Celebrating US Feminist Judgments Employment Discrimination + Essay on Bostock

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Congratulations to Ann McGinley, Nicole Porter and all of the fantastic contributors on the publication of Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Employment Discrimination Opinions (Cambridge University Press 2020)!

Separate and apart from the book, project participants Ann McGinley (UNLV), Nicole Porter (Toledo), Danielle Weatherby (Arkansas), Ryan Nelson (Harvard Law Research Associate), Pamela Wilkins (Mercer) and Catherine Archibald (Detroit-Mercy) have written a thoughtful essay here, published by the University of Connecticut Law Review, responding to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock. Here is an excerpt:

[G]iven our experiences rewriting and editing opinions from feminist perspectives, we have something to say about Bostock and its significance for LGBTQ+ employment cases and employment discrimination law more broadly. Accordingly, we wrote this essay, which has three goals: first, to introduce our book; second, to analyze the Bostock case and its effect on employment discrimination law as it relates to sexual orientation and gender identity; and third, to discuss more broadly the effect of Bostock on employment discrimination jurisprudence through a feminist lens. Throughout the essay, we are attempting to answer the question of whether Bostock is a feminist opinion. Our answers are varied and even uncertain; but ultimately, we conclude that even though we, as feminists, might have written it differently, the LGBTQ+ community deserves to celebrate this momentous victory.

The full piece is available here.

I haven’t done a full count, but UNLV *might* be the faculty with the greatest number of participants in the overall U.S. Feminist Judgments Project. This press release from UNLV notes the participation of Professor Kathryn Stanchi (co-convener,  U.S, Feminist Judgments Project) and Professor Linda Berger (co-convener, U.S. Feminist Judgments Project) and me as editors of the first volume in the series, “Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court.” Other UNLV Law faculty whose contributions have appeared in the series also are Professor Leslie Griffin, Professor Francine Lipman, Professor Elizabeth MacDowell, Professor Addie Rolnick, and Professor Stacey Tovino (now at the University of Oklahoma College of Law). Professor Frank Rudy Cooper serves the Advisory Panel of the Employment Discrimination volume.

H/T Francine Lipman.

 

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#BlackTaxpayersMatter: Intersection of Race, Tax Systems, Laws and Enforcement

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#BlackTaxpayersMatter: Intersection of Race, Tax Systems, Laws and Enforcement

Date: Friday, February 5, 2021

Time: 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. EST

Format: Free non-CLE Webinar

Sponsor: ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Co-Sponsors: ABA Center for Human Rights, ABA Center for Public Interest Law, ABA Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights & Responsibilities, ABA Commission on Homelessness & Poverty, ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, ABA Death Penalty Representation Project, ABA Diversity and Inclusion Center, ABA Law Student Division, ABA Section of State and Local Government Law, ABA Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section, ABA Young Lawyers Division, American Tax Policy Institute, CPA Academy, National Tax Association

DESCRIPTION: 

The United States exhibits wider disparities of wealth than any other major developed nation. Over the past five decades, wealth has increasingly concentrated among the highest-income households. These households are disproportionately white and male. In 2018, three white men held aggregate wealth greater than the aggregate wealth of one-half of all Americans. The median white household has 41 times more wealth than the median Black household and 22 times more wealth than the median Latinx household. On average women earn less than men in all industries. At the intersection of race and gender the gaps are even more shocking. Women of color are disproportionately poor, suffering poverty rates of 21.4% Black women, 18.7% Latinas, and 22.8% Native American women, as compared to 7% for white men. Moreover, education, work, and marriage and other attributes that fall under the rubric of “personal responsibility” do not remedy these disparities. White heads of household without a high school education have on average more wealth than college educated Black heads of households. White households with a single white parent have more than twice the net worth of two parent Black households. White households with an unemployed head have a higher net worth than Black households with a head who is working full time. 

In short, something must be done to reverse these racist trends. Tax and spending systems are the most profound fiscal tools under the government’s control. Many aspects of tax systems worsen inequality, especially the racial wealth gap. Three nationally recognized expert panelists will provide a deep dive into institutional racism in tax systems. The panel will begin with a broad overview focusing on racism in international and domestic tax systems targeting Black and Latinx taxpayers. The focus will then narrow further looking at the disparate impact of taxpayer audits on communities of color. Finally, panelists will suggest concrete strategies to start to remedy these wrongs.

Speakers:

  • Donnie Charleston – Director, Public Policy & Advocacy, E Pluribus Unum
  • Steven Dean – Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
  • Francine J. Lipman – William S. Boyd Professor of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law

Moderator:

Register HERE: https://americanbar.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oanKfWmMRjGdvOZcZJBvwg 

The Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice is the only ABA membership entity solely dedicated to the advancement of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and social justice. We invite you to become involved with critical legal and public policy issues by joining one or more Section committees. You may want to become part of a committee to learn more about developments in a particular issue area. Or you may choose to take a more active role by participating in or organizing specific activities. Whatever your area of interest or specialization, we have a home for you.  To get involved, join us here.

 

 

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Guide to Submitting to Specialty Law Reviews and Journals in Gender, Women & Sexuality

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I’ve updated this guide to submitting to 29 specialty law reviews and law journals classified by the W&L Law Journal Rankings under the subject  “Gender, Women and Sexuality,” as well as  5 additional journals with the word “gender” in the title. 

The document contains information about word count limitations, submission details, whether the HeinOnline Law Journal Library indexes the journal’s articles, and other guidelines authors may find relevant when considering sending their work to specialty law reviews in Gender, Women & Sexuality.

Details vary widely from journal to journal. Not all journals accept unsolicited contributions (or are still in existence!).

Corrections, additions, refinements are very welcome.

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@ColoLaw Names 4 Dean Finalists — All Women!

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The four finalists for the deanship at Colorado Law are:

  • Michèle Alexandre, dean and professor of law, Stetson University College of Law.
  • Johanna Bond, Sydney and Frances Lewis Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law.
  • Lolita Buckner Inniss, senior associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law, University Distinguished Professor and inaugural Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.
  • Sarah Krakoff, Moses Lasky Professor of Law, University of Colorado Law School.

Details here.

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Tribute to Deborah Rhode by Joanna Grossman, Katharine Bartlett & Deborah Brake

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Over at Verdict (here), Joanna Grossman (SMU), Kate Bartlett (Duke) and Debbie Brake (Pitt) have posted a beautiful tribute to their friend, colleague and co-author Deborah Rhode, who died earlier this month at the age of 68.  Professors Rhode, Grossman, Bartlett and Brake were the co-authors of the casebook Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary. Here is an excerpt from the tribute:

While it would be impossible to reduce Professor Rhode’s scholarship to a few themes, one of the insights she brought to bear in much of her theory and practice was what she coined “the ‘no-problem’ problem.” (Although she first used this phrase much earlier, she elaborates on the meaning in this piece.) The basic insight was this: people assume that because women have made such great strides in education and employment, progress will continue until full gender equity is achieved. * * *

She was unfailingly supportive and collaborative in the best sense as a coauthor, always open to other perspectives and to compromise. She approached our work as an opportunity for growth, not a platform for her own agenda. The words she most often used to describe collaborative projects were “great fun.”

What also stands out is the exceptional generosity she exhibited toward others, especially to junior women colleagues. This generosity was vividly conveyed this past weekend when the news of her death went out across the women’s law prof listserv. Dozens of emails crossed, with vivid remembrances of how Professor Rhode had mentored and befriended so many students and women faculty.

Read the full piece here.

May Deborah Rhode’s memory be a blessing.

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Bye-Bye U.K Tampon Tax

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Global Citizen has a good write-up here about the elimination of VAT on menstrual products, coincident with Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, as of January 1, 2021.

Other than Ireland, all other EU countries impose a VAT on menstrual products.

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Remembering Deborah Rhode, 1952-2021

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Stanford Law School has posted a wonderful tribute here. An excerpt follows:

“Deborah was a pioneering woman on the Stanford faculty when she joined the law school in 1979. A beloved teacher and mentor to many, she will be missed by her faculty colleagues, current and former students, and generations of lawyers and legal scholars across the globe,” said Jenny S. Martinez, Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean. “She was a tireless advocate for a vision of law as public service, and an advocate in the profession for women, people of color, and others who felt marginalized.  At a personal level, she was also a cherished friend.  I have so many wonderful memories of conversations and walks with her.  From the moment I joined the faculty as an assistant professor, she always had an encouraging word, good advice, or a bit of dry humor to make the best of a bad day. It is hard for me to imagine Stanford Law School without her.”

Deborah L. Rhode was born to Frederick and Hertha Rhode in Evanston, Illinois, on January 29, 1952. In high school near Chicago during the late 1960s, she was a nationally ranked debater; one of her favorite rivals was Merrick Garland, who went on to become a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and President-elect Biden’s nominee to be U.S. Attorney General.

Rhode entered Yale College in 1970—part of only the second class to include women. She became the first woman president of the Yale Varsity Debate Association (her predecessors included John Kerry and William F. Buckley, Jr.) and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. She attended Yale Law School, where she was editor of the Yale Law Journal and director of the Moot Court Board. She graduated in 1977 and clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979—only the second woman granted tenure.

At Stanford Law, Rhode was a mentor to students and new colleagues alike, often forming life-long bonds. * * *

Rhode walked the walk with mentoring—quite literally.

“Her walks were legendary; she regularly invited colleagues, especially more junior colleagues, to walk with her to provide support and mentorship. I always admired the candor, authenticity, warmth, care for one’s well-being, and commitment to service that Deborah modeled throughout all my interactions with her over the years, including those regular afternoon walks,” added [Shirin] Sinnar [JD ’03, professor of law and John A. Wilson Faculty Scholar].

Anyone who wishes is invited by Stanford to share memories or photos of Professor Rhode here (with the caveat that the school may share the material on social media and elsewhere).

The date for a memorial service has not yet been announced, but according to Stanford’s announcement, “donations may be made to the Deborah L. Rhode Pro Bono Fund at Stanford Law School, which was established and underwritten by Deborah earlier in 2020 to support students providing pro bono services to communities in need.” Donations can be made via the Stanford website, here.

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Hiring Announcement: Florida A&M University College of Law Seeking Director of Legal Research and Writing

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Florida A&M University College of Law welcomes applications for appointment to the position of tenured Associate or Full Professor of Law and Director of Legal Research and Writing to administer and direct the College of Law’s Legal Research and Writing Program and to teach Legal Research and Writing I and II courses on a full-time basis at its Orlando, Florida, location starting in the 2021-2022 academic year.  Responsibilities of the Director include teaching one section of first-year Legal Research & Writing I and II each term, developing uniform research and writing assignments in consultation with other Legal Writing Instructors, and administering and overseeing the program. This position is a full-time tenure track or tenured faculty position.  The Director of Legal Research and Writing position is a nine (9) month contractual position. Ideally, applicants should have five (5) or more years of teaching experience at the law school level, academic records denoting excellence, and a demonstrated commitment to teaching, scholarship and research, and service.     The Legal Writing Director will have responsibility for administering our day and evening programs and may teach in either the day or evening programs, depending on curricular need.   

Located in beautiful and sunny downtown Orlando – one of the most highly sought venues in the southeastern United States – the College is housed in a 160,000 square foot, state of the art facility.  Strategically situated in the heart of Orlando’s thriving downtown business community, the College of Law lies within walking distance of federal and state courts, major law firms, art galleries and important civic arenas.  The College of Law has a current enrollment of more than 500 full and part-time students. The student body ranks as one of the most diverse in the nation. The College of Law boasts a diverse faculty composed of thoughtful and productive scholars from nearly every walk of legal life, including diplomatic, military, and government service, large and small private law practice, international organizations, and the judiciary. Increasing the number of minority lawyers in Florida able to practice law upon passing the bar is central to the College’s mission.     

Minimum Qualifications: Applicants for this position must possess a JD degree from an ABA-accredited law school, be admitted to the bar in any state, have a strong academic record, and excellent writing and communication skills.  Applicants should have at least five (5) years of legal work experience beyond graduation from their JD degree. Preference will be given to candidates with strong post-law school experience as instructors or professors at the college, university, and law school levels; in the practice of law; and as judicial law clerks at the federal and state levels. 

Additional Details:  Florida A&M University College of Law is an equal opportunity employer and is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community. Candidates from underrepresented and underserved groups are encouraged to apply. 

For a full description of the position, and to apply electronically, please visit: http://www.famu.edu/index.cfm?hr&Careers@FAMU.

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Hiring Announcement: Florida A&M University College of Law Seeking Director of Legal Clinics and Field Placement Program

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Florida A&M University College of Law welcomes applications for appointment to the position of tenured Associate or Full Professor of Law and Director of Legal Clinics and Field Placement Program to administer and direct the College of Law’s clinic and field placement program and to teach clinic and field placement courses on a full-time basis at its Orlando, Florida, location starting in the 2021-2022 academic year. Responsibilities of the Director include administering and overseeing the program, and developing systems, procedures, policies and programs to ensure the maintenance and growth of a viable, visible, dynamic and nationally recognized law school clinical and field placement program that supports the mission of the College of Law. The Director of the program manages the day-to-day administration of operational details of the clinics and the field placements in a manner that supports and enhances the overall functioning of the program, and ensures that goals and objectives specified for the program are accomplished in accordance with priorities, time and funding limitations, University policies or other specifications. This position is a twelve (12) month contractual full-time tenure track or tenured faculty position. Ideally, applicants should have five (5) or more years of teaching experience at the law school level, academic records denoting excellence, and a demonstrated commitment to teaching, scholarship and research, and service. Clinical faculty teach in both the day and evening programs, depending on curricular need.

Located in beautiful and sunny downtown Orlando – one of the most highly sought venues in the southeastern United States – the College is housed in a 160,000 square foot, state of the art facility. Strategically situated in the heart of Orlando’s thriving downtown business community, the College of Law lies within walking distance of federal and state courts, major law firms, art galleries and important civic arenas.  The College of Law has a current enrollment of approximately 500 full and part-time students. The student body ranks as one of the most diverse in the nation.  

Minimum Qualifications: Applicants for this position must possess a JD degree from an ABA-accredited law school, have a strong academic record, and excellent writing and communication skills. The successful candidate must have been admitted to a state bar and, if not already a member of the Florida bar, become so within 18 months of accepting the appointment. Applicants should have at least five (5) years of legal work experience beyond graduation from their JD degree. Preference will be given to candidates with strong post-law school experience as instructors or professors at the college, university, and law school levels; in the practice of law; and as judicial law clerks at the federal and state levels. 

Additional Details:  Florida A&M University College of Law is an equal opportunity employer and is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community. Candidates from underrepresented and underserved groups are encouraged to apply.  

For a full description of the position, and to apply electronically, please visit: http://www.famu.edu/index.cfm?hr&Careers@FAMU.  

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In Memoriam: Deborah Rhode

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Via colleagues at Stanford and elsewhere, we have received sad news of the passing of Professor Deborah Rhode.  Professor Rhode was a friend and mentor to so many feminist law professors and others.

Here is information from her faculty bio page at Stanford:

Deborah L. Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and the Director of the Center on the Legal Profession. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Yale College and received her JD from Yale Law School. She clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979.

She is the founding chair of the Section on Leadership of the Association of American Law Schools and was the founding president of the International Association of Legal Ethics, a former president of the Association of American Law Schools, a former chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, a former founding director of Stanford’s Center on Ethics, a former director of Stanford’s Institute of Research on Women and Gender, a former director of Stanford’s Program on Social Entrepreneurship, and a former trustee of Yale University. She worked as counsel to the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.

She is the nation’s most frequently cited scholar on legal ethics. She is the author of 30 books in the fields of professional responsibility, leadership, and gender, law and public policy. She has received the American Bar Association’s Michael Franck award for contributions to the field of professional responsibility; the American Bar Foundation’s W. M. Keck Foundation Award for distinguished scholarship on legal ethics, the American Foundation’s Distinguished Scholar award, the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Publico Award for her work on expanding public service opportunities in law schools, and the White House’s Champion of Change award for a lifetime’s work in increasing access to justice.

We will share additional information as we receive it.

May her memory be a blessing.

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Faculty Hiring Announcement – University of Dayton School of Law

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The University of Dayton School of Law invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position to begin August 16, 2021. Areas of particular need include contracts, secured transactions, business organizations, property, wills and trusts, and/or tax.

Applicants must have a J.D. or the equivalent degree from a foreign institution. While not everyone may possess all the preferred qualifications, the ideal candidate will bring many of the following: an outstanding academic record; a record of publication; demonstrated potential to be an outstanding teacher; potential to successfully mentor students from underrepresented groups; demonstrated and successful experience working with people from diverse backgrounds; relevant prior experience in law practice; excellent communication skills; effective interpersonal skills with various constituencies; interest in and/or experience teaching contracts, secured transactions, business organizations, property, wills and trusts, and/or tax, an expressed willingness and enthusiasm to teach in and develop UDSL’s hybrid online J.D. program and to engage with Catholic and Marianist educational values that promote inclusive excellence. 

Applications must be received by February 1, 2021. Applications should include a cover letter and CV and must be submitted through the University of Dayton’s electronic employment site: https://employment.udayton.edu/cw/en-us/job/498365/assistant-professor. References will not be contacted until second round interviews. Inquiries may be directed to the Faculty Recruitment and Development Committee at lawfacultyhiring@udayton.edu.

The University of Dayton School of Law is a dynamic law school focused on inclusive excellence. In Spring 2020, National Jurist’s preLaw magazine ranked UD Law 14th in the nation for African American students. To meet the needs of its growing J.D. program, the UD Law has hired 13 nationally and internationally prominent faculty in the last four years.

The University of Dayton is a top tier, Catholic research university with offerings from the undergraduate to the doctoral levels. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, the University is a diverse community committed to advancing the common good through intellectual curiosity, academic rigor, and community engagement with local, national and global partnerships. Guided by the Marianist education philosophy, we educate the whole person and link learning and scholarship with leadership and service. 

Informed by its Catholic and Marianist mission, the University is committed to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In light of this commitment, we seek to increase diversity, achieve equitable outcomes, and model inclusion across our campus community. As an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer, we will not discriminate against minorities, women, protected veterans, individuals with disabilities, or on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

The University is also pleased to provide support for spouses of prospective and newly hired faculty through its dual career program. While we cannot guarantee placement, we serve as an effective resource and support system for your spouse. Information can be found at http://www.udayton.edu/hr/employee_resources/dual_career_resources.php

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Congratulations to Liz Schneider and Ben Liptzin!

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Today’s New York Times has a lovely wedding announcement/profile of Liz Schneider (Brooklyn Law) and Dr. Benjamin Liptzin. Here is an excerpt:

“Never in my life did I imagine until I met Ben, I could meet someone I had so much in common with,” said Professor Schneider, who lived in Greenwich Village. She teaches civil procedure as well as gender and law at Brooklyn Law School. She received a master’s degree in political sociology from the London School of Economics and a law degree from N.Y.U.

 
 
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“Both of us had been pioneers in our fields of work and got tremendous pleasure in mentoring people,” she said, and she also considered him “handsome, smart, warm and funny.”

[I]n March, when the pandemic set in, she began teaching remotely from his place.

“When you’re cooped up in a house 24 hours, seven days a week, it made it clear how much we loved being together,” he said. On Oct. 25, 2020, he proposed there.

They were married Dec. 20 via Zoom by Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch under a huppah at Dr. Liptzin’s house in Stockbridge, Mass., while about 300 friends and family from around the world livestreamed the two-hour celebration, which was hosted by her son in Singapore and his son in Denver.

Congratulations to the bride and groom!

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Livia Gershon on How Women Lost Status in Saloons @JSTOR_Daily

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From JSTOR: How Women Lost Status In Saloons, an article by Livia Gershon. Link here. 

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Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Faculty Hiring Announcement

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Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Health Law Position – Tenured or Tenure Track

Loyola University New Orleans is now accepting applications for a tenure-track or tenured position in Health Law to begin August 1, 2021. We particularly welcome candidates whose research and teaching interests include health equity. If you are interested in applying,  please send your curriculum vitae and cover letter to resumes@loyno.edu. All ranks will be considered. Inquiries may be sent to the Chair of the Appointments Committee, Professor Bobby Harges at harges@loyno.edu.  

About the Position

The College of Law offers a certificate in Health Law for J.D. students and has recently launched a Masters and LL.M. in Health Law and Administration.  The successful candidate will lead the Health Law Program, teach a mix of required and health law courses, and engage in research, writing, and publication. An experienced staff administrative director will work with the health law professor in continuing to develop a robust educational program for our students.

The Loyola Health Law Program is taught by a vibrant mix of full-time faculty and practicing health lawyers. New Orleans is a diverse city with a thriving health care sector. Loyola is fortunate to have significant connections to many local institutions and government leaders to facilitate research and immediate impact in the community. The College of Law is noted for its long-standing commitment to social justice and its innovative use of experiential learning.

We especially welcome applications from candidates who will add to the diversity of our educational community and who have demonstrated expertise in working with a diverse student body. J.D. or equivalent is required. Practice experience, an interest in interdisciplinary scholarship, and program development experience are plus factors. 

About the College of Law

The College of Law is located in a largely residential area of New Orleans, one of the most culturally diverse cities in the United States, with unique cuisine, numerous museums and historical sites, and a flourishing arts community.  New Orleans is also the seat of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as other lower courts.   The College of Law has a student population of approximately 500 students, over forty faculty members, active clinics that have spearheaded numerous social justice reform efforts, and summer programs in Europe and Central America.  Its location in Louisiana, one of the world’s best known “mixed jurisdictions,” provides unique opportunities for comparative and international law scholarship.

Loyola University New Orleans is an educational institution dedicated to fostering intellectual achievement, personal development, and social responsibility, and it is committed to the human dignity and worth of every person.  Loyola University New Orleans strives to create and maintain a working and learning environment in which individuals are treated with dignity, decency, and respect. The University acknowledges and values individual differences, including, but not limited to, the dimensions of race; color; sex; national origin; age; religion; gender identity; transgender status; sexual orientation; ethnicity; disability status; and marital status and citizenship status. We recognize that diversity enriches our social interactions and intellectual lives, and we strongly encourage applications from individuals who will bring diversity to the College of Law.

 

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The University of Oklahoma College of Law Faculty Search Announcement

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The University of Oklahoma College of Law 

Associate Professor of Law 

The University of Oklahoma College of Law seeks outstanding applicants, either entry level or pre-tenure lateral, to fill a full-time tenure-track position to begin fall semester 2021. Successful applicants must have a J.D. or equivalent academic degree, strong academic credentials, a commitment to excellence in teaching, and demonstrably outstanding potential for scholarship. We welcome candidates in all subject matter areas, with particular interest in filling curricular needs that include criminal law, family law, constitutional law, wills and trusts, bankruptcy, and real estate transactions. 

The University of Oklahoma is committed to achieving a diverse, equitable, and inclusive university community by embracing each person’s unique contributions, background, and perspectives. The University recognizes that fostering an inclusive environment for all, with particular attention to the needs of historically marginalized populations, is vital to the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of our institutional mission. This enhances the OU experience for all students, faculty and staff, and for the communities that we engage. In keeping with OU’s commitment in this regard, a successful applicant should demonstrate a commitment to cultural competence. The University of Oklahoma is an Equal Opportunity institution http://www.ou.edu/eoo/. Individuals with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.

As part of the state’s flagship university, OU Law stands out as a high-quality, affordable, and forward-looking institution committed to developing a socially involved and inclusive modern legal profession. OU Law boasts world-class facilities and an increasingly diverse student body, with over a third of the 2020 entering students identifying as racial minorities. OU Law’s strong and growing national reputation is buttressed by a commitment to attracting, retaining, and supporting excellent faculty with publication placement bonuses, course reductions based on scholarly productivity, and recent increases to an already impressive number of endowed positions.

Our law school sits on the main OU campus in Norman, a vibrant university town alive with entertainment, arts, food, and sports. A perennial on “best place to live” rankings, Norman has excellent public schools and a low cost of living. Situated within the greater Oklahoma City Metro area, Norman is an easy commute to Oklahoma City which features a dynamic economy, outstanding cultural venues, and ready air travel access, adding to the region’s growing national appeal. Visit http://www.ou.edu/flipbook and http://soonerway.ou.edu for more information. 

Application Procedure: To apply, please submit a curriculum vitae and your job talk paper to Melanie Tijerina, Faculty Support, ATTN: Faculty Appointments Committee EO Search #128, University of Oklahoma College of Law, 300 Timberdell Rd., Norman, OK 73019 or mtijerina@ou.edu. A cover letter is optional. If selected for an interview, teaching evaluations will be requested. Application review will begin immediately, but the position will remain open until filled.

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New Planned Smithsonian Museums: The Identity Debates Continue

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The New York Times recently ran a story (here) about two new proposed Smithsonian Museums: a National Museum of the American Latino and a national women’s history museum. Funding approval for both museums came as part of the year-end COVID relief bill, but it is likely to be at least 10 years before either opens its doors.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) opposed the creation of both museums as “a matter of national unity and cultural inclusion,” suggesting that the histories highlighted by both intended museums should instead be integrated into existing Smithsonian museums.

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OSU Moritz College of Law – Alternative Dispute Resolution Faculty Position

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The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law seeks lateral candidates from the junior to the senior rank in the area of Alternative Dispute Resolution, broadly understood. We thus welcome expressions of active interest from faculty who research and write in the traditional ADR areas of arbitration, mediation, negotiation, restorative justice, international dispute resolution, or international commercial arbitration and mediation. We also welcome expressions of interest from faculty whose scholarship falls outside traditional ADR subjects. For example, we may be interested in considering candidates whose work engages community conflict and non-state-based forms of problem solving, community building and/or community organizing, diplomacy, environmental justice, mutual aid, peace studies, policing and its (non-carceral) alternatives, reparations, transformative and/or transitional justice, and truth and reconciliation.

Candidates should send a cover letter and C.V. by email to Martha Chamallas, chamallas.1@osu.edu, and Ari Glogower, glogower.2@osu.edu, expressing interest in being considered for this position. Applicants whose work is outside traditional ADR fields are encouraged—but not required—to use their cover letter to address how they see their work contributing to the field of ADR, while describing the traditional and non-traditional ADR courses that they would like to teach. 

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law is committed to building and maintaining a diverse and inclusive community to reflect human diversity and to improve opportunities for all. Diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice are essential to the excellence of our community, culture, and curriculum, and the pursuit of this excellence is critical to our educational mission. We value diversity in all of its dimensions, including race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, socioeconomic status, geography, physical and learning abilities, veteran status, and other viewpoint differences. We seek to reflect multiple perspectives, backgrounds, and interests in all facets of our community. The Ohio State University is committed to equal employment opportunity and does not discriminate on any basis prohibited by law in its activities, programs, admission, and employment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to a protected status.

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Austria Lowered Its Tampon Tax But Missed an Opportunity to Eliminate Its Discriminatory Law

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The Austria Federal Council (the upper house of the country’s parliament) has approved the COVID-19 Tax Measures Act. See here. Apart from the extension of the lower 5% VAT tax on certain sectors (such as hospitality) and the creation of 0% VAT rate for COVID-19 tests and vaccinations through 2022, it also reduced the VAT on menstrual products to 10%.

To my mind, this is a missed opportunity for Austria to reduce its VAT on menstrual products even further, to the EU minimum of 5%. As Carla Spivack and I have argued (here), we think the EU tax laws as applied to menstrual products are ripe for a human rights law challenge and should be zero.

In the U.S. context, Emily Waldman and I have argued (here) that state law taxes on menstrual products are unconstitutional. We’re eagerly awaiting progress in the case brought challenging Michigan’s sales tax on menstrual products.

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Spindelman on “The Constitutionality of Reason-Based Abortion Bans”

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Marc Spindelman (Ohio State) has published with the Georgetown Law Review Online his essay Embracing Casey: June Medical Services LLC v. Russo and the Constitutionality of Reason-Based Abortion Bans. Here is the abstract:

June Medical Services L.L.C. v. Russo has already begun gaining a certain reputation as a Trojan Horse: in form, a pro-choice ruling that overturns a Louisiana anti-abortion measure, but in substance, an anti-choice, pro-life decision that sets the stage for future reversals of the Supreme Court’s reproductive rights jurisprudence. Without denying that prospect, this work identifies different possibilities afoot in June Medical, specifically, in Chief Justice John Roberts’s key fifth-vote concurrence in the case. A close reading of this opinion shows that its reliance on stare decisis principles exceeds a jurisprudential commitment to a narrow understanding of the Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the concurrence’s immediate point of reference within the Court’s abortion rights jurisprudence. In a wider sense, the concurrence demonstrates a commitment to Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, and, by extension, what Casey preserved of Roe v. Wade.

Seen this way, Chief Justice Roberts’s June Medical opinion does not set a course for incrementalist reversals of abortion rights that will snowball into Casey’s and Roe’s shared demise. Subtly, if not perhaps finally, the Chief Justice’s June Medical concurrence signals an embrace of Casey that, functioning as a beachhead, should prospectively secure the constitutional foundations of women’s abortion rights.

Interwoven with the case for this understanding of the Chief Justice’s June Medical concurrence are multiple tallies of the constitutionality of an important set of pro-life legal measures—so-called “reason-based” abortion bans—that take direct aim at Casey’s post-Roe doctrinal framework, including one such measure from Ohio, presently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sitting en banc. Analysis of these measures demonstrates why “reason-based” abortion bans—which make the availability of abortions depend on the reasons that women have for choosing them—are unconstitutional both under Casey’s basic doctrinal framework and under the Chief Justice’s approach in June Medical. No matter how the Sixth Circuit decides the case on Ohio’s reason-based abortion ban now that June Medical has been handed down, the issue of the lawfulness of reason-based abortion bans may soon find its way to the Supreme Court. One way or another, the question of the meaning of the Chief Justice’s June Medical concurrence certainly will.

The full essay is available here.

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Updated Guide to Submitting Essays, Commentaries, Reviews to Online Law Review Companions

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I’ve updated and expanded my guide to submitting to online law review companions at 60 law schools. It is here on SSRN. 

As before, the document contains information about word count limitations, subject matter preferences, submission details and other guidelines authors may find relevant when considering sending their work to law review presences online. There’s a column indicating whether the online companion articles are included in the HeinOnline Law Journal Library.

Corrections, additions, refinements to this chart are always welcome.

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This Week in #MenstrualEquity News

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This week in menstrual equity news from around the world….

  • The Scottish Parliament passed a bill making menstrual products available at no charge to all who need them. Products will be in all schools (including university) and the government can direct that they be made available in other public buildings. More here.
  • The Italian Corriere della Sera published an op-ed (here) critiquing the Italian Parliament for rejecting a proposal to lower the VAT on menstrual products from 22% to 5%, noting that the government doesn’t want to give up revenue on the Italian market for menstrual products, estimated to be approximately 515 million Euros in size.
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Interview with Prof Deborah Gordon on Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Trusts & Estates Opinions

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In this interview, Professor Deborah Gordon (Drexel), one of the editors of Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Trusts & Estates Opinions (2020), talks about critical opinion writing and the challenges of rewriting opinions using precedents and facts in existence at the time of the original opinion.

Professor Gordon touches on rewritten opinions as a form of “scholarship,” Justice Cardozo, judicial perspectives, the contours of a collaborative scholarly project looks like, and working together to envision what might have been and what could be!

The Trusts & Estates volume is available from Cambridge University Press (here). Below the fold is a list of the cases and contributors. Continue reading

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Pace Law School Hiring Announcement

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Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Hiring Announcement

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University invites applications to fill up to two full-time, academic tenure-track/tenured faculty positions at the rank of assistant professor, associate professor, or professor. The positions will begin in August 2021. Applicants must be committed to providing excellent legal training both in person and online, engaging in meaningful service within the law school and in the broader community, and producing excellent scholarship.

Applicants should have teaching and research interests in any of the following areas: environmental law, natural resources law, sustainable business law, energy and climate law, public health law, contracts law, business law, and tax law. Applicants whose interests cover multiple of these areas are particularly encouraged to apply. We welcome applications from candidates interested in doctrinal, experiential, and/or clinical teaching.

Applicants seeking the rank of assistant professor should hold a J.D. from an accredited law school or an equivalent degree from a non-U.S. law school. A successful candidate will have an excellent academic record and demonstrated potential for accomplishment in teaching, scholarship and research, and service. Applications are encouraged from people of color, individuals of varied sexual and affectional orientations, individuals who are differently-abled, veterans of the armed forces or national service, and anyone whose background and experience will contribute to the diversity of the law school. Pace is committed to achieving completely equal opportunity in all aspects of University life.

Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law (Pace Law) offers J.D. and Masters of Law degrees in both Environmental and International Law, as well as a series of joint degree programs including a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) in Environmental Law. The school, housed on the University’s campus in White Plains, NY, opened its doors in 1976 and has over 8,000 alumni around the world. The school maintains a unique philosophy and approach to legal education that strikes an important balance between practice and theory. For more information visit http://law.pace.edu.

Please apply via https://careers.pace.edu/postings/16869. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. Direct any questions via email to Appointments Committee Chair, Professor Margot Pollans, mpollans@law.pace.edu.

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CFP: Trusts & Estates at LSA 2021

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Trusts & Estates Collaborative Research Network

Law and Society Association Annual Meeting

Chicago, Illinois (& Virtual), May 27-30, 2021

Call for Participation – Deadline December 31, 2020 11:59 PM ET(USA)

Submission Link: here

The Trusts & Estates Collaborative Research invites proposals for (i) individual papers to be organized into panels; (ii) fully-formed panel proposals; and (iii) proposals for other sessions such as Author Meets Reader, Salon, or Roundtable discussions that explore any aspect of the law, practice or effects of trusts, equity, and estates, broadly defined. We also seek volunteers to serve as Chairs and/or Discussants for paper panels. Successful proposals likely will bear in some way on succession (also referred to as inheritance), equity, and/or wealth transfers (whether at death or during lifetime, outright or in trust). Subjects of inquiry may involve any aspect of government or social policy with respect to trusts, estates, inheritance, wealth transfer, equity or courts with jurisdiction over these issues.

If you would like to present an individual paper as part of a Trusts and Estates CRN panel, submit an idea for a fully-formed panel, or propose an Author Meets Reader, Salon or Roundtable session, please  submit your proposal by December 30, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern (USA) via the LSA submission page here: https://lawandsociety.site-ym.com/page/CallforSubmissionsLSA2021

When you submit your proposal, please indicate that it is for CRN #56 Trusts and Estates. 

If you would like to volunteer as a chair or discussant, please email Bridget Crawford (bcrawford [at] law.pace.edu).

The CRN will organize submitted papers into panels with cohesive themes. You are welcome to link your paper in some way to the 2021 conference theme, “Crisis, Healing, Re-Imagining,” but there is no requirement to do so.

Our goal is to stimulate focused discussion of papers on which scholars are currently working and to discuss topics of current and common interest to those working in the fields of Trusts & Estates and Equity, broadly defined, both in the United States and internationally.  We welcome participation from scholars of any level of seniority working in any discipline, language, or country.  Although you may submit an individual proposal to present a paper that is closer to publication, we are especially interested in receiving proposals for works-in-progress that will benefit from discussion that the panels will provide.

We welcome participation of junior scholars, those who are untenured or in non-tenured positions, clinical and legal writing specialists, doctrinal teachers, advanced graduate students, as well as more experienced scholars. Scholars from around the world are warmly encouraged to apply; we welcome participation of colleagues from all nations.

Participants are encouraged to apply multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches in their scholarship. Possible areas of inquiry might include issues related to transfer of wealth between spouses or family members; preferences created for certain types of transfers or transfers to particular classes of individuals; the transfer of wealth to charities or non-profit organizations; generational equity; issues of social and economic inequality; comparative aspects of the law of succession and the law of trusts more broadly; the relationship between/among gender, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, immigration, language status, disability and the law of succession and the law of trusts; the socio-linguistics of testation and wealth transfer; access to estate planning justice for low- and middle-income individuals; questions of cultural or group inheritance rights; and similar issues.

Please note that LSA rules limit you to one conference participation as a Paper Presenter, Roundtable Participant, Author or Salon Presenter.  There are no caps on appearances as Chair and/or Discussant on a panel.

We will attempt to accommodate all who are interested in participating in the CRN’s programming.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact CRN chair Bridget Crawford (bcrawford [at] law.pace.edu).

 

 

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CFP: Transnational Legal Feminism – Beyond Western Hegemonies of International Law and Feminist Theory – Abstract Deadline Dec. 15

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Transnational Legal Feminism – Beyond Western Hegemonies of International Law and Feminist Theory 

A Transnational Legal Theory Journal Virtual Symposium in collaboration with London South Bank University and Cornell Law School’s India Law Center

25-26 March 2021

Overview

The Transnational Legal Theory Journal is publishing a special issue of articles on transnational legal feminism. We invite you to submit an abstract (due 15 December 2020) for consideration for the journal. Selected authors will be invited to submit papers (subject to peer review) that will be published in the Transnational Legal Theory Journal and presented in a virtual conference to be held on March 25th and 26th, 2021 in collaboration with the London South Bank University and the Cornell Law School.   Chandra Mohanty and Lama Abu-Odeh will be keynote speakers. 

Background

The Symposium aims at bringing together scholars and activists working on the intersection of international law, particularly those working on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), transnational law, and feminist legal theories to exchange notes from both research and practice. The relationship between international law and feminist theory has predominantly been shaped by Western feminisms, especially liberal and dominance feminisms. This is most clearly visible in the current international women’s rights agenda. While the effectiveness of the international human rights system has been questioned by a vast array of different scholars, the central theme of this Symposium 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.

Building on transnational and post-colonial feminist scholarship, as evidenced in the works of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Inderpal Grewal, and others, the Symposium centres on the idea of ‘transnational legal feminism.’ Problematising particularly the hegemony of Western feminist thought with its colonial roots and power asymmetries within international law and international feminist practice, the Symposium invites those critical voices that engage with alterity and difference across cultural divides – a task that both feminist theory and international law have grappled with in the past. It particularly aims to bring together researchers who have been working at the intersection of the emerging scholarship on transnational law and feminist theories. Transnational law has been arguing for an inquiry into the role of law in context through the consideration of the diverse actors, norms and processes that both legal scholarship and practice are faced with as a result of globalisation. With transnational legal scholarship offering a variety of tools and frameworks that could have potential for cross-border feminist research and practice in international law (and vice versa), the Symposium encourages applications by those who have been attempting to connect the two disciplines.

By allowing Western epistemologies and narratives of feminist theory, gender equality and human rights to create the very basis of the international gender equality framework, non-hegemonic approaches to women’s rights promotion have gone ignored leading to certain blind spots in both feminist research and practice. The Symposiums aims to draw attention to some of these blind spots by inviting submissions from scholars whose research engages in a more contextualised approach to feminist theory and practice by allowing for the inclusion of non-liberal knowledge and discourse that might find their roots outside of the Eurocentric understanding of law and gender equality. 

In this context, the Symposium will particularly focus on the following themes:

  • Power struggles between the Global South and Global North regarding gender equality issue and international law, including critiques of dominant perspectives
  • Non-hegemonic feminist theories and activism
  • Contextualised approaches to cross-border feminist praxis that challenge notions of universality
  • The effects of increased transnational neoliberal policies on gender-related and feminist issues
  • The potential (risks) of transnational feminist solidarity movement
  • How does transnational legal feminism intersect with the body of literature called “transnational law”?
  • What could a new transnational legal feminist approach entail?

Contributions are invited from scholars and activists in the field of law, gender studies, feminist theory, international relations and other disciplines that consider the kinds of questions listed above.

The ‘Transnational Legal Feminism Symposium 2021’ is organised in collaboration with the Transnational Legal Theory journal and will result in a special issue of the journal. As a result, accepted papers will be given to be published in this special issue after a peer review process.

The virtual Symposium, organised by London South Bank University and Cornell Law School’s India Law Center, will be held on March 25th and 26th, 2021. We are delighted to welcome Professor Chandra Talpade Mohanty (Syracuse University) is opening keynote speaker and Lama Abu-Odeh (Georgetown Law School) is our closing keynote speaker.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words, a short bio (max. 200 words), and your institutional affiliation to transnational_feminism@cornell.edu by 15 December 2020. Draft papers will be due to at the end of February 2021 with the final papers having to be submitted by the end of April 2021, after the Symposium.

Organisers:

Farnush Ghadery

London South Bank University
Transnational Law Institute

(King’s College London)

ghaderyf@lsbu.ac.uk

Sital Kalantry

Clinical Professor of Law

Faculty Director, Cornell India Law Center

Cornell Law School

skalantry@cornell.edu

 

 

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CFP: 2021 Detroit Mercy Law Review Symposium Pandemic: From Disparity to Equity

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The Detroit Mercy Law Review at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law has extended the deadline for proposals for its 105th annual symposium, which will be held March 5, 2021.  This year’s topic is Pandemic: From Disparity to Equity, focusing on disparities arising from the current COVID-19 pandemic and working from those toward an equitable new normal.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the role of law and regulation in light of the pandemic’s disparate impacts across race and class; the impact of pre-pandemic healthcare inequities in underserved communities; effects of the pandemic on education; managing prison release programs during pandemic; housing policy and eviction protections during and after pandemic; legal flexibility and fundamental rights within pandemic “hotspots”; and any other topic related to the law’s response to COVID-19’s effects across race and class.  Quality articles based on presentations made at the Symposium will be published in our annual Symposium edition.

Current plans call for the Symposium to take place entirely online.  In lieu of our usual reimbursement for travel expenses, presenters will be provided a $500 honorarium.

Submission Procedure
Proposals should be approximately 250–500 words, double-spaced, and must be submitted by e-mail no later than 5 p.m. EDT October 312020. Please submit proposals by e-mail to Marta Mazur, Symposium Director, at lawreview@udmercy.edu. In your e-mail, please indicate whether your proposal is for a presentation only or if you plan to submit an article based on your presentation.

Acceptances will be e-mailed on or before November 2, 2020. Preference for presentation times will be given to those also planning to submit an article for publication. Articles will be due to the Law Review on Friday, March 12, 2021.

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CFP: Symposium on the COVID Care Crisis and its Implications for Legal Academia

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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.

Symposium details

There will be no registration fee for presenters or other participants in order to maximize engagement and inclusivity. Panels will be grouped by theme and topic. The organizers are exploring publication opportunities with various law journals, with expected publication in late 2021. 

Abstract deadline

Abstracts must be submitted to Sarika Laljie by October 30, 2020. The authors of the selected papers will be notified by November 10, 2020.

Essay deadline

Essays for participating speakers are due by December 20, 2020.

Conference date

The conference will take place online on Friday, January 15, 2021.

Organizers

The symposium is organized by Prof. Shruti Rana (IU Bloomington), Prof. Meera Deo (TJSL) and Prof. Cyra Akila Choudhury (FIU) and is co-sponsored by the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, the Law School Survey of Student Experience, and the Critical Legal Academics and Scholars Collective. 

More info is available here.

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Battling Trolls, Goblins and Structural Sexism: How the Period Emoji Ended up on your Phone

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Guest post by Carmen Barlow and Lucy Russell

If you have a smartphone, it’s pretty likely you’ve used an emoji. These tiny images have become a language of their own and whether it’s a goblin mask, a sad cat or a robot, there’s an image for all manner of surreal and unexpected things. Yet up until October 2019 there wasn’t an image for menstruation, one of the most natural and frequently occurring aspects of girls and women’s bodies.

For decades in Britain, periods were embarrassing, fact. Talking about periods was taboo, period products were called ‘sanitary wear’ and adverts for them showed blue liquid, or better still, never referred to bodily fluids at all. Then in 2017 the BBC broke a story on period poverty. Tina Leslie, a health worker in Leeds and her colleague, had noticed girls were not attending classes during their periods. On questioning, it emerged that the girls were not going to school because they could not afford period products and were afraid of leaking.

The ‘toxic trio’ of period poverty

The story hit a nerve with the British public and overnight it became the top topic of conversation. At the time, we were working for girls’ rights charity Plan International UK. The growing debate seemed to miss one key element, the voices of the girls themselves. We decided to conduct research, working with a network of the UKs leading menstruation experts advising and guiding the work, to hear directly from girls about their experiences of menstruation. Through this work we identified a ‘toxic trio’ of  issues which come together to create the phenomenon ‘period poverty’ in the UK today.

  1. Firstly, we found that young people’s knowledge and education about menstruation was very poor. They told us that school education didn’t cover the reality of menstruation, including experiences of pain and related concerns such as endometriosis, range of product options and most importantly the emotional experience. 
  2. Secondly, affordability and access to products was a problem. There was a high tax on the products that treated them as luxuries. For girls, knowing what product offered the best value for money was hard when no one talked about periods, let alone educated you about them. 
  3. Thirdly, stigma and taboo dominated young people’s understanding of menstruation. From an early age, girls were told, ‘your bodies are dirty, embarrassing and leaky’, ‘you need to conceal your menstruation and manage it so that no one around you ever has to address the fact that your body menstruates’. We heard of schools instructing nurses to avoid mentioning vaginas when delivering education. At the same times boys were removed from discussion, one boy described being sent to ‘go on a run’ instead of attending menstruation education.

Throughout 2018 the momentum around periods grew, a hugely popular campaign ran to end sales tax on period products, given the name ‘the tampon tax’. In the UK, Scotland led the way in providing free products for pupils in schools, however, those wanting to tackle stigma and taboo found only limited spaces like arts and women’s social media, to change the conversation.

How do we get the public talking about periods?

As girls’ rights campaigners, the challenge for us was: how do we make this an engaging and accessible issue for the mainstream? We decided to try something new. We came at it from a light hearted approach, using fun to get people talking about periods. Out of a late afternoon team brainstorm, the idea of an emoji for menstruation was born. A ‘period emoji’. Something light hearted we could launch on Menstrual Health Day and that supporters, especially young people, could be encouraged to use in conversations online to tackle some of the silence and stigma around periods. This would then pave the way for us to share some of the more serious issues attached to menstruation with this audience who now were talking about periods. 

The period emoji idea immediately struck a chord with the people who supported the charity. We ran a poll of women and asked if an emoji was something they would use and if stigma around periods ever held them back.The answers blew us away: two thirds of women did not feel comfortable discussing their period with their Dad or male friends and more than 1 in 10 women did not feel comfortable talking about periods with their female friends. A positive result for us however was they would use the emoji and they felt it would help to make it less ‘awkward’! So off we went, working with activists in the Global North and South as we wanted the design to be as globally appealing as possible. We wanted to make sure our designs were inclusive, wouldn’t further stigma and would work globally, for example, in some communities tampons are not considered an acceptable option. 

Who decides on an emoji?

We ran our five designs past a number of experts before putting these out to the public to vote. Our plan was that we would take the winning emoji to the Unicode Consortium to be developed into a global emoji for the emoji keyboard, available on practically all devices these days. The Unicode Consortium, if you didn’t know, is the global body that decides which symbols shall exist in the global language of emoji. At a personal level, negotiating with them about the need for symbols, the tools to speak about women’s bodies, certainly felt like echoes of past feminist battles over language.

If this is something you’d like to hear more about, the documentary Picture Character features our and several others journeys to get an emoji through the Unicode Consortium. 

We launched this campaign and asked the public to vote for their favorite period emoji. We expected a few thousand votes at the most. Within days it went viral, we had dozens of celebrities sharing this. We were being featured in the media including radio, TV and press across the UK and then globally. The media weren’t just interested in the emoji, although this was an effective introduction, they also wanted to address the issues that had led to this campaign, as seen by medical journals like the Lancet covering this. 

By the end of less than 2 weeks we had over 37,000 votes! And most importantly, the issue was a national conversation. We were thrilled! 

At the end of voting, the period pants were the winning design so, as promised we submitted a proposal to the Unicode Consortium to have these made into an emoji. Then the waiting started. 

It wasn’t until many months later that we received a brief message from someone at the Unicode Consortium saying simply that the period pants emoji was not being taken forward as it didn’t have a “wide enough useability”. This was a bit of a shock, what with 800 million people menstruating right now and over half the planet having experienced this directly in their lives. It felt much more widely usable than the goblin mask, 12 different types of trains and dumplings, in our opinion. We tried to push back but no luck. 

We still had 37,000 people waiting for news of a successful campaign and frankly it felt like a fight worth pursuing, not least because the Consortium’s response showed exactly what we were fighting against: the stigma and silence surrounding periods.

So our next move was to submit another proposal, this time for the runner-up design. Whilst the pants had the most votes, the blood drop came in close second place and was equally inclusive. We were told by the Consortium that NHS Blood was also looking to have a blood drop emoji and that our chances would improve if we teamed up, which we did. 

After 2 years of campaigning and liaising with the Unicode Consortium we finally got the blood drop emoji in October 2019. 

What impact did the emoji have?

For us, it’s not just the fact that there is now a blood drop emoji on all emoji keyboards globally that was a big win. Perhaps an even bigger win, in our view, was the two years of conversations that happened around the period emoji campaign. The global conversation about periods was shifting dramatically, the USA was changing its tax laws, handmade pads and menstrual cups were growing in popularity in Malawi and Uganda, Pad Man had opened up the conversation to Bollywood and a film about an Indian menstruation activist won an Oscar. 

The vast, global media coverage this received was unprecedented for periods, as was the online buzz. The campaign went viral twice in these two years and there was more conversation about periods than ever before. Whilst this online conversation did include the good, bad and the ugly (or rather the extensive and often nasty trolling), in itself this broke down the silence and helped further the cause and awareness of periods, period stigma and period poverty globally. And for this, we are very proud.

The UK movement for period equity went from strength to strength, sex and relationships education became statutory in schools, English schools were given free period products for pupils and the government committed to abolishing the Tampon Tax. We worked closely with the government as they created a new Period Poverty Task Force, committing funding to eradicate the problem. Without a doubt there is still more to do and we have yet to understand the impact of COVID-19 on all of these issues. What we do know is that poor quality education and stigma in the UK and globally are still holding girls and other menstruators back. 

Do we hope there will be bloody tampons, pads, pants and uteruses added to the emoji keyboard in the future – yes absolutely! 

Do we hope that stigma, shame and secrecy around periods will one day end? Yes we do.

And if the emoji has helped people talk about periods, then we are proud to be part of a global movement to view periods as part of a normal, healthy body.

Break the Barriers: Girls’ experiences of menstruation in the UK, https://plan-uk.org/file/plan-uk-break-the-barriers-report-032018pdf/download?token=Fs-HYP3v

About the authors:

Carmen Barlow is now the Head of Communications and Engagement at Amnesty International UK, continuing campaigning for human rights, awareness of rights’ being infringed and for policy change in the UK and internationally. Carmen was interviewed by Emma Barnett for her book Period about menstrual health and stigma, as well as featuring in the documentary Picture Character on how to get a global period emoji. Leading the period emoji campaign remains one of her proudest achievements. 

Lucy Marie Russell campaigns for girls’ rights in the UK and globally. She has secured changes to the law and policy regarding teenage pregnancy, sex and relationships education, street harassment and more. She founded Plan International’s UK work including The State of Girls’ Rights in the UK report. She has run campaigns to end period poverty and taboos and working with Carmen on the blood-drop emoji campaign. More recently she was Deputy Co-Chair of the UK Government’s Period Poverty Task Force and editor of Break the Barriers, a UK wide study of menstruation experiences for adolescent girls.

 

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Yuvraj Joshi on “Racial Transition,” forthcoming in Washington University Law Review

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Yuvraj Joshi (Fellow, Yale Law School) has posted to SSRN his article, Racial Transition, 98 Wash. U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2021). Here is the abstract:

The United States is a nation in transition, struggling to surmount its racist past. This transitional imperative underpins American race jurisprudence, yet the transitional bases of decisions are rarely discussed and sometimes even denied. This Article demonstrates how the pursuit of “racial transition” has shaped the Supreme Court’s racial equality opinions.

By analyzing opinions concerning school desegregation, voting rights, affirmative action, and disparate impact, this Article uncovers two main ways that the Supreme Court has pursued racial transition. While earlier decisions focused on “reckoning” with the legacies of racism, more recent decisions have prioritized “distancing” the United States of today from its antebellum and Jim Crow histories. With this shift, civil rights measures that were once deemed necessary and urgent have been declared inappropriate and outdated. Understanding these different frameworks provides key insights into racial equality law’s history, as well as a glimpse into its likely future under the Roberts Court.

Because both reckoning and distancing approaches claim to advance transition, this Article evaluates these approaches from the perspective of transitional justice, a field that helps societies to overcome histories of oppression. This analysis reveals how the Supreme Court’s inadequate treatment of transitional justice values (accountability, redress, non-repetition, and reconciliation) has inhibited the United States’ racial transition. Transitional justice theory further offers a novel account of judicial disagreements and independent criteria for deciding which claims about transition should have purchase.

As protestors demand a reckoning with America’s legacies of racism, the Roberts Court seems poised to leave the past behind. This Article considers how racial justice advocates can seek to reorient the Court’s jurisprudence toward greater racial reckoning, while simultaneously pursuing reckoning through other means.

The full article is available here.

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New Article: “Period Poverty in a Pandemic: Harnessing Law to Achieve Menstrual Equity”

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Emily Gold Waldman (Pace) and I have posted to SSRN a draft of our article Period Poverty in a Pandemic: Harnessing Law to Achieve Menstrual Equity, 98 Wash. U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2021). Here is the abstract:

Period poverty is not new, but it has become more visible during the COVID-19 crisis. Worldwide, menstruation has long caused marginalization and vulnerability for some. The pandemic has amplified these conditions. This Article makes three claims. The first is descriptive, identifying four interrelated aspects of global period poverty that have gained new salience during the coronavirus pandemic: lack of access to affordable menstrual products; lack of access to other needed supplies and services for health and sanitation; lack of menstruation-related information and support from schools and health professionals; and menstrual stigma and shame. By using examples from multiple countries, the Article highlights the importance of having the ability to manage one’s menstruation in a safe and affordable way.

The Article’s second claim is that law has a role to play in eliminating period poverty—both during a pandemic, and beyond. By making sure that menstruation-related concerns are taken into account in defining “essential businesses,” for example, governments can both address the material needs of approximately half the population and signal that those needs are important.

Finally, the Article explores the heightened visibility of menstruation-related concerns during the COVID-19 crisis as suggestive of an emerging popular awareness of period poverty. This Article’s account has important implications for a larger world-wide menstrual equity movement that takes aim at all menstruation-related obstacles standing in the way full participation for all people in private and public life.

The full article is available here.

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RBG: The Power of Dissent and Telling Her Story

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I was in the audience some years ago when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave an interview during the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting. I also saw her when I attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court. She was a formidable jurist, lawyer, and academic. When I learned of her death, I could not help but think of how moments like this one cause us to remember where we were and what we were doing. I was frantically trying to meet my September 18 deadline to re-apply for promotion. When I learned of the news, I could not help but cry, for a moment. All the tension during the preparation of my application materials culminated with the news of her death. I started to think about her legacy and what she meant for many people in this nation. She paved the way for many of us to do what we do as professional women. During her many talks, Justice Ginsburg openly shared her experiences with job discrimination. I cannot help but think that, perhaps, those lived experiences fueled her sense of justice and injustice and the drive to right the wrongs she knew many women and other oppressed people face. She found ways to turn negative experiences into positive contributions and her life’s work. She helped so many, including when all she could do was write powerful dissenting opinions, such as in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (2007), a case for sex discrimination under Title VII and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The Equal Pay Act claims were dismissed on summary judgment at the district court level. Justice Ginsburg was the only woman on the Court at the time of that decision. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ginsburg made the case for the particular circumstances involved in pay disparity cases and why it was difficult for employees to meet the 180 days from the first paycheck disparity limitations period. She urged Congress to correct the majority decision. Her dissenting opinion led to the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, the first legislation enacted during the Obama Administration. She showed us that there is power in voicing dissent. I also appreciated Justice Ginsburg sharing about her friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia. They both acknowledged that they had no problem forging a personal relationship because they respected their disagreements on matters of law. During one of today’s news reports, Justice Scalia’s son said that the two diametrically opposed jurists helped each other through the writing of their majority versus dissenting opinions. Her story is full of lessons. As an academic, I foresee that a body of work will continue to develop from all the law review articles and books that will be written about her and her actions in furtherance of a more perfect union. She did her work. It is now up to all of us to continue with what remains undone, including telling the stories that must be told and litigating the cases that must be litigated, all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, even if we must wait for a dissenting opinion to lead to legislative action as in the Ledbetter case. Some of us will now show our dissent through our vote with the hope that it will turn into a majority vote. Aside from that, let’s make our work notorious in honor of the Notorious RBG!

 

 

 

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A Podcast Of Interest! Lady Justice Law @LadyJusticePodc

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Lady Justice Law is a unique podcast that features four women state supreme court justices: Justices Eva Guzman (TX), Bridget McCormack (MI), Beth Walker (WV), & Rhonda Wood (AR). Check it out!

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Remarks of Zelle W. Andrews at Westchester Women’s Agenda Conference at Sarah Lawrence College (circa 2012)

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Dr. Zelle Andrews, a graduate of Wheaton College and the University of Hawai’i, had a long career as an organizer and activist.  She served as president of the New York State and Westchester chapters of the National Organization for Women, among other things.  Dr. Andrews was profiled in the book Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975. She died in 2016 at the age of 78 (her obituary is here).

Dr. Andrews made the following remarks at the Westchester Women’s Agenda Conference held at Sarah Lawrence College. Although the precise date is unknown, Dr. Andrews’ partner of 17 years, Deborah West Zipf, believes that the speech was made in approximately 2012. It is a first-person account of her experiences in the 1960s and 1970s.

This gathering, sponsored by the Women’s Agenda, of which I was one of the founders, is plainly not a feminist gathering.  If it were, we would not be discussing community gardening, desirable as it is, nor the use of computers, which I should imagine most of you know already.  Instead, we would be discussing … but maybe you don’t want to hear about the Hobby Lobby case now before the Supreme Court, or the cost of day care, or the statistics on rape and domestic violence, or the failure of the state legislature to pass the Ten Points for Women sponsored by our Westchester legislator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, or even how women should lean in.

That O., the middle initial of my name in the program, is somebody’s typo; it doesn’t stand for the name my parents gave me.  But it might stand for Outrage, which is where we were, in 1963, when the second wave of feminism began.

How many of you have had an abortion or know someone who has?  Well, I knew one in my student days; she was filthy rich and she had to go all the way to Mexico to accomplish it.

How many of you use contraceptives?  Well, when I married, contraceptives had just become legal for married women (only).  My doctor – actually the third doctor I went to for contraception since the previous two refused – gave me a diaphragm to practice inserting but punched a hole in it so it would not be effective.  I could get an intact diaphragm after I got the marriage license.

How many of you buy tampons and napkins at CVS or Stop & Shop?  Well, when I was in college, such products were sold from behind the counter of the pharmacy.  You had to ask for them (and believe me, you died of embarrassment).

How many of you wear jeans, leggings, whatever?  Well, I adhered to a dress code, in college and beyond.  Women wore skirts (yes, even for sports) and never above the knee.

How many of you have looked for a job?  Well, in the 60’s, want ads were divided, male and female.  And “nurse, teacher or secretary,” believe me, was no joke.

How many of you have a credit card?  When I graduated, got a job (secretarial) and applied for a store credit card, I could get it … if my father signed for it.

How many of you have thought of becoming doctors, lawyers or merchant chiefs?  Law schools didn’t even have women’s rooms in those days.  And doctors?  Not acceptable because women would faint at the sight of blood (think about it).

How many of you have asked for a raise lately?  My roommate did, and very daring it was of her too.  Her boss refused.  Why?  Because she worked at Harvard Business School where she would meet plenty of eligible men and she ought to be grateful for such a perk.

Feminists believe that women are real people.  That they can and should make their own decisions and that they can and should be free to develop themselves and their talents, free to build a good community and a good world, without the censure and restrictions of those who would make their decisions for them.  If I could give you anything, I would give you the passion that drove the feminist movement so that you understand the purpose, respect the dignity and intelligence of women and work to free women all over the world for the sake of your daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters.

Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Rest in power.

(text of remarks courtesy of Deborah West Zipf)

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Corbin on “Religious Liberty in a Pandemic”

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Caroline Corbin (Miami) has posted to SSRN her essay, Religious Liberty in a Pandemic,70 Duke LJ. Online 1 (2020): Here is the abstract:

The coronavirus pandemic caused an unprecedented shutdown of the United States. The stay-at-home orders issued by most states typically banned large gatherings of any kind, including religious services. Churches sued, arguing that these bans violated their religious liberty rights by treating worship services more strictly than analogous activities that were not banned, such as shopping at a liquor store or superstore. This short Essay examines these claims, concluding that the constitutionality of the bans turns on the science of how the pathogen spreads, and that the best available scientific evidence supports the mass gathering bans.

Read the full essay here.

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Professor Kristin Johnson to Join Emory Law School

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From Emory’s website, this news of a lateral move by Professor Kristin Johnson:

Emory University School of Law welcomes Kristin Johnson to the faculty beginning in January 2021. Johnson comes to Emory Law from Tulane University Law School where she is the McGlinchey Stafford Professor of Law, associate dean for faculty research, an affiliate of the Murphy Institute for Political Economy, and the Gordon Gamm Faculty Scholar. Johnson is nationally recognized as a leading scholar of financial markets regulation with research and teaching expertise in the areas of securities regulation, corporate governance, risk management, compliance, and innovative financial technology, including digital financial products and markets.

Johnson’s research has been published and cited by numerous leading journals, including the William & Mary Law Review, George Washington University Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review Online, Washington Law Review, Journal of Corporate Law, Journal of International and Comparative Law and the Georgia Law Review. Her forthcoming books Artificial Intelligence & The Law: Cases, Materials, Problems & Ethical Considerations (with Carla Reyes and Jeff Ward) and the Cambridge University Press Research Handbook on Artificial Intelligence and the Law (with Carla Reyes) will be published in 2021. She has presented her research on systemic risk, risk management, cyber risk regulation, emerging technologies–such as artificial intelligence and distributed digital ledger technologies–and macroprudential financial markets regulation throughout the United States and abroad. She teaches Business Associations, Securities Regulation, and Artificial Intelligence and the Law, among other courses. 

Johnson is an elected member of the American Law Institute and an American Bar Association Fellow. She has served as a visiting professor at the University of California-Irvine, University of Florida, University of Illinois, and Washington & Lee University Law Schools.

Read the full notice here. Congratulations, Professor Johnson!

 

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Emory Law Journal CFP: Systemic Racism in the Law & Anti-Racist Solutions

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From students at the Emory Law Journal:

We write to you in troubling times, yet we are hopeful for a brighter future ahead. First, we hope that you are taking care of yourselves and your loved ones. Second, we want to announce that the Emory Law Journal is calling for essay submissions for our forthcoming Special Issue: Systemic Racism in the Law & Anti-Racist Solutions. The Issue will be published in May 2021, with an accompanying remote symposium in March 2021.

In the wake of numerous police shootings of unarmed Black men and women, the murder of protesters, and the lack of justice for many of the perpetrators, a statement from ELJ will no longer suffice; to be an anti-racist Journal, we must act. Therefore, this spring, we will use our platform to elevate scholarship that seeks to facilitate racial justice and dismantle white supremacy by publishing a Special Issue and holding a remote symposium.

ELJ is looking for essays from 7,500 to 15,000 words that expose systemic racism in the law or propose anti-racist solutions to make the law more just. Emory’s Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law Dorothy A. Brown will be writing the introduction to the Special Issue. We will accept abstracts as submissions, and if your essay is selected, you are not required to participate in the Symposium, but you will have a standing invitation to do so. We will accept essay submissions on a rolling basis. The deadlines for submission and publication are below:

    • Submissions Open: September 1st, 2020
    • Submissions Close: October 15th, 2020
    • Final Manuscript Due: December 15th, 2020
    • Tentative Publication Date: May 31st, 2021

To submit your essay, please email Sam Reilly at samuel.burns.reilly@emory.edu and Michelle Tomkovicz at michelle.e.tomkovicz@emory.edu.

ELJ is committed to being an anti-racist organization, both in our ranks and in our scholarship. This is just one part of that mission. We look forward to reading your essays and moving the conversation forward.

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Scottish Feminist Judgments Podcast!

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The indomitable conveners of the Scottish Feminist Judgments Project have a new podcast series. Here‘s a précis of the first episode: 

Episode 1: Drury – history and cultural legacies

In 1998, Marylin McKenna was murdered by Stuart Drury. Drury was tried for her murder and was found guilty, but he appealed the decision claiming he had been provoked into killing Marylin because she had been unfaithful to him. This appeal has had a profound impact on our law around provocation through sexual infidelity. In this episode, we are using Drury’s appeal to take a closer look at the impact of history and cultural legacies on our legal system.

Check out the project’s website here.

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ANU Student Work Comparing Justice Kagan and Justice Bell

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Professor Heather Roberts (Australian National University) teaches a course called Selected Topics in Australian-United States Comparative Law. Her students produce some engaging work that may be of interest to readers.  Consider this podcast (with video) featuring work by student Jessica Apolinar comparing SCOTUS Justices Elana Kagan and Australia High Court Justice Virginia Bell:

This podcast explores what it means to be a woman judge on the High Court of Australia and the United States Supreme Court, and the woman judge’s decision to separate her professional identity as a judge from her personal identity and experiences as a woman.

The podcast adopts a ‘kaleidoscope’ approach to examine and compare two case studies of women judges on the High Court of Australia and the US Supreme Court: Justices Virginia Bell and Elena Kagan. It compares the backgrounds, education, experience and judicial philosophies of each judge and the context in which she was appointed. Swearing-in speeches and comments made during Senate committee hearings help to illustrate each judge’s initial representation of her professional identity as distinct from her personal one.

Conceptualising their experiences like a ‘kaleidoscope’ – observing different aspects of their experiences, which are composed of the same elements but in a different configuration – accounts for the complex interrelationships between different historical, social and political contexts and these women’s responses to their different circumstances.

The podcast is available here.

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New Class Action to Tampon Tax in Michigan

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In case you missed it, there is a new lawsuit challenging the Michigan state sales tax on menstrual products. The Detroit News has a story (here).

Emily Beggs, Clare Pfeiffer and Wei Ho are seeking class action status on behalf of all Michigan women paying the “tampon tax” and demanding a refund with interest of the sales and use taxes paid by women for menstrual products over the last four years. They estimate the class of women paying the tax has about 2.4 million people.

“The Constitution is clear: It’s a discriminatory tax,” said Joanne Faycurry, a lawyer representing the women for free in the suit. 

“For the government to impose a burden on a product that women must use, it’s a tax on women for being women,” she said. 

Read more here.

There are already bills pending in the Michigan legislature that could eliminate the tax. Lawyers at Period Equity are leading the charge.

 

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Period Leave as the New Progressive Workplace Benefit?

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From the New York Times, this news of a new policy at Zomato in India:

How many days a month have you missed work or requested a day off for stomach pains and cramps because of menstruation?

This is the question one of India’s largest food-delivery firms, Zomato, put to its 4,000 employees, 35 percent of whom are women, in announcing a new paid period leave policy for employees on Saturday. The policy, not common among large global companies, allows up to 10 days of period leave a year and applies to transgender employees.

The policy is considered a bold move in tackling an age-old taboo in India, where 71 percent of young women remain unaware of menstruation until their first cycle, according to UNICEF.

The company’s founder and chief executive officer, Deepinder Goyal, said in a statement to his employees: “There shouldn’t be any shame or stigma attached to applying for a period leave. You should feel free to tell people on internal groups, or emails that you are on your period leave for the day.”

Read the full article here.

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CFP: Pakistani Feminist Judgments

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Marva Khan and Orubah Sattar are the conveners.

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Are There Differences Between the Female Brain and the Male Brain? After More Than a Hundred Years of Testing, Scientists Still Can’t Tell @TheConversationUS

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Read more in this article by Ari Berkowitz, for the Conversation.

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Thomas on The Jurisprudence of the First Woman Judge, Florence Allen: Challenging the Myth of Women Judging Differently @ProfTracyThomas

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Tracy A. Thomas, University of Akron School of Law, is publishing The Jurisprudence of the First Woman Judge, Florence Allen: Challenging the Myth of Women Judging Differently, in volume 27 of the William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender & Social Justice. Here is the abstract.  

 

A key question for legal scholars and political scientists is whether women jurists judge differently than men. Some studies have suggested that women judges are more likely to support plaintiffs in sexual harassment, employment, and immigration cases. Other studies conclude that women are more likely to vote liberally in death penalty and obscenity cases, and more likely to convince their male colleagues to join a liberal opinion. Yet other studies have found little evidence that women judge differently from men.

This article explores the jurisprudence of the first woman judge, Judge Florence Allen, to test these claims of gender difference in judging. Judge Allen was the first woman judge many times over: the first woman elected to a general trial court (Cuyahoga County Common Pleas in 1920), the first woman elected to a state supreme court (Ohio 1922), the first woman appointed to a federal appellate court (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1932), and the first woman shortlisted for the U.S. Supreme Court. Her forty years on the bench included cases of constitutional law, administrative power, criminal process, labor rights, and patent cases. Using original archival research, this Article shows that Allen’s judicial record supports the conclusion that women judge no differently from men. However, Allen worked hard to cultivate this conclusion, seeking to distance herself from claims of women’s difference and inferiority, and instead seeking to establish that women could “think like a man.” Her deliberate effort was to judge in a moderate, neutral, and objective manner, distancing the work from her feminist activism. Overall the historical record reveals the jurisprudence of the first woman judge as one of moderation, fitted to the male-centric norms of the profession and rejecting any promise of women’s advocacy on the bench.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

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Wildman, “On Learning and Relearning about White Privilege”

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Stephanie Wildman (Santa Clara) has posted to the NYU Press blog a post “On Learning and Relearning About White Privilege.” Here is an excerpt:

Later in the 70s, a Black student in my Sex Discrimination and the Law seminar came to speak to me about the racism in the class, my racism and the other students’ racism, as well as the systemic racism in the law school. The discussion was pretty intense. At the heart of her criticism, the student expressed disappointment that I didn’t address racial justice issues more in the classroom, in response to either the curriculum or other students’ comments. I was lucky at the time to have some Black friends who were willing to talk to me about what had happened, about the student’s grievance, and about what to do next, especially since we had only one class left in the semester.

I cried for several days. It took me a long time to realize that the student had done me a favor. She felt safe enough and cared enough about me and about the class to talk to me. I tried to face my racism bravely. And I was lucky to have help—from friends and from a diversity consultant who was on retainer that semester by the school.

I had been skeptical about her, the diversity consultant. She was a white woman, and I thought “typical, the school wants to talk about race and they hire someone white.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. Frances Kendall understood that it was imperative for the students of color in the class to have a safe space to talk. She urged we meet in two separate groups: a group for the students of color (led by my friend and colleague Professor Trina Grillo) and the white students with me (led by Francie). In the white group, Francie led a conversation about the ABCs of white privilege. Yes, you may have been disadvantaged in other ways, even suffered greatly. Yet having white privilege conveys a particular, distinct societal benefit. Then these groups met together. We obviously did not solve all the world’s racial justice issues, but it was a step forward, at least for me. That experience set me on a lifelong learning curve, writing about race and white privilege, back when if you googled “privilege” the answers you got were: “privilege against self-incrimination,” “priest-penitent privilege,” or “doctor-patient privilege.”

White privilege is evasive. I mentioned those glimmers in my past because I wouldn’t remember, if my friends had not written about them. And they wrote about them because it was less usual for someone white to notice and speak out about racial injustice. Even though I have studied white privilege and thought a lot about it, I still forget. Which is part of the privilege. I have half-joked how I had to go through the process of writing the book Privilege Revealed (with contributions by Margalynne Armstrong, Adrienne Davis, and Trina Grillo) to remember what I knew.

That’s how the privilege works. It remakes itself into “just the normal way things are,” instead of the advantages, “the invisible knapsack” as named by Peggy McIntosh[3], that accrue to white skin. Particularly at this moment of double pandemics, COVID-19, the new one, and America’s history of racism and racial injustice, the pandemic we’ve had since the nation’s founding, I realize how much I still have to learn and remember–and act.

The full post is available here.

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New Book Announcement: Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies

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Here is the publisher’s description of the newly-published Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies (Bobel, C., Winkler, I.T., Fahs, B., Hasson, K.A., Kissling, E.A., Roberts, T.-A. eds.) :

This open access handbook, the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary and genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. It is animated by the central question: ‘“what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attention on menstrual health and politics across the life course?” The chapters—diverse in content, form and perspective—establish Critical Menstruation Studies as a potent lens that reveals, complicates and unpacks inequalities across biological, social, cultural and historical dimensions. This handbook is an unmatched resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and activists new to and already familiar with the field as it rapidly develops and expands.

The book is available for free download here.

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Menstrual Equity and the Bar Exam: Round Up of Op-Eds and Other Media Coverage

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Op Eds

Bridget J. Crawford & Emily Gold Waldman, Tampons and Pads Should Be Allowed at the Bar Exam, Law.com (July 22, 2020)

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Raising the Bar for Menstrual Equity. Period., Ms. Magazine (July 23, 2020)

Julie D. Cantor, Periods Can Be Irregular, Heavy–Even Painful; They Should Never Be a Barrier to Your Career, NBCNews Think/NBC News (July 28, 2020)

Margaret E. Johnson, Marcy L. Karin & Elizabeth B. Cooper, Stop the Stigma Against Menstruation, Starting With the Bar Exam, National Jurist (July 28, 2020)

Other Press/Blog Coverage

Steven Fried, The Integrity of the Legal Profession is Under Attack by Menstruating Women! Medium.com (July 20, 2020)

Stephanie Francis Ward, Do Some States Really Prohibit Bringing Tampons and Pads to the Bar Exam? ABA Journal (July 23, 2020)

Anna Jessurun, Permission Required to Change Your Tampon, ACLU blog (July 24, 2020)

Harron Walker, Bar Exam Takers Prohibited From Smuggling in Tampons and Other Obvious Cheating Aids, Jezebel (July 26, 2020)

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Op-Ed “Stop the Stigma Against Menstruation, Starting with the Bar Exam”

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Margaret E. Johnson (Baltimore), Marcy L. Karin (UDC), and Elizabeth B. Cooper (Fordham) have published an op-ed in National Jurist, Stop the Stigma Against Menstruation, Starting with the Bar Exam. Here is an excerpt:

The distrust of menstruators is front and center with the July bar exams that take place next week, and those that follow. The multi-day bar exam is the legal licensing requirement needed to practice law and is understandably extremely stressful. Imagine adding to this pressure a ban on bringing in one’s own menstrual products or uncertainty about the ability to do so because a state does not expressly or publicly disclose if they are permitted. Outraged over state bars’ menstrual products restrictions, people started exchanging the information on Twitter. * * *

These illogical, shaming policies have the potential to significantly harm those test takers who may be menstruating when taking the bar exam. Unencumbered access to personal menstrual products during in-person licensing exams is critical for persons who menstruate. State bar policies must be revised to expressly and publicly permit examinees to bring in their own menstrual products. No one should have to risk admission to the bar because they have their period. Menstruators must be trusted, and the taboo must end.

The full piece is available here.

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Greer Donley @PittLaw Receives 2020 @HaubLawatPace Emerging Scholar Award in Women, Gender & Law

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Professor Greer Donley of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law has been selected as the winner of 2019-2020 Haub Law Emerging Scholar Award in Women, Gender & Law for her paper Contraceptive Equity: Curing the Sex Discrimination in the ACA’s Mandate, 71 Ala. L. Rev. 499 (2019). Professor Donley is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the joint degree program in law and bioethics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She teaches Legislation and Regulation, Bioethics and FDA Law.

Professor Donley’s research interests include reproductive rights, bioethics, FDA law and healthcare innovation. Her scholarship has explored a broad range of healthcare issues including parental autonomy rights over prenatal end-of-life decision-making, the legal and medical necessity of abortion care during pandemics, contraceptive equity in the Affordable Care Act, and regulations surrounding the consumption of pharmaceuticals in pregnant and lactating women. Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Minnesota Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Journal of Law & the Biosciences, Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics, and Hastings Center Report.

Professor Donley received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her B.A. from Claremont McKenna College. Prior to her academic work, Professor Donley worked at Latham & Watkins LLP. She also clerked for Judge Robert Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 

“Professor Donley’s thought-provoking article skillfully applies constitutional principles and precedents to argue that the exclusion of men from the ACA’s contraceptive mandate violates the Equal Protection Clause.” – Professor and Associate Dean Emily Gold Waldman 

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Haub Law Emerging Scholar Award in Women, Gender & Law is presented annually in recognition of excellent legal scholarship related to women, gender and the law published by a full-time law professor with five or fewer years of full-time teaching experience. After an open call for submissions, papers are reviewed on a blind basis by four members of the Haub Law faculty with expertise in this area. This year’s judges were Noa Ben-Asher, Bridget Crawford, Darren Rosenblum and Emily Gold Waldman. The Haub Law School invites the award recipient to present their winning scholarship to the Haub Law community.

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Maritza Reyes on Lessons in Public Advocacy and Self-Defense: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Responded to Representative Ted Yoho’s Reported Sexist Epithets

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I urge all of you to watch and listen to what U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in the public record (on July 23, 2020) in the U.S. Congress about reportedly being called a “fucking bitch” and other epithets often hurled at women, including “disgusting,” “crazy,” “out of [her] mind” and “dangerous” by Florida Representative Ted Yoho. Here is a link to an article about what happened, including her remarks. She said that Rep. Yoho “accosted” her and pointed his finger at her as she was entering the Capitol building to do her job. She shared that this is how some men use dehumanizing conduct and language to abuse women. When Rep. Yoho was caught in the act by a reporter, he made a disingenuous apology full of excuses for poor behavior, without directly apologizing to the woman he accosted; he did not even say her name. After she heard him make his self-aggrandizing, disingenuous apology in the House floor, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez made her own remarks. She spoke about the evil of silence in the face of such abuse. She spoke about the abuse women face as we engage in our daily activities, including our jobs. She did not accept the non-apology and called it for what it really was– an attempt to cover up for misconduct while adding further insult to the original injury. Here is a link to an article about the “apology.”

Representative Ocasio-Cortez said she spoke “because [every Congresswoman and every woman in this country] have had to deal with this, in some form, some way, some shape, at some point in our lives.” She concluded that Rep. Yoho’s remarks were just “excuses for his behavior” and she “could not allow that to stand.” She did what a professional woman must often do – defend herself and put it on the record. In response to Rep. Yoho’s self-professed decency and references to his wife and daughters, she explained: “Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. When a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize, not to save face, not to win a vote. He apologizes genuinely to repair and acknowledge the harm done, so that we can all move on.” A point that rang close to my own experience is when she said, “I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.” Her final point was to thank Rep. Yoho for showing the world that you can be a powerful man, with a wife and daughters, and “accost women without remorse” “and with a sense of impunity” and “using this language against all of us.”

I agree that many women have been subjected to similar conduct, including as we do our jobs and participate in professional activities. I am about to publish a law review article titled “Professional Women Subjugated by Name-Calling and Character Attacks” in the Journal of Gender, Race & Justice. In it, I highlight the experiences of First Lady/Senator Hillary Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to illustrate the problem and propose solutions. I also reference President Donald Trump’s 2019 attacks against U.S. Representatives Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, all of whom are women of color. The publication was delayed due to COVID-19. It will be my second article in my “Professional Women” series. In the first one, “Professional Women Silenced by Men-Made Norms,” published in the Akron Law Review, I analyzed why so many women remain silent when we face abuse, including harassment, at work and advocated for individual actions toward a collective movement against this abuse. That article was published two years before one such movement, the #MeToo Movement, which began with the individual actions of women, made headlines. I am encouraged by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s individual action and hope that, as with the #MeToo Movement, more women will join in sharing our own stories of workplace abuse.

Most of us do not have the forum that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has in the U.S. Congress, but there are other forums where we are able to speak truth to power, including in this blog, in our academic workplaces, in courtrooms, and in other public and private spaces. We must not remain silent. Even the individual action of calling out the abuse is better than doing nothing. Another action could be to call out the abuser by name, including in a public space as Alexandria did. Perhaps these types of actions would serve as deterrents to future abuse. Finally, it is time for people to stop telling women facing similar situations to “let it go,” “don’t say anything,” “accept his non-apology,” and “be the better person.” I invite you to listen to the voices of other Representatives who joined with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. They were Pramila Jayapal, Nydia Velázquez, Brenda Lawrence, Al Green, Jackie Speier, Mark Pocan, Ayanna Pressley, Judy Chu, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lori Trahan, Steny Hoyer, Mikie Sherrill, Barbara Lee, Ilhan Omar, Katherine Clark, and Rashida Tlaib. The link is here.

(Posted by Christine Corcos for Professor Reyes)

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Does @WV Courts Have a Secret Policy Permitting Tampons and Pads at the Bar Exam? #bloodybarpocalypse

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Over at the ABA Journal (here), Stephanie Francis Ward confirms that, yes, there are really are states the prohibit test-takers from bringing menstrual products with them to the bar exam. Here’s an excerpt of the article:

Susan Henricks, executive director of the Texas Board of Law Examiners, in an email to the ABA Journal confirmed that the state does prohibit feminine hygiene products in the testing room. Texas, which has an in-person exam scheduled for September, as well as an online October test, will stock testing center bathrooms with free menstrual supplies, Henricks wrote.

Arizona for many years included feminine hygiene products in a “paper of any kind” ban from the bar exam room, but the restriction has been revised, and people can now bring their own tampons and sanitary napkins to the test, Aaron Nash, communications director for the state supreme court, told the ABA Journal in a July 17 email. The state is planning for a July in-person bar exam.

In West Virginia, which also has plans for an in-person July exam, there is no prohibition on bringing menstrual products to the test, says Edythe Nash Gaiser, clerk of the court. She thinks there may be some confusion based on how the court’s exam FAQs page is written.

“No one is afraid of anyone using a tampon as a cheat sheet; this is just insanity,” Gaiser says.

Also, West Virginia bar exam takers can keep their tampons and sanitary napkins in an opaque container, rather than a clear plastic bag, Gaiser says.

“We might say, ‘Is that a feminine hygiene product?’” she adds. And if someone took out and opened a tampon or sanitary napkin while taking the bar exam, that would raise suspicion, according to Gaiser.

The full article is available here.

Um, so the West Virginia Courts permit test-takers to bring menstrual products, but simply don’t say that anywhere in their instructions to test takers? Let’s hope that Ms. Gaiser can clarify that for bar-exam takers on the court’s website or in an email to them.

Professor Marcy Karin (@professormlk) breaks it down on Twitter here:

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