hunter of justice

Lawbama profs - fall update (updated 10/21/09)

All together, 46 law professors are working or will soon be working in the Obama administration. In addition, four profs have been named to advisory or oversight boards.

Here's the updated list:

ADELL AMOS (Oregon) has been appointed Deputy Solicitor for land and water resources at Department of the Interior.

SAM BAGENSTOS (Michigan) is Deputy Assistant AG in the Civil Rights Division at Justice.

JONATHAN BAKER (American) is Chief Economist at the FCC.

MICHAEL BARR (Michigan) is Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Financial Institutions.

DAVID BARRON (Harvard) is Principal Deputy Assistant AG at OLC.

NORMAN BAY (New Mexico) has been named to head the Office of Enforcement for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

ROSA BROOKS (Georgetown) is a senior adviser to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

MARCILYNN BURKE (University of Houston Law Center) is deputy director of policy and programs for the Bureau of Land Management

BILL BURKE-WHITE (Penn) is joining the State Department’s Policy and Planning office.

ALTA CHARO (Wisconsin) is a senior adviser in the Office of the Commissioner at the FDA.

SARAH CLEVELAND (Columbia) is Counselor on International Law with the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U. S. State Department.

TINO CUELLAR (Stanford) is Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy, in the White House Domestic Policy Council.

SUSAN CRAWFORD (Michigan) is Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy.

NESTOR DAVIDSON (Colorado) is Principal Deputy General Counsel at HUD.

LARRY ECHOHAWK (BYU) is the new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

CHAI FELDBLUM (Georgetown) has been nominated to become a commissioner on the EEOC.

JODY FREEMAN (Harvard) is a counselor in the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change.

SETH HARRIS (New York Law School) is Deputy Secretary of Labor.

LISA HEINZERLING (Georgetown) wins the prize for first promotion: initially a senior advisor to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, she has been named Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation (OPEI).

Historically black colleges add protections against anti-gay discrimination

The Winston-Salem (NC) Journal reports that four historically black colleges in North Carolina have added sexual orientation as a protected characteristic to their anti-discrimination policies. On politics generally, North Carolina is a particularly interesting state to watch: it's the 10th largest in population and the one to vote blue in November by the slimmest margin.  OK, and it's also my home state.  I suspect that I have very few Tar Heel readers (Hi Lee), but it's a fascinating political bellwether, so stay tuned.

Three years ago, Winston-Salem State University's nondiscrimination policy didn't include sexual orientation. Neither did those at most of the historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the UNC system. But today, four of the five public HBCUs have policies that include sexual orientation.

"Clearly, society has changed," said Edward Hanes Jr., the equal employment opportunity officer at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU). "More information in the community has brought the change around, more acknowledgement that our campuses are diverse in many ways, beyond the color of skin," Hanes said.

That change hasn't come easily, however. Nationally, HBCUs have been resistant, and sometimes hostile, to protecting the rights of gay students and faculty. Many HBCUs were founded by religious organizations, said Joey Gaskins, the diversity student coordinator for Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation's leading gay-rights organizations. "A lot of our students find the administration and faculty tend to be very conservative and not agreeing with who they are as a people and not allowing the space to educate the community," Gaskins said.

In March, WSSU's board of trustees voted to include sexual orientation in its nondiscrimination policy. Hanes said that the school started taking a close look at including sexual orientation in the policy about three years ago. He said that often school administrators at HBCUs have larger worries than sexual orientation, and that was one of the reasons why it took so long for the school to take action. But once trustee members were able to look at the policy change, they approved it unanimously, Hanes said. "To be perfectly honest, we face a lot of issues at historically black colleges and universities that frankly, majority schools don't have to face," he said. "Sexual orientation is not the most pressing issue. We're working at schools that had to do more with less."

"I think black homophobia is rooted in the fact that our traditional masculine and feminine roles have been under attack for 300 years," said the Rev. Carlton Eversley, who is the pastor of Dellabrook Presbyterian Church and the president of the Minister's Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity. Black men have historically been denied the opportunity to make enough money to provide for their families, and the idea that black women can raise a family has also been under attack, Eversley said. "When there are people whose orientation is different or nontraditional, we have a visceral anti-gay, anti-lesbian feeling," he said. "Having said all that, I don't think that condones it."

The issue of gay rights at HBCUs came to a head after a 2002 incident in which a gay student at all-male Morehouse College was beaten by another student with a bat. The gay student's skull was fractured during the beating. After the incident, the Human Rights Campaign started an initiative focusing on HBCUs, Gaskins said. A gay campus organization was soon established at Morehouse College called Safe Space.

Students at Winston-Salem State University established the Gay-Straight Student Alliance last year. Brandon Hughes, the president of the organization and a senior from Charlotte, said he didn't run into much opposition to the group, which recently held a panel discussion on same-sex marriage. "The younger generation is a lot more open-minded," he said. "A lot of gays and lesbians are organizing to let people know what we are. This is how we love. You can either accept it or ignore it."

Larry Kramer's latest: keep gender away from gay studies

The always provocative, occasionally astute Larry Kramer used the occasion of a Yale gay alumni event to blast the university for "misusing" a grant from his brother made in his honor, by building up a gender studies program rather than focusing on the study of gay (apparently male) history.  Following are comments on the speech, from Inside Higher Ed. After the jump is Kramer's speech in its entirety.

HT: Minna Kotkin

...The speech caused a bit of confusion [at Yale] because that university's history department has two big-name gay studies scholars who write gay history: George Chauncey and Joanne Meyerowitz. So the idea that literary theorists control gay studies at Yale in a way that diminishes gay history bothers people there and elsewhere. Via e-mail, Chauncey said that the program named for Kramer did end after five years, but that it ended "as planned, when the funding did," and that it left gay studies "much stronger than it had been before."

Added Chauncey: "I teach courses at Yale every year on lesbian and gay history, and I share Larry Kramer's belief in the importance of gay history, even though we often disagree in our interpretation of that history. But LGBT studies is an interdisciplinary field which includes much more than history, and I am proud that the program at Yale offers courses in anthropology, sociology, film, literature, musicology, and other disciplines." Of the link between gay studies and gender studies, Chauncey said that "this is a common pattern across the country, and it seems to me a very good one, since as a curricular matter there are so many links between LGBT studies and gender studies."

John G. Younger, a gay studies scholar who is professor of classics and director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Kansas, called Kramer's talk "rambling" and "shrill," and said he disagreed with it. Kramer's list of famous dead gay people is "not history, that's wish fulfillment," said Younger. He said that Kramer takes "such an essentialist view," when "since we're dealing with people, there's always nuance."

Defining people as gay doesn't make sense, Younger said, without some understanding of their cultures and identities and values....

Petition supporting academic freedom of lgbt studies professors in Georgia

"On February 18, 2009, CNN reported on the opposition by two Georgia legislators to the teaching of courses on sexuality, the social significance of oral sex and queer theory at state universities. Their argument is that these courses are a waste of taxpayer money because they are contrary to Christian morals. Furthermore, they want the courses canceled and the instructors fired.
~Cynara M. Medina, Ohio University

"As members of the academic community, we are deeply saddened by the statements made by State Representatives Charlice Byrd and Calvin Hill (R-Georgia). Both, supported by the Christian Coalition, have declared their opposition to the teaching of queer theory, sexuality, and similar subjects on moral grounds, arguing that these courses should be cut because they are a waste of taxpayer money.
Granted, lawmakers are entitled to their opinion; the first amendment guarantees their right to express it freely . However, representatives Byrd, Hill and their supporters demonstrate a complete disregard and lack of understanding of the fundamental mission of a university...."

++++++

You can sign here. Continue reading the petition after the jump.  (HT to Lisa Duggan)

Spring conference season round-up

Lots of good stuff this semester:

Feb 7 - Today, the Stanford civil rights journal is holding a day-long conference on Gender, Parenting and the Law. 

Feb. 12 - "After Prop 8: The Future of Marriage Politics" will be the topic of a panel discussion at NYU's Silver Center.

Feb 13 -A festschrift honoring Martha Nussbaum's scholarship for its contributions to the field of gender and sexuality law at Columbia Law School

Feb. 13 - "Women and the Law: A Celebration" at Rutgers-Newark - Justice Ginsburg had been scheduled to deliver the keynote.  Because of her illness, her speech will be delivered for her by Wendy Williams (Georgetown), co-author of a forthcoming biography of Justice Ginsburg.

Feb. 13 - "Beyond Marriage: Broader Implications and Unforeseen Consequences of State DoMAs" will be the focus of this year's Law and Sexuality symposium at Tulane Law School

Feb. 13-15 - The annual Midwest BLGTA students conference will be at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Feb 20 - A conference on The Gender Wage Gap: Strategies for the Future at the University of Pittsburgh Law School

Feb. 20 - The Harvard Women's Law Association sponsors a program on From Public Office to Office Politics: Women Lawyers Navigating a Political World.

Feb. 25 - The Cardozo gender law journal hosts a conference on What to Expect: Legal Developments and Challenges in Reproductive Justice.

Feb. 27-28 - The Feminism and Legal Theory program at Emory will hold its next workshop on Women, Incarceration and Human Rights.

Feb. 27-28 - Harvard Lambda presents a conference on Queering the Health Gap: LGBT Health Disparities and the Law.

March 4-6 - The Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Penn hosts "Rethinking Sex: A Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Thinking Sex by Gayle Rubin."

March 11- 14 - The Global Arc of Justice Conference, an international conference focused on advances in LGBT rights around the globe with a special focus on Latin America, will be held at UCLA.

March 12 - 14 - Radcliffe hosts a conference on Gender and the Law: Unintended Consequences, Unsettled Questions.

March 12 - Angela Harris (Berkeley) will deliver the annual Barbara Black lecture at Columbia on "Color Chart and Gender Spectrum: Trans-forming Race and Gender in a Post-Obama World.”

April 2-4 - CRT 20: Honoring Our Past, Charting Our Future, at the University of Denver, will mark the 20th anniversary of the first meeting of Critical Race Theory scholars.

April 3-4 - This year's Law, Culture and the Humanities Conference will be at Suffolk, in Boston.

April 10 - Columbia's gender law journal symposium will focus on Gender on the Frontiers: Confronting Intersectionalities.

April 16 - Michael Kirby, the openly gay and recently retired justice of Australia's highest court, will deliver the Hart lecture at Georgetown.

April 20-21 - The Williams Institute at UCLA Law holds a Primer on Empirical Research on Sexual Orientation.

May 28-31 - That great schmoozing opportunity - the Law and Society Conference - will be in Denver.

Law professors debate Prop 8

Law professors are having their annual conference this week in San Diego, and two panels have focused exclusively on Prop 8, especially the post-election challenge (which I've discussed here).

The panel this morning was terrific, especially interesting because each panelist presented a distinctive point of view. (Kudos to Rachel Moran of Berkeley for selecting the speakers). The panel going on now is also excellent; it's more philosophically coherent: all supporters of lgbt rights and of the challenge to Prop 8.

Starting with the morning panel --

Bill Eskridge (Yale) argued that the Prop 8 campaign mobilized some of the very old anti-gay tropes, in a kinder, gentler version - for example, that it drew on the theme of a predatory gay focus on children in its arguments about how legalized same-sex marriage would lead to the "teaching" of homosexuality to schoolchildren.

Nancy Polikoff (AU) argued, as she does in her book, that the focus on same-sex marriage has narrowed the scope of a campaign against injustice in family law because it not only continues, but reinforces, the history of drawing a line based on marriage, rather than based on whether marriage serves the function of that particular law - e.g. whether benefits designed to compensate for loss of income should be based on marital status or on whether there was actually financial interdependency between the two people.

Bruce Cain (Poli Sci/Berkeley) expressed concern that the kind of majoritarian lock-out of minority rights represented by Prop 8 feeds a political tendency to allow only concepts of rights supported by a majority. He argued that there should be a distinction between popular adoption of constitutional changes that reform institutional aspects of government, which should be easier to allow popular opinion to bypass the legislature, and changes that redefine individual liberties, especially as to minorities, which should be required to go through a more cumbersome set of steps.

I'm going to exercise my editorial license to focus on those three speakers and the cross comments and questions they triggered. An audience member questioned whether Professor Cain's distinction between individuals and institutions wouldn't turn out to be a Maginot Line, simply creating possibilities, for example,  for changing the law of institutions like the judiciary in ways that would have the purpose and effect of truncating individual rights. Another panelist, Steve Smith (San Diego) argued that the Prop 8 supporters' view that legalizing marriage would lead to legitimization of homosexuality in schools was not simply paranoid or a resurgence of old stereotypes, because in fact schools do, and are supposed to, transmit values. The fifth panelist, Gerald Rodriguez (Texas) predicted that there was virtually no chance that the California Supreme Court would invalidate Prop 8, prompting Eskridge to note that this court had a history of reversing the burden of political inertia on stigmatized groups.

There is also a panel discussion happening as I write.  Katherine Darmer (Chapman) spoke movingly of her experiences opposing Prop 8 and organizing legal support for the challenge, as well as the psychological impact on her lgbt students of Prop 8's passage. Erwin Chemerinsky (dean of Cal-Irvine Law) described the amendments/revisions distinction and the arguments raised by AG Brown. He made clear his agreement with the arguments in the briefs filed by the Prop 8 challengers. Cliff Rosky (Utah) addressed the question of political powerlessness in the assessment of whether sexual orientation should be considered a suspect classification. He argued that if a classification is suspect because of its disconnect to legitimate criteria, then that characteristic should be suspect forever, regardless of where on the political power spectrum a group falls at a given moment. 

Bill Eskridge, also a member of the second panel, focused on constitutional theory and how Prop 8 relates to different approaches to constitutional interpretation (textual, original meaning, and common law constitutionalism, ie developed by reasoning from precedent and analogy). He also analyzed the relationship to legal process theory, i.e. asking which institutions should perform which functions, or the Ely representation reinforcement analysis, or the critique that direct democracy lacks the benefits of deliberative process for important questions.  He used the opportunity to criticize the Tushnet/Ackerman theory of popular constitutionalism. Wasn't Prop 8 an example of a popular constitutional moment? Eskridge criticized the channeling of constitutionalism through only one institutional structure, and endorsed a process for popular amendment like the one in Massachusetts, which requires two successive votes by the legislature to send an amendment to the voters, thus allowing multiple institutions to weigh in and providing for deliberation and feedback over the course of the process.

What's safe to conclude?  No one has a clue what the CA Supreme Court is going to do with the Prop 8 challenge. That's not surprising, because there simply is no body of precedent that is directly on point and that clearly favors one side rather than the other, on the amendment/revision distinction. In my view, the Prop 8 challengers have the better structural and purposive analysis.  But it's going to be razor thin ... at best.

Trans-national approach crossing disciplines

The following report on a panel at the American Historical Association from Inside Higher Ed summarizes a new development in history that parallels some of the new legal journals and multi-national law school programs:

...The [new] focus on transnational [history] is on movements or ideas or conditions that cross national borders and that are not best examined through the structure of the nation-state. So somebody could do research comparing key events that took place in various countries, doing lots of comparative work about government leaders and their actions, and that would be global or international [or in law, comparative], but not transnational.

Many of the most significant developments in history — whether in religion, philosophy, the environment, or other aspects of life — happen “irrespective of national identities,” said Akira Iriye, a professor of history at Harvard University. “It’s a very exciting moment in the profession to see so many historians moving in this direction.”

Erika A. Kuhlman, associate professor of history and director of women’s studies at Idaho State University, offered an illustration of why. She studies gender and war, and noted that war — commonly fought between nation-states —- would seem like an unlikely topic to consider without the organizing framework of the nation-state. But looking at the end of World War I from a transnational gender perspective, rather than a traditional focus on which countries won and which lost, reveals that women saw rights and positions eroded in the post-war years — whether they were living in the “winners” or “losers” of the conflict. “Patriarchy was re-instituted by shunting women back to their roles of wife and mother,” she said.

Pierre Yves Saunier of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, in France, is applying a transnational history approach to the study of nursing. He noted that children’s novels over the years to encourage girls to enter nursing have similar heroic themes, and that nursing education developed along similar principles over the years in different countries with differing educational systems. Nursing is important in understanding the history of medicine, the role of gender in providing medicine, and public health — and its history isn’t about countries, Saunier said. ...

Some observers here said that they believe transnational history has the potential to lead to dramatic changes in the profession. Rana Mitter, a professor of history at the University of Oxford, said that transnational approaches could change history from a “lone scholar” discipline to one more like “a physics lab,” with group contributions. “The inability of all of us to learn 15 languages or cope with 17 different archives” could encourage “a more team-based type of historical practice,” Mitter said. While some have long advocated such a shift, transnational methodologies could be “a motivation to make it happen.”

New wiki for making LGBT history (literally)

Welcome to the web, OutHistory.org! OutHistory, a project of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY, has just gone live on the web with its initial content. Check it out - the potential here is enormous. The site is organized as a wiki, which means that individuals can register and then create entries for the collection. Entries can either be protected, i.e. not subject to change without the author's approval, or open, i.e. collaborative and changeable in the mode of Wikipedia.

Current "exhibits" include  a series of early 20th century postcards like the two below, which illustrate the  conversation happening in U.S. society between the world wars regarding gender bending men and women. Essays on OutHistory include one by Jonathan Ned Katz (also the site director) on colonial era "sodomitical sin" and one by Esther Newton on 20th century lesbian history.  You will also find features on elected LGBT officials, images of queer youth from 1947 to the present, the pre-gay era (1950s and 60s), and lesbian theater.

Congrats to the CLAGS/OutHistory folks for creating such a terrific new resource!

        

Anti-gay discrimination within the professoriate

Inside Higher Ed

A national survey of political scientists has found that many gay and lesbian scholars in the profession report that they have faced discrimination of various types, but many more have not or don’t know.

The results were presented at the recently concluded annual meeting of the American Political Science Association and were prepared by its committee on the status of gay and lesbian scholars in the profession. Two political scientists at the State University of New York at Albany — Scott Barclay and Julie Novkov — analyzed and presented the data.

Of political scientists who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, 13 percent said that they had definitely experienced discrimination as a political scientist because of their identity, 12 percent said that they “probably” had experienced discrimination, 31 percent said that they probably had not, 25 percent said that they definitely had not, and 20 percent said that they weren’t sure....

Among the other findings:

* 16 percent of the gay, lesbian and bisexual political scientists said that department colleagues had discouraged them from coming out.

* Among everyone in the survey, 12 percent said that they regularly included topics related to sexual orientation in their work, 40 percent said that they did so on occasion, 32 percent said that they never did, and the rest said that the question was not applicable. Of gay political scientists, 33 percent said that they included such material regularly, and 25 percent of lesbian political scientists said that they did so regularly.