Feminist Law Professors

May 9, 2008

Chancellor Mark Wrighton
Washington University in St. Louis
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130

Dear Chancellor Wrighton,

We are extremely disappointed that the University has chosen to honor Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary degree at this spring’s commencement ceremony.

We are fully committed to the principle of free speech, and we believe the University should encourage a discussion of diverse viewpoints. Commencement, however, is first and foremost a time of celebration of the intellectual accomplishments of our students. It is, we believe, a disservice to those whom we honor to inject into the proceedings a person who has devoted her life to staking out and promoting polarizing, anti-intellectual positions. Northwestern University recently had the good sense to rescind its honorary degree offer to Jeremiah Wright. Washington University should do no less with the offer to Ms. Schlafly.

An even more important reason to rescind the degree offer to Ms. Schlafly is that her repeatedly expressed views are antithetical to some of the most fundamental principles for which this University stands.

Let us be clear. We are not talking about mere political disagreements - including her most famous political success, the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. Although many of us promoted the amendment, we readily acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree over the question whether - particularly in light of the existing Equal Protection Clause - a specific constitutional amendment was the ideal way to pursue the objective of equality, to which this University is firmly committed.

Our objection to honoring Ms. Schlafly instead stems from the fact that she has devoted her career to demagoguery and anti-intellectualism in the pursuit of her political agenda. She has berated scientific inquiry; apart from her particular stance on the Equal Rights Amendment, she has demonstrated a lack of concern for - and sometimes outright bigotry toward - not only women, but gays and lesbians; and she has led campaigns to undermine the independence of the judiciary. Here are only a few examples:

Ms. Schlafly has repeatedly promoted the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in the public schools. She objects to “force-feeding public schoolchildren with the theory of evolution” and refers to those who believe in evolution as “atheists.” Moreover, she consistently frames evolution as a political issue, instead of a scientific one. Ms. Schlafly wrote in 2006, for example, that “Liberals see the political value to teaching evolution in school, as it makes teachers and children think they are no more special than animals. Childhood joy and ambition can turn into depression as children learn to reject that they were created in the image of God.”

Ms. Schlafly consistently resorts to feminism-bashing rhetoric without engaging in reasoned discussions about the role of women in American society; she just labels people who don’t share her precise priorities as evil feminists. Ms. Schlafly wrote in 1994 of the recently confirmed United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that her “writings betray her as a radical, doctrinaire feminist, far out of the mainstream. All evidence indicates that she shares the chip-on-the-shoulder radical feminist view that American women have endured centuries of oppression and mistreatment from men.” More recently, Ms. Schlafly wrote in 2006 that federal money disbursed to states under the Violence Against Women Act “is used by anti-male feminists to train judges, prosecutors and the police in the feminist myths that domestic violence is a contagious epidemic, and that men are batterers and women are victims.”

Ms. Schlafly repeatedly criticizes “the gay and lesbian agenda.” She has opposed all attempts to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the workplace. With respect to a proposed law designed to prohibit discrimination against gay and lesbian school teachers, Ms. Schlafly wrote: “Surely the right of parents to control the education of their children is a right of a higher order than any alleged right of, say, the two college-educated lesbian members of the Symbionese Liberation Army to teach our young people.” Ms. Schlafly has also repeatedly denied the dignity of gays and lesbians with demagoguery such as her statement that homosexuality is “like prostitution. Nobody can stop you if you want to be a prostitute or to patronize a prostitute, but you are not going to force us to say that it is morally acceptable.”

Finally, as lawyers and law professors, we are deeply disturbed by Ms. Schlafly’s similarly anti-intellectual campaign against an independent judiciary. Instead of engaging in reasoned debate, she regularly uses the label “activist” to decry judges and decisions with which she happens to disagree. When United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote an opinion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional as applied to minors, Ms. Schlafly declared that the opinion was a “good ground for impeachment.” Ms. Schlafly advocated that judicial independence also be abolished here in Missouri, as she actively participated in the attempt to unseat Missouri Supreme Court Judge Rick Teitelman because of the substance of his judicial decisions.

We call on the University to rescind its offer of an honorary degree to Ms. Schlafly. If the University insists on honoring Ms. Schlafly at this year’s commencement, we are committed to disassociating ourselves from that decision. We will celebrate and honor our students, but we will not share the platform with Ms. Schlafly or otherwise support her agenda with our silence. Instead, we will support those students who are leading a protest against Ms. Schlafly’s honorary degree. We are deeply disappointed that the University in which we teach is honoring an individual whose professed values are so antithetical to those of the University. We will convey that disappointment to our students and their parents.

Sincerely,

Susan Frelich Appleton
Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law

Cheryl D. Block
Professor of Law

Kathleen Clark
Professor of Law

Adrienne Davis
William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law

Peter A. Joy
Professor of Law

Pauline T. Kim
John S. Lehmann Research Professor and Professor of Law

Richard B. Kuhns
Professor of Law

D. Bruce LaPierre
Professor of Law

Charles R. McManis
Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law

Kimberly Jade Norwood
Professor of Law

Stanley Paulson
William Gardiner Hammond Professor of Law

Laura A. Rosenbury
Associate Professor of Law

Margo Schlanger
Professor of Law

Karen Tokarz
Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service

Story here. There are no obvious links to feminism, but there is one to academia generally. I once had a fairly lengthy conversation with an epidemiologist who was studying and making recommendations for Universities with respect to the Coming Flu Pandemic. She thought it would be very likely that quarantines would be used to try to stop the spread of a bad flu. One thing that might happen is that everyone would be required to stay at home, in their homes, for a period of time related to the incubation period of the disease. If this was complied with fairly strictly, the spread of any pandemic could be halted. So, quarantines would be policed by actual police, and maybe National Guard troops. This, she said, is a good reason to have a plentiful supply of food and water on hand, flashlights, and a battery operated radio. Some people already do this, in case of natural disasters.

I’m not as good about this as I should be, and though I have some jugs of water on hand they are past their expiration date, so it’s beyond time to replace them. And, if the quarantine period was longish I might be subsisting on ancient cans of chick peas by the end of it. But I’d be relatively comfortable in my home, even if I was confined to it for several weeks. The same is not true for people with food insecurity issues or (here comes the link to academia) college students, particularly those who live in dormitories. Students could not realistically be confined to their rooms, but they could be confined to their dorms, or even to specific dorm floors. And to plan for this possibility, universities need to make sure there will be sufficient food and water available.

I remember taking a guided tour of New Orleans in 1999, and the guide explained how vulnerable the city was to hurricanes, since it was a giant bowl, with many portions below sea level. Only a few year earlier the city has endured serious flooding. Katrina and its aftermath was still shocking to me as to about everyone else, because it seemed clear that everyone was aware of the danger, but no one had adequately prepared for it. Hopefully any municipality struck by a flu pandemic will fare better than New Orleans did because there has been extensive governmental planning. But just in case, you might want to make sure you have plenty of bottled water and nonperishable foods on hand (more info and suggestions here), if you can.

–Ann Bartow

That’s a quote from WISER President Cindy Hounsell via this Jezebel post.

Here.

Remember this story? Now there is a video.

The WOC PhD blog has a detailed review here, with spoilers. And pictures!

From the publisher’s website:

Hidden in Plain Sight tells the tragic untold story of children’s rights in America. It asks why the United States today, alone among nations, rejects the most universally embraced human-rights document in history, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This book is a call to arms for America to again be a leader in human rights, and to join the rest of the civilized world in recognizing that the thirst for justice is not for adults alone.

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse explores the meaning of children’s rights throughout American history, interweaving the childhood stories of iconic figures such as Benjamin Franklin with those of children less known but no less courageous, like the heroic youngsters who marched for civil rights. How did America become a place where twelve-year-old Lionel Tate could be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 1999 death of a young playmate? In answering questions like this, Woodhouse challenges those who misguidedly believe that America’s children already have more rights than they need, or that children’s rights pose a threat to parental autonomy or family values. She reveals why fundamental human rights and principles of dignity, equality, privacy, protection, and voice are essential to a child’s journey into adulthood, and why understanding rights for children leads to a better understanding of human rights for all.

Compassionate, wise, and deeply moving, Hidden in Plain Sight will force an examination of our national resistance–and moral responsibility–to recognize children’s rights.

HIghly recommended!

Per this post at the Legal Ethics Forum:

Judge Posner recently issued a scathing critique of the immigration court system. He criticized the competence of immigration judges and lamented the dearth of qualified lawyers to handle immigration matters.

For more on these issues, you might want to take a look at this new article by Professor Michele Benedetto on the immigration court system. It is entitled, “Crisis on the Immigration Bench: An Ethical Perspective.”

Mike Madison has the details.

Info/Law has the scoop. Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve been sitting on this post for what seems like an eternity, but the news embargo has been lifted, and we’re all free to share the fantastic news from Harvard Law School, where the faculty voted unanimously to provide open access to faculty scholarship in an online repository. This makes Harvard the nation’s first law school to make a public commitment to principles of open access (although such policies are well known in the scientific and engineering communities, where they have been driven by astronomical [and still rising] journal subscription fees).

Details of the motion come from the peerless John Palfrey, the new head of the Harvard Law Library who has served for several years as the Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. JP’s blog post has the full text of the motion, but the key provisions are:

“Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. The policy will apply to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.”

This is great news for anyone with Internet access and a thirst for legal erudition. I hope many law schools follow suit.

–Ann Bartow

That is the first sentence from this article, which also notes in pertinent part:

The changes include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users’ ability to search online for subscribers under 18 and joining an existing task force seeking ways to better verify users’ ages and identities.

The New York Times reported last week that about 77 percent of new mothers breast-feed, the highest percentage in the United States in over a decade.  However, at six months age for the newborn, the rate of breast-feeding is the same as it has been, which is much lower than government-targeted rates.  This means that too many women try breast-feeding but don’t continue doing so.

The increased rate of breast-feeding at birth is encouraging because of all the health benefits associated with breast-feeding:  “The increase in initial breast-feeding has been driven at least in part by a concerted campaign by medical groups and government agencies that have sought to educate mothers about the benefits of breast-feeding and, increasingly, the risks associated with infant formula. . . . Studies have shown that children who are fed formula have increased risks of ear and respiratory infections, obesity, diabetes and even cancer.”

Campaigns to increase the rate of breast-feeding are wonderful.  But, at the same time, they are flawed without more, and maybe that’s why the rate at six-months isn’t increasing.

First, as has been pointed out by many, campaigns need to come with a push to make breast-feeding easier in a women’s lives.  Some working women get the support they need from their employer, but that’s the exception.  Most struggle to fit breast-feeding and pumping into their work lives and get no support from their employer in doing so.  All breast-feeding women struggle with finding breast-feeding-friendly public space.  The law needs to work to make breast-feeding easier for women.  But, despite this being incredibly important, it is well-worn territory.

In my mind, what is less-well-worn is a second flaw with current campaigns to increase the rate of breast-feeding.  This second flaw is that information about just how difficult many women find breast-feeding is not a major part of the campaign.  Admittedly, I’m speaking from my personal experiences (which are even more limited because I’m a man), but almost every woman I know who has breast-fed has had major problems — engorgement, oversupply, undersupply, mastitis, blebs, clogged ducts, cracked nipples, biting babies, etc.  And, most of them were surprised by this.  Breast-feeding had been portrayed to them as this wonderful experience between mother and child.  And, ultimately, it was.  But, the picture drawn did not include information about just how difficult it would be — physically and emotionally — and about how committed many women have to be to persevere through the difficult times.  With more accurate information about difficulties that many, if not most, women go through, maybe campaigns to increase breast-feeding would actually be more effective in the long-run, as more women might continue through difficulties if they knew that their problems were common, if not almost universal.

Certainly La Leche League, lactation consultants, OB/GYNs, midwives, and other personal/familial connections can provide this information, but it needs to be out there even more, a significant part of every campaign to increase breast-feeding.  Breast-feeding is natural, but it’s also incredibly hard for many women.  That shouldn’t be ignored.  The more realistic campaigns on the issue are, the more successful they’ll be.

- David S. Cohen

Now available for downloading here. The abstract:

Intentional tort law generally protects personal autonomy and self-determination vigorously by requiring fair disclosure before consent to physical contact is considered voluntary and valid. A glaring exception exists relative to consent to sexual relations. Although American law historically has provided remedies for fraudulent or other tortious inducement of sexual relations, current sex tort jurisprudence offers virtually no protection. The law’s contemporary “caveat emptor” approach to cases of sexual autonomy infringement is inappropriate because it departs from fundamental principles of intentional tort doctrine. In addition, the current law supports “false” norms that sexual misappropriation is acceptable. Current law fails to protect personal privacy, and fails to engage the law’s potential to influence social conduct positively.

Intentional sex tort law should be reformed so that it is consistent with prevailing sexual norms and principles of intentional tort doctrine. Allegations of tortious interference with sexual autonomy should be analyzed consistent with traditional battery jurisprudence bearing on the issues of intent to offend and offensive contact. Exceptions to the defense of consent should also be adopted. The fraud exception should apply, utilizing established principles of materiality and justifiable reliance. In addition, the law should acknowledge a heightened duty of disclosure between sexual partners consistent with informed consent doctrine, to encourage honest and fairly-informed personal relationships.

Regular readers may recall that she discussed this article previously, in a post here.

That is the title of a post at Crooked Timber discussing the decision by Washington University in St. Louis to award Phyllis “There won’t be an ERA on my watch” Shlafly of the Eagle Forum You ought to head over there to read the hilarious first comment, by Michael Berube (creatively imagine there are accents on the e’s in Berube), alone.

The University of South Carolina has given honorary degrees to all sorts of odious people over the years, so I’m in no position to judge Wash. U. too harshly. Moreover, faculty typically don’t have any role in selecting honorees, they certainly don’t here, so I wouldn’t blame the Wash. U. faculty either. But this is kind of galling, no question.

–Ann Bartow

Video of a  panel discussion featuring former San Jose City Councilwoman Cindy Chavez; business executive and political fund-raiser Lorraine Hariton; Morgan Family Foundation President and former California Senator Rebecca Q. Morgan; and Stanford Law Professor and Ethics Center Director, and fabulous Feminist Law Prof Deborah L. Rhode, is available here.

This morning, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage is, for all intents and purposes, dead for the remainder of this legislative session. The main sponsor of the bill asked the Senate to table it, which it agreed to do. According to the P-G, the senators were facing a long evening of debate and voting last night, with as many as 14 different planned amendments to the bill (including the one blogged earlier here). Apparently, the main sponsor pushed to table the bill because, even had it passed the Republican-controlled Senate, it would have landed in a House committee chaired by an adamant opponent of the bill and the bill would not have been acted on any time soon (the Pennsylvania House is controlled by Democrats by a margin of 102-101). This is welcome news for all unmarried couples in Pennsylvania—straight and gay alike.

-Anthony C. Infanti

I’m cross-posting this from Millennial Law Profs because I have a feeling that my fellow Feminist Law Profs and readers are going to be some of the greatest outside-the-box creative thinkers on how to use a common everyday item for off-label purposes.  It’s no accident that Necessity is the Mother of Invention and not its dad or second cousin.

Steve Demby  suggests 10 ways to use a cellphone in class — and that’s just what he could come up with off the top of his head.  But I’m determined that we can come up with 92 more. There are both students and professors who read this blog, so what can you think of (that’s constructive and serves some educational purpose) that you can do with a cellphone in a classroom?

Here are Steve Demby’s 10:

1) Check the spelling/definition of a word
2) Research a topic
3) Look up reference images
4) Pull up maps (even with satellite imagery)
5) Document a science lab with built in digital camera/video
6) Fact check on the fly
7) Mail questions to the teacher that they might be embarrassed to ask
Classroom response system
9) Take quizzes
10) Record and/or listen to podcasts

So post away! If you’re reading this post, add a comment over at Millennial Law Prof with at least one (yet unnamed) way to use cell phones in the classroom. Let’s assume that the phone has standard phone capabilities as well as text-messaging, pictures, mp3 sound, video, and Internet. If your idea requires some kind of add-on beyond that (like a stand-alone keyboard) be sure to note that. If you’re reading this post on a blog other than Millennial Law Prof, be sure to click over to MLP to leave your idea.

Hit it!

The Michigan Supreme Court today upheld a lower court ruling that cities, counties, state universities, and other public employers cannot offer domestic partner benefits to their employees. The Court ruled that such benefits violate the state’s constitutional amendment that reads: “To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.” Gay rights groups, labor groups, and everyone concerned with protecting diverse families now need to advocate employee benefit schemes that allow employees to name any one person with whom they live in a economically interdependent relationship and that person’s children as covered on their employee benefits. This is what Salt Lake City, Utah does in Ordinance Number 2.52.100. Their plan has already been upheld against a challenge that it violated the state’s laws “defending” marriage. That approach is actually better from a family policy perspective! It means that two people who are not romantic partners but decide to raise their children together, or two friends who pool their resources, can also qualify…as can unmarried straight and gay partners. Some Michigan entities have started this type of criteria, but they all have problems — requiring living together for too long before covering or excluding different-sex unmarried partners or relatives. I explore these issues at length in chapter eight of my book. Oh…and the people of Michigan need to repeal their offensive constitutional amendment!

–Nancy Polikoff

From this website:

“The History of U.S. Feminism is an introductory text designed to be used as supplementary material for first-year women’s studies students or as a brush-up text for more advanced students. Covering the first, second, and third waves of feminism, The History of U.S. Feminism provides historical context of all the major events and players since the late nineteenth century through today.

“The chapters cover first-wave feminism, a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth century which focused primarily on gaining women’s suffrage; second-wave feminism, which started in the ’60s and lasted through the ’80s and is best understood as emphasizing the connection between the personal and the political; and third-wave feminism, which started in the early ’90s and arose in part from a backlash against the movements propagated by the second wave.”

NB: This is not a paid announcement, nor was anything received in kind for this post. Haven’t read the book, but it looks interesting.

–Ann Bartow