Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

In early December, the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality (IRWGS) at Columbia University, in conjunction with Proof: Media for Social Justice, installed a photographic exhibit entitled The Legacy of Rape.  In connection with this exhibit, IRWGS held a panel titled, Art, Law, and Social Justice, moderated by Marianne Hirsch. I participated as a […]

From Columbia Law Professor and Nation columnist Patricia Williams, cross posted from the September 19, 2011 issue of the Nation and Williams’ own blog, Madlawprofessor: Carnival possibilities notwithstanding, however, it’s important to remember that criminal cases fall apart all the time. Through one prism, this was just one of them—such is life. At the same […]

Two important events in the criminal treatment of sexual violence against women took place yesterday. First: Michigan’s Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a criminal complaint against Sedrick Leman-Issac Mitchell, aka “Gruesome,” charging him with human trafficking, forced prostitution, criminal sexual conduct (including rape), assault with a firearm and other felonies in connection with a criminal enterprise […]

Advocacy Organization Joins In Support Of Class Action Lawsuit Against Pentagon Leaders Gates, Rumsfeld To Combat Military Rape, Sexual Assault From Tanya Domi: Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), a national advocacy organization devoted to eliminating sexual violence in the U.S. military, led by executive director and former Marine Corps Captain Anu Bhagwati, are joining in support of […]

The Pentagon is being sued by SWAN to get them to change how they handle and prevent sexual abuse cases. Our Tanya Domi will have more on this shortly. For now, there’s this video from this morning’s The Today Show, and the AP report in The Washington Post. If you can see this, then you […]

If you follow the situation in Haiti, you know that the recovery and rebuilding from the devastating earthquake last January has proceeded slowly, and that cholera has now spread throughout the country – adding new forms of misery to a people already suffering from inordinate emiseration. Gender Action, an NGO promoting gender justice and women’s […]

The twin horizons of many people and organizations in the lesbian and gay community – achieving marriage equality and repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – seem like obvious civil rights goals.  They both enshrine official, legally sanctioned discrimination against gay men and lesbians.  Yet as sites for the elaboration of a free-self, military services […]

Jane Kim, is a J.D. candidate in her third year at Columbia Law School and an aspiring civil and human rights advocate, activist, and scholar.  Here are her thoughts on sexual violence in the university setting: It may be common knowledge that 25 percent of college women survive rape or attempted assault, but imagining what […]