Author Archives: Katherine Franke

The Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School invites applications for sabbatical visitors for the 2017-2018 academic year to undertake research, writing and collaboration with Center faculty and students in ways that span traditional academic disciplines. The … Continue reading →

    We’re hiring a new director of the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project – an incredible opportunity to work at Columbia Law School shaping our work on religious exemptions and sexual liberty and equality. Please share the job description with … Continue reading →

Upon the request of a member of the Indiana legislature, a letter signed by 30 law professors, many from Indiana University, was released today analyzing the proposed “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” bills pending before the Indiana legislature.  The letter provided careful … Continue reading →

The Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School invites applications for a sabbatical visitor for the 2015-2016 academic year to undertake research, writing and collaboration with Center faculty and students in ways that span traditional academic disciplines. … Continue reading →

In recent months litigation in federal courts has resulted in the lifting of a ban on same-sex couples access to civil marriage in 33 states. (This number is changing almost every day as new jurisdictions are ordered to lift the … Continue reading →

Reposted from The Public Rights / Private Conscience Project Blog Back in August the Obama Administration responded to the Supreme Court’s opinion inHobby Lobby and its order in Wheaton College by issuing two new sets of regulations to govern the … Continue reading →

Kara Loewentheil is the Director of the Public Rights / Private Conscience Project and a Research Fellow at Columbia Law School. You can find out more about the Project here. This blog was originally posted on the Center for Gender … Continue reading →

More than 50 legal scholars today strongly urged President Obama to resist calls for an overly broad religious exemption in a proposed executive order prohibiting sexual orientation and/or gender identity discrimination by federal contractors. The effort is being spearheaded by … Continue reading →

By: Kara Loewentheil Kara Loewentheil is a research fellow and the director of the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project in the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. You can see her interview on Bloomberg News with more of her … Continue reading →

Today the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law will launch it’s Public Rights/Private Conscience Project – a new think-tank created to reconceptualize and reset the intractable standoff between religious liberty and equality/sexual liberty.  The Project is funded with substantial grants from the … Continue reading →

The deadline for the 2014-2016 Columbia Law School – Center for Reproductive Rights Fellowship (CRR-CLS Fellowship) has been extended to February 28, 2014! The CRR-CLS Fellowship is an exciting opportunity for recent law school graduates who are interested in careers … Continue reading →

The deadline for the 2014-2016 Columbia Law School – Center for Reproductive Rights Fellowship (CRR-CLS Fellowship) has been extended to February 28, 2014! The CRR-CLS Fellowship is an exciting opportunity for recent law school graduates who are interested in careers … Continue reading →

Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender & Sexuality Law seeks a Project Director for its new Public Rights/Private Conscience Project.  The Director would lead the Project’s research and advocacy on the multiple contexts in which assertions of conscience and/or religious … Continue reading →

The Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School invites applications for a sabbatical visitor for the 2014-2015 academic year to undertake research, writing and collaboration with Center faculty and students in ways that span traditional academic disciplines. … Continue reading →

  Protestors rally for marriage equality at the Supreme Court on the day DOMA was ruled unconstitutional. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) Lesbian and gay people and their families have much to celebrate in the Supreme Court’s rulings in the DOMA and … Continue reading →

What new politics and ethical imperatives emerge when the rights of lesbian and gay people begin to gain traction, and when the state becomes a partner in defending those newly-won rights?  In Dating the State: The Moral Hazards of Winning … Continue reading →

The Columbia Law School Center for Gender & Sexuality Law Presents: A Symposium Honoring the Contributions of Patricia Williams to the Scholarship and Practice of Gender and Sexuality Law Friday, March 1st, 2013, 9 am – 7 pm Jerome Greene … Continue reading →

The guy who has been the voice and puppeteer for Elmo, Kevin Clash, resigned yesterday from Sesame Workshop on account of recent accusations that he had sex with under age boys.  Maybe he did it, maybe he didn’t – we … Continue reading →

As many now know, CIA Director and retired four-star Army General David Petraeus has resigned his post at the CIA on account of newly emerging information that he had what the media calls an “extra-marital” affair with Paula Broadwell, who … Continue reading →

Rainbow flags and corsages were waving high in front of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village last night.  There’s much to celebrate about the 9th Circuit’s ruling issued yesterday confirming the lower court finding that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.  As … Continue reading →

From today’s New York Times (and the headline wasn’t my choice, I preferred Marriage: It’s Complicated).  It’s hysterical that the Times is running ads for diamond wedding rings right above the Op-ed. Marriage Is a Mixed Blessing WILL the New … Continue reading →

Metro Weekly has the story, but this is outrageous.  Paul Clement, partner at King & Spalding, signed the firm up to represent the House of Representatives in defending DOMA, the agreement between the firm and the government contains a provision … Continue reading →

The twin horizons of many people and organizations in the lesbian and gay community – achieving marriage equality and repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – seem like obvious civil rights goals.  They both enshrine official, legally sanctioned discrimination against … Continue reading →

Seems that a full-fledged gender-panic may be breaking out.   As if the whole mishigas with Constance McMillen being told she couldn’t wear a tux to her senior prom weren’t enough, now a mom in Maple Shade, New Jersey has … Continue reading →

In case you weren’t able to attend the Symposium we held last Friday at Columbia Law School, recognizing the influence of Judith Butler’s work to the law of gender and sexuality, you can now watch videos of the three panels … Continue reading →

The Prop 8 trial in San Francisco has captivated the homo-imagination, not surprisingly. (Posts about the first couple days here and here.) So this seems like an awkward time to suggest anything critical about the institution of marriage itself (even … Continue reading →

Katherine Franke – cross posted from Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

In my last post I urged heterosexual people to do more than express their condolences to the gay community for the defeat of the marriage equality bill in the New York State Senate last week.   Well, Jamie Frevele, an … Continue reading →

This afternoon, with little advanced notice, the New York State Senate held debate and then voted on a bill that would have amended the state’s marriage law to allow same sex couples to marry.   So short was the notice … Continue reading →

Last October 17th in Italy, the Court of Appeals of Rome issued a sentence declaring that the rape of a sex worker is less punishable than the rape of a woman that does not choose to be a prostitute. The … Continue reading →

The relative silence of a queer – or even a gay – voice in the health care reform debate of the last six months is confounding.   As someone who spent my 20’s and 30’s dealing with close friends and … Continue reading →

The gendering of the current economic downturn was the subject of a page one story in the New York Times today: Still on the Job by Making Only Half as Much, by Louis Uchitelle – but that’s not what Uchitelle … Continue reading →

The White House just announced that it has nominated Georgetown Law Center’s Professor Chai Feldblum as a Commissioner to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.   This is huge not only because Feldblum would be the first out lesbian or gay … Continue reading →

As many will recall, the gold medal performance in the 800 meter track competition by Caster Semenya, a South African athlete, last month at the Berlin World Championships, sparked a”sex panic”when some observers questioned Semenya’s “real” sex.   Well, things … Continue reading →

We learned late last week that David Souter plans to step down from the Supreme Court at the end of this term.   Nominated by President George H. W. Bush in July of 1990 on the expectation that he would … Continue reading →

I returned yesterday from 10 days in Morocco to learn with great sadness of Eve Sedgwick’s passing.     In an odd way, it was fitting that I was in North Africa during her last days – for there are … Continue reading →

Friday the Iowa Supreme Court held unanimously that the state’s definition of marriage – a union of a man and a woman – violated the Iowa Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.   This is the first court to do so unanimously, … Continue reading →

News Flash: the Iowa Supreme Court has announced that it will release its decision in the same sex marriage case, Varnum v. Brien, tomorrow at 8:30 am (CST).   The decision will be available here. – Katherine Franke