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Lawyers and Domestic Violence: Raising the Standard of Practice
Lawyers and judges should be the vanguard of those working to end domestic violence and mitigate its effects, yet they are not. This article is an attempt to change that. It strives to shed some light on the profound effect domestic violence has on law and law practice, as well as the profound effect lawyers and the legal system can have on domestic violence. Part II of this article demonstrates the extent and pervasiveness of domestic violence. Part III describes how domestic violence will affect a lawyer's practice. Part IV provides guidance on what a lawyer should do to determine if a prospective client or a current client is involved in domestic violence, and, if so, how the lawyer should assist the prospective client or client in taking measures to protect against future violence. Finally, Part V addresses a lawyer's duty to warn non-clients of possible domestic violence by a client. This article is, in sum, about what a reasonable lawyer should know about domestic violence and what that reasonable lawyer should do with that knowledge.Covenant Marriage Turns Five Years Old
Part I of this article discusses public policy rationales behind covenant marriage legislation, describes relevant aspects of Louisiana's legislation, and summarizes the efforts of other states to enact covenant marriage legislation. Part II discusses methods of data collection and analysis and identifies the demographic characteristics of covenant married couples as opposed to standard married couples in Louisiana. Part III addresses the dynamics behind couples' choice to have a covenant versus standard marriage. Part IV is an analysis of couples' satisfaction with their marriage option and the gendered dynamics of different levels of satisfaction with the marital choice.Does EC Pregnancy and Maternity Legislation Create Equal Opportunities for Women in the EC Labor Market? The European Court of Justice’s Interpretation of the EC Pregnancy Directive in Boyle and Lewen
This article discusses the EC's legal accommodation of pregnancy in the workplace and the interpretation thereof by the European Court of Justice. The leitmotiv is the question to what extent such accommodation enhances women's position in the labor market. The suspicion being that, in a well-intentioned attempt to fight discrimination of women, the EC institutions entrench gender discrimination. In other words, in their attempt to fight sex discrimination (by accommodating pregnancy), the EC often places women in a position that confirms the traditional perception of women as childbearers and caregivers.The Sexual Regulation Dimension of Contemporary Welfare Law: A Fifty State Overview
In this article, Smith will attempt to demonstrate that welfare policy has become a prominent site of sexual regulation; that the rights of poor single mothers are at stake in this respect; and that given the precise structure of contemporary American welfare reform, we must pay especially close attention to the laws and regulations adopted at the state level. First, Smith will place contemporary sexual regulation-oriented welfare law in an historical context by considering its precedents in English and American public policy traditions (Part I). Using original qualitative analyses of the states' statutory codes and administrative regulations, Smith will then discuss the following measures: the mandatory child support cooperation requirement (Part II); the domestic violence exemption (Part III); the "family cap," family planning, and adoption relinquishment dimensions of welfare programs (Part IV); and the abstinence education curricula in public schools (Part V). Finally, she will conclude with a brief discussion of the broader relevance of this research. The emphasis on the moralistic policing of poor women as a solution to poverty conceals the fact that poverty will only be adequately addressed insofar as the federal and state governments adopt much more egalitarian and democratic macroeconomic policies.“I Will Not Sit Idly By While My Future is Determined:” The Response of the University of Michigan Black Law Students’ Alliance to Grutter V. Bollinger, Et Al.
Back in 1998, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law expressed support for the University of Michigan Law School's defense of its affirmative action policy, which is at controversy in Grutter v. Bollinger. Today, as in 1998, "[W]e certainly do not believe the Law School admissions policy truly addresses the inequalities within our law school and the legal profession generally. Legal education is unfortunately not a bastion of diversity." Women and students of color struggle to be heard and seen, and to achieve equal representation in both the study and practice of law. "Without active efforts, we cannot create a society with equal opportunity for people of different races, genders, and sexual orientations. We strive for such a reality, and we hope that the Law School will not be prohibited from trying to move us there. Diversity is more than a method of enhancing the intellectual experience of law students or a narrow manifestation of 'fairness' which should be protected; it is justice that the Law School, its faculty, and its students are affirmatively obligated to seek out." Now, three years later, the validity of the Law School's affirmative action policy still hangs in the balance. Unfortunately, the most recent decision in the matter was not favorable for supporters of affirmative action. Now more than ever, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law stands by the Law School and its policies. As a journal, however, we also are committed to providing a forum for the discussion of all views, regardless of whether they comport with our own. Accordingly, we solicited responses to the District Court's Grutter opinion from the Michigan Law School community. The Black Law Students' Alliance ("BLSA") submitted the following press release and amicus brief. Although we would prefer to publish a range of opinions on the issue, BLSA is the only entity that submitted a response piece to us for publication. The Michigan Journal of Gender & Law remains committed to providing a forum in which all voices are heard-herein is BLSA's voice.The Customer is Always Right… Not! Employer Liability for Third Party Sexual Harassment
This article will ask a series of questions. What is third party sexual harassment? Under what conditions does it occur? Does it differ in any significant respects from traditional notions of sexual harassment? Should those differences, if any, make a difference in the way that the legal system addresses third party harassment? And indeed, should the problem be addressed solely through the legal system? What might an employer do to alleviate sexual harassment of this type?Whatever Happened to G.I. Jane?: Citizenship, Gender, and Social Policy in the Postwar Era
In this Article, it is argued that the GI Bill is consistent with the social welfare policies of the New Deal period, in particular the Social Security Act of 1935, and so should be examined within the analytical framework established by scholars like Linda Gordon and Theda Skocpol in their studies of the Social Security Act's social welfare programs. Although the Bill is gender-neutral on its face, it was framed by normative assumptions about military participation and work that ensured that it was socially understood to benefit male veterans.“Just Like One of the Family”: Domestic Violence Paradigms and Combating On-The-Job Violence Against Household Workers in the United States
This Article argues that the immense problem of on-the-job abuse experienced by domestic workers demands a multifaceted plan of attack. The proposed responses specifically draw upon the capacities, strengths, and resources of women, particularly comparatively privileged women, as both activists and employers of domestic workers. By describing the circumstances of domestic work in the United States from the nation's inception to the present, Part I demonstrates the prevalence and intractability of on-the-job physical and sexual abuse and argues that other women, as employers of domestic workers, have historically played a complex role in participating in, condoning, or failing to acknowledge this abuse. Part II asserts that the legal and socioeconomic contexts of contemporary domestic work reflect the prevalence of immigrant women of color in the contemporary domestic workforce and the unique challenges they face as workers in the U.S. Part III examines the present-day incidence of harassment and violence against domestic workers-as revealed through newspaper accounts, interviews with domestic workers, and case law-and analyzes common threads of experience in these narratives. Based on these findings, this Part contends that physical and sexual abuse suffered by many domestic workers combines elements of workplace harassment with characteristics typical of "domestic violence," making this abuse more challenging to combat than "standard" workplace harassment.The Logician Versus the Linguist- an Empirical Tale of Functional Discrimination in the Legal Academy
This paper, focusing exclusively on gender, asks whether male and female law students express different preferences for logic-based learning models. A wide variety of educational theories and other theories have been used to conceptualize different learning preferences among law students but until now, none has focused on logical intelligence compared with the other intelligences. Using Harvard educational psychologist Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, this paper describes an empirical study establishing that male and female law students express differences in preferring logical intelligence over the other intelligences. This paper introduces the concept of "functional discrimination," addressing the ways in which law school functionally discriminates against women by significantly favoring logical intelligence. Law School functionally discriminates against women (1) by not providing women access to the prime benefits of the institution and