The relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States has long been a story of empire and colonization. From the island's annexation to today, Puerto Ricans have struggled for their right to self-determination. The fiscal control board, housing crisis, austerity measures, Hurricane Maria, and the recent resignation of former governor Ricardo Rossell6 have revived social...
Nothing generates as much discord and emotion as sex. No wonder Virginia Woolf once said, "when a subject is highly controversial-and any question about sex is that-one cannot hope to tell the truth."
Domestic workers, disproportionately foreign women, have long been accorded a place in our households, but not in our law. Nearly a century ago, the New Deal and Civil.Rights statutes excluded this female labor force from worker protections. More generally, migrant domestic workers around the world have often found themselves with little protection under national or international...
Discussions of due process often focus on individualizing trials in order to provide persons an opportunity to be heard. In keeping with this traditional understanding, Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion denying class certification in Wal-Mart v. Dukes describes class actions as “an exception to the usual rule that litigation is conducted by and on behalf of the individual...
Transgender individuals have many reasons to be concerned about their welfare in the current political and legislative climate. Transgender elders are especially vulnerable. They are more likely to be disabled than the general elder population. Moreover, transgender elders profoundly fear a future when they must rely on others to maintain and protect their gender identity and...
Recognizing human freedom is never as simple as acts of legal pronouncement might suggest. Liberal abstractions like freedom and equality; legal formulations of personhood, free will, and contract; the constructed divisions between public and private, self and other, home and market on which the former are predicated—these are often inadequate to understanding, let alone...
Scholars and other commentators have identified failures in the regulation of cosmetics-which depends heavily on voluntary industry self- regulation-and called for more stringent regulation of these products. Yet these calls have largely neglected an important dimension of the problem: the current laissez-faire approach to the regulation of cosmetics disproportionally places...
Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) adopt the look of medical practices-complete with workers in scrubs, ultrasound machines, and invasive physical exams-to deceive pregnant women into thinking they are being treated by licensed medical professionals. In reality, CPCs offer exclusively Bible- based, non-objective counseling. Numerous attempts to regulate CPCs have faced political...
By Yale Journal of Law And Feminism, Published on 03/09/19
The Supreme Court of the United States is not known as a bastion of feminism. With only four female justices in its history, it can hardly even be considered an equitably staffed institution. However, for centuries, women have had to look to the Supreme Court to protect and define their rights - right to work, right to equal treatment, right to reproductive freedom. While the...
Anne, a 20-year-old trainee nurse in England, became pregnant by a U.S. serviceman who had returned to the States. When she visited her parents in Ireland for her annual holiday, she knew she was pregnant and due to give birth. On the day of the birth, she felt unwell and remained in bed, secretly giving birth alone that evening in her bedroom. She admitted that she killed her...
Under current law, stark differences exist between different- and same-sex couples who welcome children into the world with regard to the ease through which the member of the couple who did not give birth to the child is able to obtain legal parent status. While a number of simple, efficient procedures exist for establishing legal parentage for different-sex partners of women who...
After twelve years of violent conflict, the bloody civil war in El Salvador came to an end in January 1992 with the signing of peace agreements and, ultimately, comprehensive Peace Accords. During the conflict between the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberaci6n Nacional (FMLN) [Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front] and the government, at least seventy-five thousand people...
In 2002, Krystal Etsitty, a transgender woman, was fired from her job as a bus driver for her "intent to use women's public restrooms" along her route. In 2007, she lost an employment discrimination suit because, the Tenth Circuit held, her employer's "concern" that "the use of women's public restrooms by a biological male could result in liability . .. constitute[d] a legitimate...
For detained children seeking asylum, the Credible Fear Interview (CFI) is highly consequential: those who do not pass are deported to countries in which they fear persecution or torture. We consider whether policies and practices during child CFIs ensure that complete information is elicited in the first instance. We uncover infirmities that prevent some child asylum seekers...
Title IX has become shorthand for the issue of campus sexual assault. So common is Title IX attention on campus sexual violence that it is easy to forget how recently campus sexual violence was a neglected issue. Only after years of student activism did the federal government begin to address campus sexual violence. In 2014, President Obama created the White House Task Force to...
Surveys of transgender people reveal high levels of discrimination in housing. Surveys are helpful; however, in the housing context discriminatory actions are often subtle and occur without a person's knowledge. Very little empirical evidence in the form of statistic measures of discrimination exists regarding the actual level of gender identity-based discrimination that occurs...
Recognizing the unique vulnerabilities of immigrants who become victims of crime in the United States, Congress enacted the U visa, a form of immigration relief that provides victims, including survivors of domestic violence, a path to lawful status. Along with this humanitarian. aim, the U visa was intended to aid law enforcement in efforts to investigate and prosecute crime...
Feminist legal theory is a significant area of scholarly inquiry, and the Supreme Court is no stranger to feminist legal arguments. Yet there has been no previous attempt to determine how the Court reacts to and makes use of the vocabulary of feminism. This Note conducts an empirical study of Supreme Court cases, and finds that-despite ample opportunity-the Court has only...
Fewer than a third of rape victims report their rape to the police. This low reporting rate appears to exist not only in jurisdictions with police departments that intentionally discourage victims, but also, paradoxically, in areas with departments that believe they encourage victims to report and pursue allegations of rape. Relying on original qualitative research conducted with...
This Article argues that survivors of campus sexual violence often need legal counsel before, during, and after campus disciplinary proceedings. Lawyers have been overlooked as a critical resource for survivors, and this omission means that most survivors do not receive essential services for addressing their victimization and furthering their recovery. This Article sets forth...
Conscience exemption laws, which permit refusals of service based on personal or religious belief, echo the formal equality approach embodied in antidiscrimination laws. They attempt to promote individual religious autonomy without taking into consideration the power and information disparities between institutional and individual actors and the harm that refusals can cause...
On January 4, 2016, over 100 women lawyers, law professors, and former judges told the world that they had had an abortion. In a daring amicus brief filed in Whole Woman 's Health v. Hellerstedt, the women spoke publicly about one of the most private decisions a woman can make. Their participation in this brief, which captured national media attention, marked their "coming out...
A jurisdictional divide has arisen at a critical point in the evolution of Title IX litigation. Though the text of Title IX only provides for administrative enforcement of its gender discrimination clause, the Supreme Court has established a private cause of action for students who experience sexual harassment at an institution that receives federal funding. This private cause of...