Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

Chinyere Ezie, Columbia Law School class of 2010 is Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and former President of Outlaws (the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer/Allied student organization at Columbia Law School), offers the following reflections on ongoing attempts to bring lbgt people within the protection of federal hate crimes legislation in light of the deeply [...]

After much gossip, hand-ringing, internecine scuffles and turf kick-up, the White House has announced that Luis de Baca will be appointed to head up the State Department’s Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Office.  The TIP Office coordinates policy out of the State Department on the Traffic in Persons and, perhaps most importantly, must issue an [...]

In 1995 Lani Guinier, Michelle Fine, Jane Balin, Ann Bartow & Deborah Lee Batchel published a study of the gender-based bias and stratification of the law school experience at Penn Law School.  Becoming Gentlemen: Women’s Experience at One Ivy League Law School, 143 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1 (1995).    I often mention this article in [...]

On Friday, the Gender and Sexuality Law Program held its inaugural symposium, this year honoring  the work of Professor Martha Nussbaum.  Nine scholars submitted papers providing insights on  Professor Nussbaum’s scholarship, points of departure for her theories, and novel applications of her  theories to many different contexts.  Dean Schizer introduced Professor Nussbaum before her keynote  speech at the end [...]

From Columbia Law School Professor Patricia Williams, via The Nation
For some years now, the biotechnology of fertility enhancement has been exalted as God’s gift to the biblically barren. A relentless narrative of entitlement intertwined with prayerfulness has framed infertility as a tragedy, an oppression, an agony, a disease. Some have proclaimed a “right” to [...]

Many of Columbia’s peer schools have recently undertaken reforms in their grading systems.  Harvard and Stanford have moved in the direction of Yale’s system – three passing grades (1: Honors/High Pass, 2: Pass and 3: Restricted Credit/Low Pass) and then 4: No Credit/Fail.  Since hardly anyone fails in our law schools, this means that these [...]

Yesterday, the Gender and Sexuality Law Program kicked off its spring 2009 colloquium with the presentation and discussion of Professor Anna Marie Smith’s paper entitled “Reproductive Technology, Family Law, and the Post-welfare State: The California Same-Sex Parents’ Rights ‘Victories’ of 2005.“ Professor Smith’s article touches on several facets of parental rights and its intersection with [...]

From Columbia Law School Professor Patricia Williams, via The Nation
Millions of people are expected to descend on the nation’s capital for the inauguration of Barack Obama. It is unprecedented: churches, temples, mosques and tribal councils have hired buses to attend. Schools are closing for the day. Universities are setting up JumboTrons to watch the festivities. [...]

Khiara Bridges is the Center for Reproductive Rights/Columbia Law School fellow at Columbia Law School who has just completed her PhD in Columbia’s Anthropology Department studying the intersection of race, poverty, and gender through the experience of women in an obstetrics clinic in a New York City public hospital.  She blogged earlier on the racial [...]