Gender Justice - Spring 2020

Gender Justice - Spring 2020

GU4506: Gender Justice

This course will provide an introduction to the concrete legal contexts in which issues of gender and justice have been articulated, disputed and hesitatingly, if not provisionally, resolved.  Through these readings we will explore the multiple ways in which the law has contended with sexual difference, gender-based stereotypes, and the meaning of equality in domestic, transnational and international contexts. So too, we will discuss how feminist theorists have thought about sex, gender and sexuality in understanding and critiquing our legal system and its norms.

Download the course readers for this class at the following links

  • Gender Justice - Spring 2020: Reader 1
  • Gender Justice - Spring 2020: Reader 2
  • Gender Justice - Spring 2020: Reader 3
  • Gender Justice - Spring 2020: Reader 4

Course Syllabus:

January 27th: Introduction

February 3th:  Early Framing

  • Jo Freeman, “The Revolution For Women In Law And Public Policy,” in Women: A Feminist Perspective (Jo Freeman ed. 1995) pp. 365-404
  • Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Racism, Civil Rights, and Feminism, in Critical Race Feminism: A Reader (Wing ed. 1997)
  • Gayle Rubin, Gayle Rubin, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality, in Pleasure and Danger 267 (Carole S. Vance ed., 1984)

February 10th: Paradigms of Gender Equality

  • Nancy Levit and Robert R.M. Verchick, Feminist Legal Theories, in Feminist Legal Theory, 11 (New York University Press, 2016).

The Body As A Gender Justice Project

 February 17th: Sex-Based Categories as a Matter of Gender Justice I – Boundary Work

  • Richards v. USTA
  • In Re Estate of Gardner
  • Eligibility Requirements, United States of America Beauty Pageant
  • Green v. Miss United States of America
  • Elise Heron, An Oregon Woman Is Suing a Beauty Pageant that Excludes Transgender Contestants, Willamette Week, December 18, 2019

February 24th: Sex-Based Categories as a Matter of Gender Justice II – Maintaining Difference

  • Jesperson v. Harrah’s Operating Co.
  • National Women’s Law Center, Dress Coded: Black Girls, Bodies, and Bias in D.C. Schools (2018)
  • Bauer v. Holder
  • Bauer v. Lynch

March 2nd: The Pregnant Body

  • Trubeck v. Ullman, 147 Conn. 633 (1960)
  • Brief of ACLU in Griswold v. Connecticut
  • Litigation: Connecticut, in Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling (2d edition, 2012) pp. 163-184

March 9th: Criminalizing Pregnancy

  • “When Prosecutors Jail a Mother for a Miscarriage,” New York Times, December 28, 2018
  • “Federal Court of Appeals Decision Prevents Pregnant Woman’s Challenge to Wisconsin’s ‘Unborn Child Protection Act’.” National Advocates for Pregnant Women. June 18, 2018
  • “Arkansas Court of Appeals Overturns Criminal Conviction for Concealing a Birth.” National Advocates for Pregnant Women. March 14, 2018
  • Anne O’Hara Bynum v. State of Arkansas. Arkansas Court of Appeals. Opinion Delivered, March 14, 2018
  • Concurrence in Anne O’Hara Bynum v. State of Arkansas. Arkansas Court of Appeals. Opinion Delivered, March 14, 2018

Gender, Sex, and Sexual Orientation

*March 23rd: Is Sexual Orientation Discrimination a Form of Sex Discrimination?

  • Brian D. Prowel v. Wise Business Forms, Inc., 579 F.3d 285 (3rd Cir. 2009)
  • Hively v Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, 853 F.3d 339 (7th Cir. 2017)

March 30th: Is Transgender Discrimination a Form of Sex Discrimination?

  • Ulane v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 742 F.2d 1081 (7th Cir. 1984)
  • Macy v. Department of Justice, EEOC Appeal No. 0120120821 (April 20, 2012)
  • G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, brief of the ACLU.

 April 6th: Sex Work

  • The NYPD Arrests Women for Who They Are and Where They Go — Now They're Fighting Back
  • Interactive Map: See Where the NYPD Arrests Women Who Are Black, Latina, Trans, and/or Wearing Jeans
  • Complaint , D.H. v. City of New York
  • Loitering Case - Defendants' Motion to Dismiss - Natasha Martin et al. v. The City of New York - Defendants' Memorandum of Law in Support of Their Partial Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint. United States District Court - Southern District of New York.

 April 13th: Decriminalization of Sex Work

  • Amnesty International Policy on state obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil the human rights of sex workers
  • LGBT Rights Organizations Join Amnesty International in Call to Decriminalize Sex Work , August 20, 2015
  • Rachel Moran, Buying Sex Should Not Be Legal, August 29, 2015
  • Tryon P. Woods, The Antiblackness of 'modern-day slavery' Abolitionism, Open Democracy, October 10, 2014
  • Frankie Mullin, The difference between decriminalisation and legalisation of sex work, Newstatesman 19 October 2015.

Marriage Rights vs. Sexual Justice

  • Obergefell v. Hodges
    • Opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy
    • Opinion of Justice Katherine Franke
    • Opinion of Justice Sherif Girgis and Robert George

April 27th: Black Lives Matter - A Movement for Racial and Gender Justice

  • Marcia Chatelain and Kaavya Asoka, Women and Black Lives Matter: An Interview with Marcia Chatelain, Dissent Magazine, Summer 2015
  • Vania Leveille, Black Women and Black Lives Matter: Fighting Police Misconduct in Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Cases
  • Dorothy Roberts, Reproductive Justice, Not Just Rights, Dissent Magazine, Fall 2015
  • Leslie Watson Malachi, Police Violence Is a Reproductive Justice Issue, Cosmopolitan, July 18, 2016