Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

Press Release: March 23, 2017 From: Columbia Law School, The Public Rights/Private Conscience Project Subject: EEOC Proposed Guidance Shows We Can Protect Religious Freedom & LGBTQ Rights Contact: Liz Boylan, eboyla@law.columbia.edu, 212.854.0167 March 23, 2017: While the President and Congress consider acts to expand religious exemptions at the expense of LGBTQ and other rights, a proposed […]

More than 50 legal scholars today strongly urged President Obama to resist calls for an overly broad religious exemption in a proposed executive order prohibiting sexual orientation and/or gender identity discrimination by federal contractors. The effort is being spearheaded by Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, as part of its recently launched […]

The Supreme Court is supposed to be the final word on our legal questions, but apparently it reserves the right to change its mind at a moment’s notice. When the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores on Monday June 30th, holding that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act required the government […]

Katherine Franke talks to Wisconsin Public Radio for an hour about what we should take from the prominence of gay rights in President Obama’s inauguration speech.  Listen here.

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media […]

Professor Katherine Franke is working for two weeks in Ramallah with women lawyers as part of a project to help build the Palestinian Bar Association’s Women’s Committee.  Here is her International Women’s Day greeting from downtown Ramallah: If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install […]

The Army, Navy and Air Force have all created new websites with official information about DADT.  The Navy’s, called ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Implementation Information” is here, the Army’s is here, and the Air Force’s is here. Given that Columbia University has now signed an agreement with the Navy to bring NROTC (Naval Reserve […]

Last Thursday, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Iwo Jima with the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, and signed an agreement to bring NROTC (Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps) back to Columbia after an almost 40 year ban.  President Bollinger’s formalization of an on-campus relationship with the Navy […]

Yesterday the New York State Senate, an otherwise dysfunctional political institution, passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights by a vote of 33 to 28.  The new law would provide New York’s estimated 200,000 domestic workers with basic labor protections such as a day off every week, overtime pay, paid sick days, the right to […]

Many people regard marriage rights for same-sex couples as the civil rights issue of this generation. Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t have strong feelings one way or the other on this issue: Should courts recognize the marriage rights of lesbian and gay couples as a matter of dignity and equality, or […]