Civil Rights Law
Sweet Child O’ Mine: Adult Adoption & Same-Sex Marriage in the Post-Obergefell Era
Written by: Robert Keefe
Abstract Gay and lesbian partners used adult adoption to create family relationships and to ensure inheritance and property rights in the decades before the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Same-sex partners who chose adult adoption as an alternative to marriage before the Obergefell decision must now dissolve the adoption […]
Assessing the Viability of Implicit Bias Evidence in Discrimination Cases: An Analysis of the Most Significant Federal Cases
Written by: Anthony Kakoyannis
Abstract The theory of implicit bias occupies a rapidly growing field of scientific research and legal scholarship. With the advent of tools measuring individuals’ subconscious biases toward people of other races, genders, ages, national origins, religions, and sexual orientations, scholars have rushed to explore the ways in which these biases might affect decision-making and produce […]
“I Am Cait,” But It’s None of Your Business: The Problem of Invasive Transgender Policies and a Fourth Amendment Solution
Written by: Elise Holtzman
Abstract Transgender people constitute a distinct minority with unique legal battles. There is a widespread societal misunderstanding of what it means to be transgender that results in treating the transgender community the same as their lesbian, gay, and members of bisexual counterparts. This misunderstanding is even more prevalent in the legal context, resulting in a […]
When Girls Play With G.I. Joes and Boys Play With Barbies: The Path to Gender Reassignment in Minors
Written by: Nicole Burt
Abstract Currently, the process of gender reassignment in minors requires parental consent and the approval of a mental-health counselor. The actual treatment can begin with puberty blockers—which stall the beginnings of puberty—followed by hormone injections to transform the minor into the requested gender. The hormone injections are thought to have irreversible features, but the effects […]
Iesha S. Nunes, "Hands Up, Don't Shoot": Police Misconduct and the Need for Body Cameras
Abstract The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri is probably the most notable of the many recent cases in the media involving police officers’ use of excessive force. After Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown, varying accounts of what transpired between the two men surfaced. Officer Wilson claimed he was defending himself […]
Daniel J. DiMatteo, To Enforce a Privacy Right: The Sovereign Immunity Canon and the Privacy Act's Civil Remedies Provision After Cooper
In 2005, a joint investigation between separate government agencies revealed that Stanmore Cooper, a pilot, failed to disclose to the Federal Aviation Administration that he was HIV positive. Cooper sued the agencies in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming that they violated the Privacy Act by disclosing his medical records to one another without […]