Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

This Summer, Tamar Katz Peled joined the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law as a Visiting Scholar.  I spoke with Tamar 2 weeks ago about her research, and her plans for pursuing further inquiry and advocacy work in her primary field of study: reproductive surrogacy, and reproductive access in legal and social contexts.  Below is […]

Cross-posted to Medium. In a significant gender equality ruling, the Supreme Court today struck down a federal immigration law that made it harder for fathers than mothers to pass their U.S. citizenship on to their children. Current immigration law discriminates between citizen fathers and citizen mothers whose children are born abroad. The Court recognized the […]

Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, on Behalf of NAACP LDF and AALDEF, Urges Supreme Court to Strike Down School Board’s Restroom Discrimination Against Transgender High School Students In an amicus brief filed today with the U.S. Supreme Court by Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, two of the nation’s leading […]

Law Professors Urge New York’s High Court to Protect Functional Parent-Child Relationships Columbia Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic Submits Statewide Amicus Brief on Behalf of 45 Family Law Scholars from All 15 Law Schools New York, February 9, 2016 – Professors from every one of New York’s 15 law schools are urging the state’s highest […]

And now for an exercise in absurdity: a nurse who refuses to prescribe contraception is suing a family planning clinic because it refused to hire her. It refused to hire her for a very simple reason, which probably seems obvious: It’s a family planning clinic, and she refused to perform family planning services. Rather than take that […]

Since the news media is saturated with analysis of the Court’s arguments in today’s Proposition 8 case, this blog post offers a more personal view of the proceedings: I dashed down from my hotel room at 6:10 a.m. to catch a predawn ride with colleagues over to the Supreme Court.  Even at that hour, First […]

My remarks at a recent gathering at UCLA Law School recognizing the 40th anniversary of Roe and the 10th anniversary of Lawrence. Liberty, Equality & Sexual Freedom: A View from 29 Palms Katherine Franke[1] The occasion to reflect on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade[2] and the 10th anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas[3] at […]

Columbia Law School Press Release:  Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic submitted a brief amicus curiae Friday to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on behalf of 60 global experts in sexual orientation, gender, and family law. The brief argues that the Chilean Supreme Court violated the American Convention on Human Rights when […]

Big news today out of the Arkansas Supreme Court, but much of the media seems to be confused about what the news is.  The Huffington Post’s piece is typical: Arkansas Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban On Gay Adoptions. In fact, the news is even better: the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a statute that prohibited […]

Might Kristen Booth Glen become the next Judge Judy?  Last week she approved a petition from CNN to video and then broadcast the adoption proceedings of a 5-month-old boy named Nicholas by “Tony,” the partner of “Gary,” who conceived the child with a surrogate.  Judiciary Law §218 bars cameras in the courtroom without a judge’s […]