Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

New York’s police and prosecutors should not be permitted to introduce condoms as evidence of prostitution and prostitution-related offenses, according to the students who work in Columbia’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic.  The Clinic held a tabling day yesterday at Columbia Law School in support of a New York State bill that would enact this [...]

The New York Court of Appeals ruled today that the Westchester County Executive and the New York State Department of Civil Service were within their legal powers when they issued orders requiring relevant public officials to
recognize same sex marriages lawfully entered into outside the State of New York in the same manner as they currently [...]

The New York Court of Appeals is currently weighing issues of critical importance to families around the state of New York in the matter of Debra H. v. Janice R. The petitioner in the case, Debra H., seeks to prevent the possibility that she may never again see the child she parented since birth.  Respondent, [...]

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico is currently considering whether Puerto Rico’s laws permit the adoption of a child by a non-biological parent who is the same-sex partner of the child’s legally recognized parent.  Such adoptions are typically referred to as “second-parent” adoptions because they occur in situations where the child already has a legally [...]

Today is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution this day in 1787.   I’ll be one of the speakers at our Constitution Day event, and have put together these brief remarks to raise the question: to whom do the rights contained in the Constitution belong?
Fifty years ago police officers entered the [...]

The CRR-Columbia Fellowship is a full-time, residential fellowship for up to two full years starting in July 2010. The Fellow will be a member of the community of graduate fellows at the Law School and will be integrated into the legal and policy work of the Center and will have work space at both locations. [...]

The Gender and Sexuality Law Blog covered a case our Sexuality & Gender Law Clinic was handling back in May having to do with a man who applied for and was denied parole by the Massachusetts  Parole Board because he was gay.  See post here.
This week, the Parole Board granted Bruce Wilburn’s parole application.   See [...]

The last several weeks have been busy ones in the battle for marriage equality.  The governors of Maine and New Hampshire signed laws that allowed same sex couples to marry.  California’s Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 8, and we expected the New York State legislature to have a darn good chance of passing [...]

By: DUNCAN OSBORN
Gay City News link here
05/26/2009

Columbia Law students Mollie Kornreich, Abram Seaman, and Keren Zwick have taken up Bruce Wilborn’s case out of their belief he was denied parole in the killing of a gay man because he too is gay.

At first blush, Bruce Wilborn is not the ideal client for a [...]

Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by President Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court, has taught a course on Federal Appellate Court advocacy at Columbia for several years.  While President Obama’s adjunct teaching job at the University of Chicago is often cited as one of his credentials, little mention has been made of Judge Sotomayor’s teaching experience.  Hmmm.
Students [...]