western School of Law
Presentations

#MeToo, Confronts Culture, and Complicity in the Military Presenter(s) Rachel Van Cleave, Golden Gate University School of Law
From "Larry" the "Monster" to Sisterhood: What the Nassar Victim Impact Statements Reveal About Systemic Institutional Sexual Abuse Presenter(s) Jamie Abrams, University of Louisville Non-Presenting Co-Author(s) Amanda Potts, University of Cardiff
Multiracial Women, Sexual Harassment, and Gender-Based Violence Presenter(s) Nancy Cantalupo, Barry University Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law
Sexual Harassment, Workplace Culture, and the Power and Limits of Law Presenter(s) Suzanne Goldberg, Columbia University

 

Female Judges in Five Fragile States

May 28 - 02:15 PM - 04:00 PM
In post-conflict and transitional developing countries, situations of political rupture may create new opportunity structures that favour the entry of women into public positions of power. Post-conflict assistance often includes gender friendly rule of law reforms, and the conflict itself may have placed rights issues in focus. How these conditions affect women's access to, and utilization of, positions of judicial power has not received much scholarly attention. This session explores three main questions regarding women judges in five fragile and conflict-related states: Angola, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Haiti, and Uganda: (1) What are the main pathways of women judges to the bench? (2) What are the gendered experiences of women on the bench? (3) How and in what ways does having more women on the bench impact on judicial outcomes?
Chair(s) Paola Bergallo, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
Discussant(s) Ulrike Schultz, Fernuniversitat in Hagen

Presentations

Female Judges in Angola: When Party Affiliation Trumps Gender Presenter(s) Elin Skaar, Chr. Michelsen Institute Non-Presenting Co-Author(s) Aslak Orre, Chr. Michelsen Institute
Women Magistrates in Haiti: Challenging Gender Inequality in a Frail Justice System Presenter(s) Marianne Tøraasen, Chr. Michelsen Institute
Women on the Bench in Afghanistan: Equal but Segregated? Presenter(s) Torunn Wimpelmann, Chr Michelsen Institute Non-Presenting Co-Author(s) Antonio De Lauri, Chr. Michelsen Institute
Women on the Bench in Guatemala: Between Professionalization and State Capture Presenter(s) Ana-Isabel Braconnier, University of Texas at Austin, Rachel Sieder, CIESAS
Women on the Bench – Perspectives from Uganda Presenter(s) Pilar Domingo, Overseas Development Institute Non-Presenting Co-Author(s) Siri Gloppen, University of Bergen

 

What I'm Watching Today at Law & Society on Gender & the Law

#MeToo: The Narrative of Resistance Meets the Rule of Law

May 27 - 01:00 PM - 02:45 PM
Plenary Session

The purpose of the panel is to explore the contemporary cultural, political, social, and legal space that #MeToo occupies, including its limitations and possibilities. Participants will also compare the #MeToo movement to other popular social movements like #BlackLivesMatter, drawing parallels and convergences, and engaging with some of the controversies that have accompanied #MeToo.

Moderator(s)

Julie Suk, The Graduate Center, CUNY



Chair(s)

Penelope Andrews, New York Law School



Participant(s)

Brenda Cossman, University of Toronto

Farnush Ghadery, King's College

Teri McMurtry Chubb, Mercer University School of Law

Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY School of Law)

Call for Papers Columbia Journal of Gender & Law: Symposium "Are You There Law, It's Me, Menstruation"

Feminist Law Profs, CFP Columbia Journal of Gender & Law Symposium: Are You There, Law? It's Me, Menstruation

Columbia Journal of Gender & Law: Symposium Announcement and Call for Papers

Are You There, Law? It’s Me, Menstruation

The Columbia Journal of Gender & Law is pleased to announce a call for papers for its Spring 2021 symposium: Are You There, Law? It’s Me, Menstruation.

 

This symposium explores the intersection of law and menstruation. Over half the population menstruates for a large portion of their lives, but the law has mostly been silent on the issue. Virtually all people with female biology menstruate, although not all who menstruate are girls or women. A truly inclusive law reform movement will take all who menstruate into account, without regard to race, economic class, age, or gender identity. A legal system that takes into account the biology of over half the population is the foundation for a more just society. 

 

Judy Blume’s young adult classic, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, first captured readers’ attention fifty years ago, but only recently have periods entered the public discourse. The “tampon tax”—the state sales tax on menstrual products—is currently the subject of multi-state litigation and legislative advocacy. Public awareness of the unfairness of the tax has inspired many people to start speaking and mobilizing about other obstacles, including the lack of employment-related accommodations for menstrual needs, the lack of access to safe and affordable products (particularly in schools and prisons), and the anxiety and harassment that menstruating students can face at school.  Increasingly, litigation is being brought about some of these issues, and some states and localities are also taking action on their own, notably by requiring free menstrual products in settings like prisons, schools, and shelters. “Period poverty”—being unable to afford menstrual products—remains an obstacle to school, work and full participation in public life. 

 

The Symposium will be held at Columbia Law School on April 9, 2021. The conference will include a full day of panel discussions and will be open to the public. The program concludes with a reception celebrating the journal’s thirtieth anniversary.

 

Papers

To be considered for a paper presentation at the symposium, please submit an abstract of your proposed paper by 5:00 p.m. on August 15, 2020 to columbia.jgl.submissions@gmail.com. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words and should relate to the conference theme.  Possible topics might include:

• Affordability, availability, or safety of menstrual products.
• Challenging the state sales tax on menstrual products.
• Menstruation-related discrimination and harassment in employment, education, and/or other contexts.
• Menstrual education in schools.
• Menstruation-related challenges unique to prisoners, incarcerated people, and visitors and employees in carceral facilities.
• Menstruation-related needs of homeless and low-income individuals and families.
• Cultural stigmas and taboos related to menstruation.
• Lawyering and social movements that are inclusive of all who menstruate, including trans boys and men, people with gender fluid identities, and people with non-binary gender identities.
• Research related to health issues connected with menstruation and menstrual products.
• Environmental issues related to menstruation, including access to water, disposal of menstrual products, and toxic chemicals used in menstrual products.
• Alternatives to commercial menstrual products, including micro-lending for financing of menstruation-related small businesses.
• Human rights concerns, including the right to dignity, the right to education, and/or the right to employment, and their connection to menstruation.
• The relationship of popular culture, including Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, to the understanding of menstruation.
• The use of female empowerment and feminist messaging in selling menstrual products and menstrual education.
• Menstrual-related activism, including litigation and legislative reform.
• Coalition-building between and among groups around issues related to menstruation.

Successful proposals will include a discussion of how the selected topic relates to the law. Interdisciplinary approaches and perspectives from outside the legal academy are very welcome.

Selected speakers will be notified by September 15, 2020.

 

Publication Opportunity

The selected speakers from this Call for Papers will have the opportunity to publish their papers in a special symposium issue of CJGL.  All such papers will be due by February 1, 2020.  They must be no more than 3,000 words and should be lightly-footnoted.  The abstracts will be posted to CJGL’s public website, and the complete versions may be made available prior to the symposium on a password-protected site to all symposium participants.

 

Registration and Transportation

There is no registration fee associated with the conference.  There are funds available to cover the reasonable transportation costs and accommodations for speakers coming from outside the New York metropolitan area. 

 

Short On-Line Essays

In connection with the symposium, CJGL invites expressions of interest in contributing short essays (100-500 words, including footnotes) on any aspect of law and menstruation, or reflections on the influence of Judy Blume’s book and its legacy for generations of readers. Essays will be hosted on the CJGL website beginning in early 2021 and are intended to be written for a general audience. We warmly welcome contributions from students, faculty, attorneys, activists, artists and others.  Contributions may take the form of personal reflections, cultural critiques or other menstruation-related topics of the author’s choice. Short essays do not have to be in a traditional academic format.

To be considered for contribution of a short essay, please submit a short (2-4) sentence proposal by 5:00 p.m. on August 15, 2020 to columbia.jgl.submissions@gmail.com. Selected contributors will be notified by September 15, 2020.

Final versions of short on-line essays will be due November 1, 2020.

 

Questions?

Questions about logistics of the program can be directed to CJGL Symposium Editor Jenna Rae Lauter: jrl2156@columbia.edu

Other questions can be directed to the Symposium’s faculty conveners: Professor Bridget Crawford (Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University) bcrawford@law.pace.edu; Professor Emily Gold Waldman (Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University) ewaldman@pace.edu; and Professor Margaret Johnson (University of Baltimore School of Law) majohnson@ubalt.edu.

Papers from the Feminist Legal Theory Research Network at Next Week's Law & Society Association Virtual Meeting

I am probably one of the few people in the world who is thrilled that the Law & Society Annual Conference is virtual -- since I will now be able to attend.  In general virtual conferences open up access to some barriers to participation due to finances,  travel, family, disability, and health issues.

You can register for the virtual conference here at the Law & Society Association website.  

Scheduled papers to be presented from the Feminist Legal Theory Research Network:

 

Time	Title	Type
Wed, 5/27 1:00 PM - 2:45 PM	#MeToo: The Narrative of Resistance Meets the Rule of Law	Plenary Session
Thu, 5/28 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM	Moving Rules: Struggles for Reproductive Justice on Uneven Terrain	Paper Session
Thu, 5/28 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM	Sexual Harassment: Victims and Survivors	Paper Session
Thu, 5/28 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM	CRN07: Feminist Legal Theory Business Meeting	Business Meeting
Thu, 5/28 2:15 PM - 4:00 PM	Families, Laws, and Institutions	Paper Session
Thu, 5/28 2:15 PM - 4:00 PM	The State and Violence: New Proposals for Stopping the Cycle	Paper Session
Fri, 5/29 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM	Normativity in Men, Women, and Bodies	Paper Session
Fri, 5/29 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM	The Politicization of Safety: Critical Perspectives on Domestic Violence Responses	Roundtable Session
Fri, 5/29 1:00 PM - 2:15 PM	Sexual Harassers, Sex Crimes, and Accountability	Paper Session
Fri, 5/29 4:00 PM - 5:45 PM	Women's Rights in the Shadow of the Constitution	Paper Session
Sat, 5/30 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM	Perspectives on Sex, Work and New Legal Orders	Paper Session
Sat, 5/30 1:00 PM - 2:45 PM	Trans and Queer Life in Private and Public	Paper Session
Sat, 5/30 4:00 PM - 5:45 PM	Human Rights in an Unequal World: Autonomy, Status, and Other Stories	Paper Session
Sun, 5/31 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM	Feminist Legal Theory in a Public/Private World	Paper Session
Sun, 5/31 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM	Laws of Social Reproduction	Paper Session
Sun, 5/31 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM	Intimate Lies and the Law	Author Meets Reader (AMR) Session
Sun, 5/31 2:15 PM - 4:00 PM	Feminist Judgments on Reproductive Justice and Family Law	Roundtable Session
Sun, 5/31 2:15 PM - 4:00 PM	Women and Gender in Private, Public, and Places in Between: Old Doctrines Meet New Realities in the Twenty-First Century	Paper Session