Friday, May 26, 2023

The Feminist-Neutrality Paradox of Women Judges

Alissa Rubin Gomez, The Feminist-Neutrality Paradox, 127 Dick. L. Rev. 101 (2023)

Female judges are vital to a well-functioning third branch of government given the long-documented link between diversity and judicial legitimacy. Beyond appearances, however, the article explores the reasons why so many empirical studies have shown that judges do not decide cases differently on account of their gender. This article describes how women must act like men to gain acceptance into the male-dominated judicial sphere and then are expected to apply precedent that has been overwhelmingly decided by men. In other words, the decisions of female (and feminist) judges are largely the same as those of their male counterparts because of systemic pressures on female judges to conform to the unstated male norm under the guise of neutrality and the rule of law. These observations are not new. But in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – the case that erased the constitutional right to abortion with little concern for the appearance of judicial neutrality or stare decisis – this article asks whether feminists should stop playing by the rules as well.

May 26, 2023 in Abortion, Courts, Gender, Judges, Theory, Women lawyers | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Justice Alito's Contempt as Seen in the Abortion Pill Dissent

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, Opinion, The Supreme Court Delivers a Sign of Relief -- and an Outrageous Dissent

Amy Davidson Sorkin, What's Going on With Samuel Alito?, New Yorker

How many people and organizations can Justice Samuel Alito accuse of having bad will or dishonest motives in a short dissent—fewer than nine hundred words—to a Supreme Court order granting a stay? Let’s try to count.

As a preface, the case involves a lawsuit brought by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, an advocacy group whose members vow, “in the presence of the Almighty,” that they “will not help a woman obtain an abortion.” The A.H.M. is attempting to block access to mifepristone, or RU-486, a drug used in medication abortions, in a suit against the Food and Drug Administration, which was joined in the case by a manufacturer of the drug, Danco Laboratories. ***

Even beyond this case, there is something troubling and unsettling about Alito’s tone and approach. As I’ve written before, observers of the Court have come to expect notes of scornfulness in Alito’s opinions. He may not be the most conservative of his colleagues—Thomas is another contender—but he’s looking like the Court’s sourest Justice. His approach to legal argument is a sad reflection of the state of political discourse generally, as well as a contributor to it. Contempt is a guiding principle of what might now, with a right-wing super-majority, be called the Alito Court—at least until Alito turns on the rest of his colleagues, too

May 4, 2023 in Abortion, Judges, Reproductive Rights, SCOTUS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, March 17, 2023

Gendered Interruptions at Supreme Court Oral Argument and the Role of the Chief Judge

Tonja Jacobi & Matthew Sag, Supreme Court Interruptions and Interventions: The Changing Role of the Chief Justice, 103 Boston U. Law Review (2023)

 Interruptions at Supreme Court oral argument have received much attention in recent years, particularly the disproportionate number of interruptions directed at the female Justices. The Supreme Court changed the structure of oral argument to try to address this problem. This Article assesses whether the frequency and gender disparity of interruptions of Justices has improved in recent years, and whether the structural change in argument has helped. It shows that interruptions went down during the pandemic but have resurged to near-record highs, as has the gender disparity in Justice-to-Justice interruptions. However, although the rate of advocate interruptions of Justices also remains historically high, for the first time in years it no longer shows any gender disparity. Thus, the structural change to oral argument has had mixed results.

The problem of gendered interruptions at Supreme Court oral argument has led to calls for the Chief Justice to take a more active role at oral argument. This Article also addresses whether and how Chief Justice Roberts has responded to this call. It shows that the Chief has been intervening more, not in response to the increasing number of interruptions, but in response to the gender disparity growing more severe. Further, he has directed his interventions at supporting those most interrupted, disrupting those making the most interruptions, and, significantly, using his interventions to recognize and combat interruptions of the female Justices. When it comes to interruptions at the Court, the Chief Justice is no longer simply the first among equals but has a new role, as a referee, attempting to address a social and institutional problem.

March 17, 2023 in Courts, Gender, Judges, SCOTUS, Women lawyers | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

New Book Her Honor: Stories of Challenge and Triumph from Women Judges

Lauren Stiller Rikleen ed., Her Honor: Stories of Challenge & Triumph from Women Judges (2023)

At a time when surveys reveal declining trust in our courts, this book offers reasons for hope and even pride. Her Honor features a collection of personal stories by and about some of the country's most respected female judges. Each chapter author openly shares nuanced stories of challenges and successes, including the inequality, bias, and other barriers they faced and overcame in their lives.

The 25 judges featured in Her Honor are from all levels of the state and federal courts, including Chief Judges and two Supreme Court Justices. Their moving stories will be all too recognizable by women who may currently be experiencing similar challenges and biases in their own careers.

Her Honor also demonstrates how the best of our judges share a passion for ensuring an accessible and fair system of justice, without a political agenda. They reveal a deep compassion for humanity along with an abiding respect for the law, respecting precedent but acting with courage if the law offers a way forward.

All the judges in this book have lived lives of deep influence. The stories shared will extend that influence further and inspire future generations to persevere in their careers during even the most difficult time

March 14, 2023 in Courts, Judges, Legal History, Women lawyers | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

New Book First Woman Judge: Florence Allen, Feminism and the Transformation of US Courts

My new book, First Woman Judge: Florence Allen, Feminism & the Transformation of US Courts, will be published by the University of California Press in 2025. The book examines the jurisprudence of Judge Allen's forty years on the courts through the lens of progressive law, feminism, and social justice. 

Judge Florence Allen was the "first" woman judge many times over.  She was the first woman in the country elected to a general jurisdiction trial court, the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas (Cleveland) in 1920 immediately following ratification of the 19th Amendment.  Before that there had been a few women magistrates in the country: two women justices of the peace (WY and IL), two women juvenile court judges (IL and DC), and one woman probate judge (KS). Allen was then the first woman elected to a state supreme court, joining the Ohio Supreme Court in 1922. She was then the first woman appointed to a federal appellate court, nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1934. And she was the first woman shortlisted to the U.S. Supreme Court--considered ten times by four presidents from two parties.

I've written a basic account of Allen's life and jurisprudence here: The Jurisprudence of the First Woman Judge, Florence Allen: Challenging the Myth of Women Judging Differently, 27 William & Mary J. Race, Gender & Social Justice 293 (2021). The book will delve more into Allen's progressive roots, theories of the expansive governmental power, liberal and social feminisms, and work for women's rights and suffrage.

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March 8, 2023 in Books, Courts, Judges, Legal History, Women lawyers | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

New Book The Jurisprudential Legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I was happy to contribute a chapter to this new book, The Jurisprudential Legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Ryan Vacca & Ann Bartow, eds. NYU Press 2023).  

My chapter "Justice Ginsburg's Restrained Theory of Remedial Equity" reveals RBG's surprisingly moderate approach to equitable remedies in gender discrimination cases and in restitution more generally.  I suggest her proceduralist view of the courts, and focus on government action account for her growing moderation over the years.

Table of Contents

1 Gender and the Law: Revisiting the Legacy of a Feminist Icon, Deborah L. Brake

2 Administrative Law: The Feminist State(s) of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kali Murray

3 Arbitration: Consent, Not Coercion, Jill I. Gross

4 Bankruptcy: The Scholar, the Harmonizer, and the Institutionalist, Mary Jo Wriggins

5 Citizenship and Immigration Law: Through her Opinions, M. Isabel Medina

6 Civil Procedure: The Institutional Pragmatist, Elizabeth G. Porter & Heather Elliott

7 Copyright Law: Never Bet Against the House...or Senate, Ryan Vacca & Ann Bartow

8 Criminal Procedure: Honoring the Spirit of Their Rights, Melissa L. Breger

9 Death Penalty: Precise Analysis but Broad Concerns, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier

10 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA): Toward a Reasonable and Coherent Framework, Maria C. O'Brien

11 Employment Discrimination: Justice Ginsburg Dissents, Sandra F. Sperino

12 Environmental Law: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Principled Legacy, Uma Outka

13 Family Law: The Egalitarian Family, Joanna L. Grossman

14 Freedom of Express: A Practical Evolution, Dr. JoAnne Sweeny

15 Health Law: Equity is Inextricably Linked to Health Care, Tara Sklar & Kirin Goff

16 Parent Law: A Reliable Compass, W. Keith Robinson

17 Race and the Law: Vinay Harpalani & Jeffrey D. Hoagland

18 Remedies: Justice Ginsburg's Restrained Theory of Remedial Equity, Tracy Thomas

19 Taxation: The Litigator, the Judge, the Justice, Patricia A. Cain & Jean C. Love

20 Voting Rights: Democracy in a Hurricane, Lisa Marshall Manheim

21 Teaching the Life and Law of RBG: Exploring Beyond Her Sex Equality Jurisprudence, Elizabeth Kukura & David S. Cohen

Also available on Amazon.  

March 7, 2023 in Books, Constitutional, Courts, Judges, SCOTUS, Theory | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, February 27, 2023

New Article on "Law Clerk Selection and Diversity: Insights from Fifty Sitting Judges of the Federal Courts of Appeals"

Jeremy Fogel. Mary Hoopes, and Goodwin Liu have published a forthcoming article on SSRN titled Law Clerk Selection and Diversity: Insights from Fifty Sitting Judges of the Federal Courts of Appeals. The article is forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review. The abstract states: 

Judicial clerkships are key positions of responsibility and coveted opportunities for career advancement. Commentators have noted that the demographics of law clerks do not align with the student population by law school, socioeconomic background, gender, race, or ethnicity, and that ideological matching is prevalent between judges and their clerks. But extant studies draw on limited data and offer little visibility into how judges actually select clerks. For this study, we conducted in-depth individual interviews with fifty active judges of the federal courts of appeals to learn how they approach law clerk selection and diversity. Our sample, though not fully representative of the judiciary, includes judges from all circuits, appointed by Presidents of both parties, with average tenure of fourteen years. The confidential interviews, which drew in part upon the peer relationship that two of us have with fellow judges, yielded rich and candid insights not captured by prior surveys.

This Article reports our findings, among them: (1) With few exceptions, appellate judges hire clerks as an “ensemble” and assign positive value to diversity, although judges vary significantly in the dimensions of diversity they seek. (2) Most judges disclaim any interest in ideological alignment when hiring clerks; we situate this finding in the context of factors that contribute to ideological segmentation of the clerkship market. (3) Republican appointees, compared to Democratic appointees, more often identified socioeconomic diversity as the primary dimension of diversity they seek. (4) Judges who graduated from law schools outside the U.S. News & World Report top twenty are significantly more likely than other judges to hire clerks from schools outside the top twenty. (5) Almost all judges in our sample consider gender in clerkship hiring, and many have specific goals for gender balance. Republican appointees reported more difficulty drawing women into their applicant pool than Democratic appointees. (6) Most judges in our sample assign positive value to racial diversity and consider race to some degree in evaluating applicants, although it is important to note that some judges believe strongly that such consideration is inappropriate. (7) Many judges who view racial diversity positively nonetheless reported difficulty hiring Black and Hispanic clerks. The judges with the most robust records of minority hiring are those who make affirmative efforts to draw minority candidates into their applicant pool or place greater emphasis on indicators of talent besides grades and law school rank, or do both. (8) Black judges are particularly successful in hiring Black clerks; we estimate that Black judges, who comprised less than one-eighth of active circuit judges during our study, accounted for more than half of the Black clerks hired each year in the federal courts of appeals.

These findings have implications for judicial selection; in short, diversity among judges affects diversity among clerks. Further, one of our most consistent findings is that judges do not discuss clerk hiring or diversity with each other. This silence reflects norms of judicial culture that foster collegiality and mutual deference while tending to inhibit peer-to-peer discussion of how judges select their clerks. Yet many judges want to hire more diverse clerks and would like to learn from their colleagues’ practices. We propose measures to increase transparency, facilitate peer exchange, and increase judges’ capacity to achieve their hiring objectives, whatever they may be.

 

February 27, 2023 in Courts, Equal Employment, Judges, Law schools, Workplace | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, February 6, 2023

Scott Gerber on "The Leak of the Dobbs Draft"

Scott D. Gerber has posted a book chapter on SSRN titled The Leak of the Dobbs DraftThis is a chapter from SCOTUS (Ed. M. Marietta, 2022) published by Palgrave Macmillan. The chapter outlines the history of the Dobbs draft leak and its ramifications. It then offers a history of other Supreme Court leaks, including one involving Roe v. Wade. The chapter then outlines possible reforms to address the leak, including proposed federal legislation and ethical standards governing the Supreme Court. 

February 6, 2023 in Abortion, Courts, Judges, SCOTUS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, January 27, 2023

Study Shows Intergenerational Gap in Decisionmaking by Women Judges, with Women Coming of Age Before 1963 Voting with Significantly Higher Progressive Inclinations

Isaach Unah, Ryan Williams & Stephanie Zaino, Echoes of the Feminine Mystique: Female Judges and Intergenerational Change in the United States Courts of Appeal,  Journal of Law & Politics (forthcoming) 

Is there an intergenerational gap in decision-making among female judges? Do female judges from United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s generation hold a different orientation to law and policy as compared to judges from younger generations? Reviewing different theoretical perspectives regarding gender and judging, we examine the significance of intergenerational change among female judges whose political coming-of-age occurred at different historical intervals. We explore how this change informs decisional outcomes in the U.S. courts of appeals. To designate a temporal marker of intergenerational change, we use Betty Friedan’s publication of The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Our analysis indicates that despite the traditionalistic culture in which they grew up, female judges who came of age prior to publication of The Feminine Mystique voted with significantly higher progressive inclinations compared to female judges who came of age after the book’s emergence. We explore the implications of this finding for judicial decision-making.

January 27, 2023 in Courts, Judges, Legal History | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Book Author Interview, Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality

Strict Scrutiny, Author Interview, Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality

Tomiko Brown-Nagin joins Melissa and Kate to discuss her book Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality. You may recognize the name Constance Baker Motley from Ketanji Brown Jackson’s speech upon receiving her nomination to SCOTUS. Motley was the first black woman to be appointed to the federal bench– and she and Justice Jackson share a birthday. Judge Motley’s story illustrates the fights for equality, across race and gender lines, in the mid-20th century.

Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality - Brown-Nagin, Tomiko

January 4, 2023 in Books, Judges, Race | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

100 Years Ago This Election Ohio Elected the Nation's First Woman Supreme Court Judge and Six Women State Legislators

Thomas Suddes, When Running for Votes Gives Way to Running Gives Way to Running the Numbers, Cleveland.com

Groundbreakers: Although the anniversary seems to be passing without much notice, it was 100 years ago this week, on Election Day 1922, that Ohioans elected the first six women to be General Assembly members — and the first woman in the United States to serve on any state’s highest court, a lawyer who was a notable Greater Clevelander.

Elected on Nov. 7, 1922, to the Ohio Supreme Court was Judge Florence Ellinwood Allen, of Cuyahoga County (1884-1966). She was the first woman in the United States to serve at the pinnacle of any state’s judicial system. Allen served on the Ohio Supreme Court until 1934. That’s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Allen to the Cincinnati-based U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, the first woman to serve on any federal circuit court.

Also elected 100 years ago this week were the first women to serve as members of the Oho General Assembly — two state senators, four state representatives. All six were Republicans, and two were Greater Clevelanders.

Elected to the Ohio Senate in November 1922 were Sen. Maude Comstock Waitt, of Lakewood (1878-1935), and Sen. Nettie Bromley Loughead, of Cincinnati (1870-1936).

Elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1922 were Rep. Nettie McKenzie Clapp, of Cleveland Heights (1868-1935); Rep. Lulu Thomas Gleason, of Toledo (1864-1953); Rep. Adelaide Sterling Ott, of Youngstown (1871-1929); and Rep. May Martin Van Wye, of Cincinnati (1878-1968).

Today, according to Rutgers’ Center for American Women in Politics, 30.3% of the Ohio General Assembly’s members are women — in a state whose population is 50.7% female.

I've written about Judge Florence Allen, see Tracy Thomas, The Jurisprudence of the First Woman Judge, Florence Allen: Challenging the Myth of Women Judging Differently, 27 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 293 (2021), and am currently at work on a book about Allen and women's longstanding demand for access to the systems of legal justice and the courts.

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November 8, 2022 in Courts, Judges, Legal History | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, October 27, 2022

Study of Women Judges in Pacific Island Courts Concludes that Appointment of Women Helps, in Part to Affirm Gender Justice

Anna Dziedzic, "To Join the Bench and Be Decision-Makers": Women Judges in Pacific Island Judiciaries" 
In Melissa Crouch (ed.), Women and the Judiciary in the Asia-Pacific (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) 29-65

Studies of women in leadership in the Pacific tend to focus on the under-representation of women in the political branches of government. The number and role of women in the judicial branch has received less attention. Male judges outnumber women judges across the region, but the reasons for this, and its implications, have not been the subject of detailed study. This chapter provides a history and comparative analysis of the appointment of women judges in the Pacific, focusing on the nine states of Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. It presents empirical data on the composition of the superior courts in these states, including judges’ gender and professional background. It examines how the criteria and processes for judicial appointment – including the distinctive use of foreign judges – affect the appointment of women to the judiciary. Finally, the chapter considers why it matters whether women are included on Pacific judiciaries, drawing on reflections by women who have served as judges in the region; scholarship on law and gender; and an examination of high-profile cases in which women judges have presided. The analysis suggests that the appointment of women judges to Pacific judiciaries cannot, in and of itself, correct all the harmful gender biases in law and society. However, the appointment of women judges in greater number would counter some of the harmful stereotypes about women that persist in Pacific societies and contribute to work across a range of sectors in Pacific states to ensure that the law meets the needs of women and affirms gender justice.

October 27, 2022 in Courts, Gender, International, Judges | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, September 19, 2022

Balkin on "Abortion and Partisan Entrenchment"

Jack Balkin has posted Abortion and Partisan Entrenchment on SSRN in draft format. The abstract states:  

In overturning Roe v. Wade, The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization achieved a long-sought victory of the Republican Party. Dobbs is part of a larger conservative constitutional revolution. This revolution has been achieved through a strategy of partisan entrenchment, in which political parties, led by Presidents, stock the courts with jurists allied with the party's commitments of ideology and interest.

Over time, partisan entrenchment by both parties can keep the Supreme Court's ideological center roughly aligned with the center of national public opinion. But this alignment need not occur, and the Court's current constitutional revolution reflects this fact. Moreover, if the country is highly polarized, as it is now, there is even less reason to think that the ideological center of the Supreme Court will have much relationship to the center of public opinion. It is far more likely to reflect the center of elite opinion in whichever major party currently controls the Court.

Although Republicans dominated Supreme Court appointments between 1969 to 2020, Roe v. Wade survived for half a century. This was partly due to luck. But another important reason is that members of the conservative legal movement did not constitute a majority of the Court until 2018. Once that happened, Roe's demise became almost certain. Entrenchment of movement-identified legal conservatives, and not simply Republicans, was the key to overturning Roe.

Once the conservative legal movement has achieved most of its central goals, however, it may lose cohesion, as the country faces new issues and the Republican Party continues to evolve into a Trumpist party. Different parts of the conservative legal movement may find themselves increasingly at odds. New issues will emerge for which the conservative legal movement was not organized. These new issues may create fractures among Court’s conservative majority.

Moreover, Roe's demise has created new problems for the Republican Party. Party coalitions affect the exercise of judicial review--that is the point of partisan entrenchment--but the exercise of judicial review also affects party coalitions. Judicial review can make it easier for a political party to maintain its base of voters; or, conversely, judicial review can create openings for a party’s opponents to pick off its voters and split its coalition.

Roe v. Wade made the modern Republican Party possible. Staunchly pro-life voters could join with voters who supported some abortion rights but voted Republican for other reasons. The latter could vote Republican because no matter how much Republican politicians catered to pro-life voters, Roe kept them from banning abortion completely. Dobbs made abortion prohibition possible and highly salient, and placed different parts of the Republican coalition in tension with each other. To keep their coalition together, Republican politicians may now try to change the subject. But the party's most avidly pro-life voters, who dominate primary contests, may not let them. Although the long-term electoral result is not foreordained, Dobbs has created opportunities for opposition politicians to shrink and fracture the Republican coalition.

Politicians always act in the shadow of other institutional features of the American constitutional system, including judicial review. The Court’s decisions affect political coalitions, but that is because of decisions made by political actors over whom they have no control. Supreme Court decisions may make or break political coalitions, but not as the Justices either understand or intend.

September 19, 2022 in Abortion, Constitutional, Courts, Judges, Legal History | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, September 8, 2022

Justice Ginsburg's Cautious Legacy for the Equal Rights Amendment

Julie Suk, Justice Ginsburg's Cautious Legacy for the Equal Rights Amendment, 110 Georgetown L.J. 1391 (2022)

History will remember the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) as the “founding mother” of constitutional gender equality in the United States. This Article unpacks her legacy for inclusive constitutional change, unearthing her lifelong commitment to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was adopted fifty years ago by Congress in 1972. It took nearly half a century for the Amendment to be ratified by the thirty-eight states required by Article V, with Virginia becoming the last state to ratify it in 2020—the year of Justice Ginsburg’s death. Because the last three ratifications occurred decades after congressionally imposed time limits, RBG publicly expressed doubts about the viability of the ERA, as it was being disputed in Congress and in the courts. This Article unpacks RBG’s ambivalent stance toward the ERA, tracing it to her understanding of the process of constitutional change toward greater inclusion, located in her legal scholarship of the 1970s. As a scholar, RBG focused not only on sex discrimination but also on legal procedure. She was keenly aware that the procedural paths taken toward important socio-legal changes, including women’s equal citizenship, would shape their potential to endure as law.

This Article puts the spotlight on RBG’s often-neglected writings as a scholar before her judicial career. RBG’s transformative vision of constitutional gender equality had an institutional and procedural dimension that accompanied its ambitious substantive ideals. A modern constitutional democracy would fully include women in the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and power, by eliminating gender stereotypes from the law and by implementing public policies to enable the participation of people of all genders. Legislatures, rather than courts, are best equipped to complete this project. To legitimize such large-scale constitutional change, RBG viewed Congress as the appropriate institutional driver of the constitutional amendment process. Accordingly, Congress had plenary power over the procedural incidents of constitutional amendments such as the ERA, including ratification time limits and rescissions. RBG’s legislative constitutionalism on both the substance and procedure of the ERA point to cautiously viable paths forward for both the resurgent ERA and future amendments aiming to secure the inclusion of previously disempowered people in our democracy.

September 8, 2022 in Constitutional, Judges, Legal History, Legislation | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, July 25, 2022

The Precarity of SCOTUS's LGBTQ Jurisprudence

Kyle Velte, The Precarity of Justice Kennedy's Queer Canon, 13 ConLawNOW 75 (2022)

This essay gives a brief overview of the legal and normative of impact of Justice Kennedy’s Queer Canon, a series of four LGBTQ cases written by Justice Kennedy over nearly two decades. The pro-LGBTQ outcomes in the Queer Canon cases made Justice Kennedy a hero to many LGBTQ people. It then explores Justice Kennedy’s fifth, and final, LGBTQ opinion, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. That case, which held that a traditional Christian baker would prevail on his First Amendment Free Exercise challenge to a state public accommodations law, was not the finale hoped for by the LGBTQ community. The essay next asks and answers the question: What will a post-Justice Kennedy Court mean for LGBTQ people and the 25 years of constitutional progress reflected in his Queer Canon? Through a comparative analysis of the Court’s two post-Justice Kennedy decisions, Bostock v. Clayton County and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Justice Kennedy’s Queer Canon, and his opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop, this essay contends that the progress made during the Justice Kennedy era is a fragile progress, one that is under threat by the current Court.

July 25, 2022 in Constitutional, Family, Judges, LGBT, SCOTUS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Historians Weigh in on All That is Wrong with the Legal History of the SCT's Abortion Decision

Patricia, The Dobbs Decision Looks to History to Rescind Roe

Friday’s Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization relies on history to rescind the constitutional right to a legal abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973. There’s just one problem: the history it relies on is not correct.

Writing for the majority in Dobbs, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. argues that Roe disrupted “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment” that had “persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.” But the real picture is far blurrier — and even once states began passing stricter abortion laws between the 1820s and 1880s, public sentiment did not follow. Few abortion providers were convicted under the new laws, indicating that most Americans didn’t see abortion as a crime.

Anglo-American common law initially guided the U.S. on abortion. Under common law, abortion was only punishable after “quickening,” defined as the moment the mother first felt fetal movement — typically between 16 to 22 weeks of gestation.

Reva Siegel, The Trump Court Limited Women’s Rights Using 19th-century Standards

But Dobbs is plainly a political project. Reversing Roe has been the animating goal of the conservative legal movement since it mobilized under the banner of originalism during the Reagan administration. Far from setting aside politics in favor of a neutral interpretation of law, Alito’s decision reveals how conservative judges encode movement goals and values under cover of highly selective historical claims.***

Justice Alito claims that tying the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s liberty guarantee to America’s “history and traditions” prevents the justices from imposing their own views on the case at hand. “In interpreting what is meant by the Fourteenth Amendment’s reference to 'liberty,’” he writes, “we must guard against the natural human tendency to confuse what that Amendment protects with our own ardent views about the liberty that Americans should enjoy.” Here he echoes the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote, in “Originalism: The Lesser Evil,” that looking to history “establishes a historical criterion that is conceptually quite separate from the preferences of the judge himself.”

But Dobbs shows why both of these claims are wrong. A judge’s turn to the historical record can just as easily disguise judicial discretion as constrain it.

In Dobbs, the Trump court defines the Constitution’s protections for liberty largely with reference to laws enacted in mid-19th-century America. During that period — conveniently enough — there was a campaign to ban abortion across the nation. (Alito includes an appendix enumerating many of these state statutes.) But consider what else was part of this period’s “history and traditions”: The law did not protect a wife’s right to control property, earnings, or sex in marriage; this was a period when the Supreme Court declared states could deny women the right to practice law and states could deny women the right to vote.

Why would the Supreme Court today tether the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s liberty guarantee to laws enacted by men with such a cramped view of women’s rights? The move is unprecedented.

Jill Hasday, On Roe, Alito Cites a Judge who Treated Women as Witches and Property

There are at least two problems with Alito’s reliance on history. First, Alito has misrepresented the actual historical record. As abundant historical research establishes, the common law that governed America in its first decades and beyond did not regulate abortion before “quickening” — the moment when a pregnant woman first detects fetal movement, which can happen as late as 25 weeks into pregnancy.

Alito reports that [Judge] Hale “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ ” while glossing over the key part of that passage. Hale wrote that abortion was a crime “if a woman be quick or great with child.” Note the “if.”

Second, Alito relies on sources such as Hale without acknowledging their entanglement with legalized male supremacy. The men who cited Hale as they constructed the early American legal order refused to give women the right to vote or to otherwise enjoy full citizenship. Relying on that history of injustice as a reason to deny modern women control over their own lives is a terrible argument but apparently the best Alito can do.

Hale was a man who believed women could be witches, assumed women were liars and thought husbands owned their wives’ bodies. It is long past time to leave that misogyny behind.

June 29, 2022 in Abortion, Constitutional, Judges, Legal History, Reproductive Rights, SCOTUS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, June 24, 2022

The SCOTUS Joint Dissent in Abortion Case Calls Out Women's Loss of Citizenship

A joint dissent by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is expressive in its attack on the philosophical and physical harms to women from the Court's reversal of the fifty-year right of women to choose whether or not to bear a child in choosing an abortion. 

For half a century, Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), have protected the liberty and equality of women. Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that the Constitution safeguards a woman’s right to decide for herself whether to bear a child. Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that in the first stages of pregnancy, the government could not make that choice for women. The government could not control a woman’s body or the course of a woman’s life: It could not determine what the woman’s future would be. See Casey, 505 U. S., at 853; Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U. S. 124, 171–172 (2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Respecting a woman as an autonomous being, and granting her full equality, meant giving her substantial choice over this most personal and most consequential of all life decisions.***

Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens. Yesterday, the Constitution guaranteed that a woman confronted with an unplanned pregnancy could (within reason able limits) make her own decision about whether to bear a child, with all the life-transforming consequences that act involves. And in thus safeguarding each woman’s reproductive freedom, the Constitution also protected “[t]he ability of women to participate equally in [this Nation’s] economic and social life.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 856. But no longer. As of today, this Court holds, a State can always force a woman to give birth, prohibiting even the earliest abortions. A State can thus transform what, when freely undertaken, is a wonder into what, when forced, may be a nightmare. Some women, especially women of means, will find ways around the State’s assertion of power. Others—those without money or childcare or the ability to take time off from work—will not be so fortunate. Maybe they will try an unsafe method of abortion, and come to physical harm, or even die. Maybe they will undergo pregnancy and have a child, but at significant personal or familial cost. At the least, they will incur the cost of losing control of their lives. The Constitution will, today’s majority holds, provide no shield, despite its guarantees of liberty and equality for all.***

We believe in a Constitution that puts some issues off limits to majority rule. Even in the face of public opposition, we uphold the right of individuals—yes, including women—to make their own choices and chart their own futures. Or at least, we did once.

***

We referred there to the “people” who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment: What rights did those “people” have in their heads at the time? But, of course, “people” did not ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Men did. So it is perhaps not so surprising that the ratifiers were not perfectly attuned to the importance of reproductive rights for women’s liberty, or for their capacity to participate as equal members of our Nation. Indeed, the ratifiers—both in 1868 and when the original Constitution was approved in 1788—did not understand women as full members of the community embraced by the phrase “We the People.” In 1868, the first wave of American feminists were explicitly told—of course by men—that it was not their time to seek constitutional protections. (Women would not get even the vote for another half-century.) To be sure, most women in 1868 also had a foreshortened view of their rights: If most men could not then imagine giving women control over their bodies, most women could not imagine having that kind of autonomy. But that takes away nothing from the core point. Those responsible for the original Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment, did not perceive women as equals, and did not recognize women’s rights. When the majority says that we must read our foundational charter as viewed at the time of ratification (except that we may also check it against the Dark Ages), it consigns women to second-class citizenship.

The dissent finds it clear that other constitutional rights of liberty interests are now threatened:

And no one should be confident that this majority is done with its work. The right Roe and Casey recognized does not stand alone. To the contrary, the Court has linked it for decades to other settled freedoms involving bodily integrity, familial relationships, and procreation. Most obviously, the right to terminate a pregnancy arose straight out of the right to purchase and use contraception. See Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972). In turn, those rights led, more recently, to rights of same-sex intimacy and marriage. See Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558 (2003); Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015). They are all part of the same constitutional fabric, protecting autonomous decisionmaking over the most personal of life decisions. The majority (or to be more accurate, most of it) is eager to tell us today that nothing it does “cast[s] doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Ante, at 66; cf. ante, at 3 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (advocating the overruling of Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell). But how could that be? The lone rationale for what the majority does today is that the right to elect an abortion is not “deeply rooted in history”: Not until Roe, the majority argues, did people think abortion fell within the Constitution’s guarantee of liberty. Ante, at 32. The same could be said, though, of most of the rights the majority claims it is not tampering with. The majority could write just as long an opinion showing, for example, that until the mid-20th century, “there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain [contraceptives].” Ante, at 15. So one of two things must be true. Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid19th century are insecure. Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy, or additional constitutional rights are under threat. It is one or the other. ***

The Court’s precedents about bodily autonomy, sexual and familial relations, and procreation are all interwoven—all part of the fabric of our constitutional law, and because that is so, of our lives. Especially women’s lives, where they safeguard a right to self-determination.

And eliminating that right, we need to say before further describing our precedents, is not taking a “neutral” position, as JUSTICE KAVANAUGH tries to argue.

June 24, 2022 in Abortion, Constitutional, Judges, LGBT, Reproductive Rights, SCOTUS | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Feminist Judging: Theories and Practices

Kristin Kalsem, Feminist Judging: Theories and Practices, in Oxford Handbook of Feminism and Law in the U.S. (Deborah L. Brake, Martha Chamallas & Verna L. Williams, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2022 Forthcoming)

This chapter begins by examining the original liberal feminist goal of increasing the number of women judges to attain equal gender representation. Part I canvases multiple reasons why greater gender diversity on the bench is desirable, from its symbolic value to its potential for reducing and counteracting implicit bias of legal actors. It also charts how scholarship has grown to encompass “outsider” judges, marked by race, ethnicity, and other marginalized identities, with particular attention to the experiences of female judges of color.

Part II then turns to analyzing scholarship that focuses on the ideal of “feminist judging.” It recounts how, borrowing from cultural feminism, feminist scholars have applied the concept of an “ethic of care” and discussed the possibilities and impacts of empathetic judging. Lastly, it explores how feminist judging takes into consideration the racial and gender dimensions of controversies and brings context to the forefront, employing an intersectional and social justice lens.

Moving from theory to practice, Part III discusses two recent scholarly projects that integrate feminist judging into the real-world practices of judges. One such project applies the methods of legal participatory action research (“legal PAR”) to design and implement a state wide judicial training on best practices in intimate partner abuse cases. Using a community-based research and problem-solving paradigm, legal PAR effectuates a bottom-up approach to law and policymaking. The second project – the Feminist Judgments project -- critiques the idea of judicial objectivity and reimagines landmark legal cases through the rewriting of judicial opinions from feminist perspectives. Inspired in the United States by similar projects in Canada and Great Britain, it has grown from a volume of twenty-five rewritten U.S. Supreme Court opinions to multiple volumes devoted to specific areas of law like employment discrimination and reproductive justice.

Part IV concludes with considerations for future feminist agendas in reaching the end goal of achieving social justice in the process and outcomes of judging. Throughout, this chapter is guided by the belief that what judges decide, as well as the process through which they reason and explain their decisions, matters.

June 7, 2022 in Courts, Judges, Women lawyers | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, June 2, 2022

Study of Gender-Based Judging on Swedish Supreme Court Shows Little Effect of Gender

Johan Lindholm, Mattias Derlen & Daniel Naurin, 'Nevertheless, She Persisted': Gender and Dissent on the Swedish Supreme Court 

From the abstract:

In line with gender-based stereotypes and ideals of female agreeability and cooperativeness, research has shown that women tend to cooperate more and compete less than men (the competitiveness theory). The article empirically studies whether Swedish Supreme Court Justices practice of writing dissenting opinions follows the gender-based patterns that can be expected from the competitiveness theory. Issuing dissenting opinions is a well-established practice on the Supreme Court, but it is also a public form of collegial disagreement that is potentially especially socially costly for female Justices. We therefore hypothesize that female Justices avoid writing dissenting opinions, particularly alone, and help foster agreement on panels compared to male Justices. These hypotheses are not supported by the data and the behavior of Swedish Supreme Court Justices thus does not follow the competitiveness theory. We propose some explanations for this result, which runs counter to previous research, and point to possible future research.

The conclusion from the introduction:

Generally speaking, however, empirical evidence of an effect of gender on merit-based voting in previous research must be characterized as relatively weak. As observed by Leonard and Ross (2020, 278), “anyone hoping to find convincing evidence of consistent gender differences in decisions across a broad range of issues would be sorely disappointed by the extant literature”. The lack of more clear and strong empirical evidence of gender-based differences in judicial behavior is commonly explained by what is often characterized as the organizational theory. According to this theory, gender-based differences in judicial behavior are tempered by professional and organizational factors. While there is room for different legal reasoning, judges are restricted by the relatively narrow scope of what, in the mind of judges and other lawyers, constitutes acceptable legal reasoning and interpretations of the law, and individuals that fail to show an ability to act in accordance with and within these limits will have a difficult time becoming judges. In this way, the characteristics of the law in combination with the process involved in becoming a judge – a process that starts with an individual graduating from law school and ends with a judicial appointment – will both select individuals that behave in a particular way and shape those individuals’ behavior to conform with what the profession considers acceptable and appropriate behavior. Moreover, an argument can be made that the pressure to conform to existing (male-based) norms and to prove their competence is particularly strong on women who come in as ‘outsiders’ to judicial institutions that have traditionally been a male dominated environment (Davis, Haire, and Songer 1993, 133; see also Boyd, Epstein, and Martin 2010, 392; Boyd 2016, 790; Sisk, Heise, and Morriss 1998, 1453–1454). If
correct, the organizational theory could explain why previous research has not been able to show a strong and consistent effect of gender on merits voting.

June 2, 2022 in Courts, Gender, International, Judges | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, May 12, 2022

More Reliance on Witch Trial-esque Precedent in the Draft Dobbs Opinion and the Case of Eleanor Beare

In the draft Dobbs opinion (p.17), Justice Alito writing for the majority to overturn Roe v. Wade and Casey, features as precedent the 1732 English case of Eleanor Beare.  He uses this case to bolster his point that abortion was a crime "dating all the way back to the 13th century."   

Alito says:

In 1732, for example, Eleanor Beare was convicted of "destroying the Foetus in the Womb" of another woman and "there-by causing her to miscarry." For that crime and another "misdemeanor" Beare was sentenced to two days in the pillory and three years' imprisonment.

The authority he cites to is 2 Gentleman's Magazine 931 (Aug. 1732).  The citation and case are in Dellapenna, Dispelling the Myths of Abortion, a book heavily relied on as the key authority for Alito's history.  Dellapenna is a retired law professor with an expertise in water rights turned anti-abortion advocate.  Alito excoriates the Roe majority for its "unsupportable" reliance on the work of Cyril Means, a pro-choice supporter who Alito says provided work "the guise of impartial scholarship while advancing the proper ideological goals."  Op. at 27.  Yet Alito does precisely that here, just selecting an advocate from the anti-abortion side.

Online sources provide a a summary of the trial and what appears to be a transcript of The Tryal of Eleanor Beare of Derby, England.  Authenticity is certainly a question as to these sources, but they match quotes used by Alito in his opinion.  The trial summary is from The Newgate Calendar, a popular literary book of the 18th and 19th century editorializing and moralizing about legal cases.  

Like the Salem witch trials, the proceedings including hearsay, finger pointing by neighbors and former friends, and lack of counsel for the defendant.  Eleanor, apparently a midwife and the wife of a "labourer," is asked by three clients to assist in an abortion, and in another case healing a wife who took poison from another.  The first charge of homicide seems to carry the case and sentence, as Beare is alleged to have helped a man she met at a bar poison the wife he hated.  No allegation of pregnancy or abortion in that charge.  Beare, cross-examining herself, says wasn't I just helping you save your wife whom you had poisoned with poison you got from a Mary Tecmans?   

Eleanor is punished for these misdemeanors by sentence of standing in the pillory in the marketplace--the stockade of arms and head in the town square--where members of the community pummeled her with eggs, turnips, stones, "and any other filth they could collect." Annals of Crime in the Midland Circuit, or Biographies  of Noted Criminals (1859).  "She knelt down, and begged mercy of the still outrageous mob."  Id.  "Stones were thrown, which wounded her to such a degree, that her blood streamed down the pillory." Id.  This "somewhat appeased the resentment" of the crowd, and she was returned to jail. Id.

May 12, 2022 in Abortion, Judges, Legal History, Reproductive Rights, SCOTUS | Permalink | Comments (0)