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Abortion Constitutional Law Elections Gender Equality Politics Reproductive Justice Women in the Law

What is the Ohio “Heartbeat Bill,” and How Did it Come to Be?

It appears that the Ohio legislature’s 8-year wish will finally come true. The controversial “heartbeat bill” is poised to go into full effect in Ohio after both chambers of the Ohio legislature passed the resolution for the third time since it was first taken to the Ohio General Assembly floor. First introduced in Ohio in 2011, the bill was twice vetoed by former Ohio governor John Kasich, and failed to garner enough votes to override the veto both times. Now, with first-term governor Mike DeWine at the helm, the bill is sure to survive.

Passed as Ohio House Bill 68 and Senate Bill 23, the “heartbeat bill” makes abortion illegal once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which could be as early as 5-6 weeks after pregnancy. The bill only permits abortion after a heartbeat is detected if a woman is experiencing a medical emergency. The bill does not provide an exception for rape or incest.

The controversial legislation was authored by Janet Porter, a pro-life activist who lobbied for the passage of the country’s first partial-birth abortion ban, and secured passage of the Woman’s Right to Know Law. Porter says she and others “literally crafted [the] legislation to be the arrow in the heart of Roe v. Wade. It is made to come before the United States Supreme Court.” Anticipating the retirement (or worse) of the Court’s aging, liberal justices, Porter is hopeful that challenges to the bill will arrive at the Supreme Court when there are additional conservative justices that will uphold the bill once it is Ohio law and, perhaps, overturn Roe v. Wade.

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#MeToo Gender Equality Politics Racial Equality Second Look

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Politicians and Blackface

Recently, Florida Secretary of State Mike Ertel resigned after photos of him dressed in blackface as a Hurricane Katrina victim surfaced. Ertel was appointed as Florida Secretary of State by first-term governor Ron DeSantis. Governor DeSantis, a Republican, defeated Andrew Gillum – the first African American democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida – last November in the election. Ironically, (perhaps not), DeSantis is the same man who told Floridians just days before the election: “the last thing we need to do is monkey this up…” This was a clear reference to Mr. Gillum’s race, and a message to Floridians not to elect the state’s first Black governor. Apparently, Governor DeSantis’s Secretary of State shared some of the same racial sentiments as the man who appointed him. 

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Image from Orlando Weekly

Blackface was one of the most notable features of minstrelsy. What, ironically, started off as African American slaves mimicking slave masters and owners turned into white people putting burnt cork or shoe polish on their faces and acting as Black caricatures.

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Civil Rights Colorblind Critical Race Theory Feminism Gender Equality Gender-based discrimination LGBTQ Rights Sex Discrimination sexual harassment Women in the Law

Books, Books, and Books: A Social Justice Reading List

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

Throughout my time working with the Center for Race, Gender and Social Justice, I’ve been exposed to amazing concepts that reflect on issues affecting our society.

I personally love researching for fun, but not everyone shares that love … or the same views I do. If you want to engage your mind, then I recommend the following books:

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Dean Verna Williams and Michelle Obama (image from Cincinnati.com)

Becoming by Michelle Obama

In her memoir, the former First Lady takes us on a journey to the White House. Mrs. Obama debunks many false rumors by sharing her life story. She elegantly describes every hurdle, obstacle, failure, mistake, and success she has encountered thus far. And, while describing her White House years, Mrs. Obama gives special thanks to our very own Interim Dean, Verna L. Williams. Check it out!

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Gender Equality Gender-based discrimination Sex Discrimination Sexual assault sexual harassment Supreme Court

Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation: The Dangerous New Narrative.

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf_-_Project_Gutenberg_etext_19994We’re all told at some point the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. A young boy would repeatedly and continuously cry wolf when no wolf was present. His village would panic and run to his rescue but found the boy with no wolf. The villagers always ran to his rescue when no wolf was present. Eventually, the villagers collectively decided that when the boy cried wolf, they would not come to the boy’s rescue. One day, the boy saw a wolf. Scared and alone, he cried wolf – no one showed up. The boy died, eaten by a wolf.

The moral of the story: don’t lie or you’ll die. Women were treated like the boy who cried wolf. When women scream “sexual assault,” they were met with disbelief.  However, after the confirmation hearing for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, that narrative changed significantly. Women are no longer met with disbelief, but rather ignorance of their experience. John Oliver said it best on his show Last Week Tonight: “it is not that women aren’t believed, [society] simply does not care.” The narrative now changed to not caring about a woman’s harassment/abuse/assault. Ultimately, this dangerous new narrative will cause more harm to women. By not caring, society will accept that women face sexual harassment, or have been assaulted, but won’t take action against it. By taking this stance, we are basically saying to women, “hey, you got harassed/assaulted/abused? Well, you’re going have to deal with that because you’re a woman. No one is going to help you. Your abuser won’t get punished or reprimanded for it.”

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Feminism Gender Equality Sexual assault sexual harassment Title IX Women in the Law

The Sex Talk: Campus Sexual Assault Project

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Image from Cincinnati Enquirer

Starting Sunday August 5, Kate Murphy and Meg Vogel’s project called The Sex Talk video series will be published by The Cincinnati Enquirer and USA Today. The video series focuses on the conversation that is not happening about campus sexual assault.

The Sex Talk comprises of ten videos that look at the epidemic of campus sexual assault in a new way by creating an honest digital conversation with people who are on the front lines and different sides of the issue.

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Feminism Gender Equality lawyers legal profession Supreme Court Women in the Law

RBG: A Must See For Every Civil Rights Advocate

Monica Welker (’19)

RBGfilmPoster

I ask no favors for my sex. . . All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet from off our necks. – Sarah Moore Grimké, American abolitionist and suffragette.

 

At the beginning of RBG, a documentary of the life and work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she recounts the time that she famously used this quote during an oral argument before the Supreme Court of the United States. As Justice Ginsburg reflects on her use of the words, and repeats them, she reveals a sly, satisfied smile.

I am a fan of documentaries and Ginsburg, so seeing RBG was high on my summer to-do list. I took an afternoon and headed over to the Esquire to watch it.

If one has made a point of drinking in every interview and piece on Ginsburg that one can, as I have, one notices that about half of the documentary is made up of these already published interviews. There is the footage of her being interviewed by Nina Totenberg, footage of her workout routine, and interviews of her talking about the time she famously dozed off during the State of the Union.

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Colorblind Feminism Gender Equality Intersectionality lawyers legal profession microaggressions Personal Narrative Race Discrimination Sex Discrimination Women in the Law

Psychological Harms of Microaggressions

Nikita Srivastava (’19) 

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Nikita Srivastava (’19) demonstrating how to give a cross-examination at the University of Dayton.

Everyone will have different experiences while working over the summer. Some may find the work load difficult or easy. Some may find the law frustrating or rewarding. At some point, all law school students will experience these feelings, however not everyone will experience the same work environment.  Some students will experience microaggressions.

Microaggressions are brief and commonplace — daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities and invalidations, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults to the target person or group or “outsiders”. “Outsiders” are individuals who do not come from the dominant culture. They are women, people of color, and the LGBQT community.  Usually, the “well-intentioned” people are the microaggressors–they are the ones who actively say and/or believe they are not racist, sexist, or homophobic; however, their actions or expressions say otherwise.

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economic justice Feminism Gender Equality Gender Wage Gap student leaders Women in the Law work-family

Women Negotiating Like Pros

UC Law Women teaches women how to fight the gender wage by giving its members the necessary negotiating techniques. 

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

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Professor Marjorie Aaron. Image from UC Law Faculty Website

UC Law Women hosted a Salary Negotiation Event on March 21, 2018. As a group, UCLW wanted to provide a tool its members could use to fix gender related issues. For this event, UCLW focused on backlash women face when negotiating their salaries.

Professor Marjorie Aaron was the guest lecturer who crafted a presentation that focused on her work in negotiations and her own experience. She has not only participated in many negotiations herself, but also has written several scholarly articles on the topic including one about gender and negotiations. Professor Aaron delivered an interactive lecture that engaged in the students’ interests. The lecture started with general negotiation techniques that men and women could all use also known as gender-neutral techniques. These included: not disclosing what you want from a firm; not disclosing your information; learning about the firm; use anchoring; and do not overshoot.

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Civil Rights Constitutional Law Feminism Gender Equality Gender-based discrimination Intersectionality lawyers legal profession RGSJ Events Women in the Law

Judge Shira Scheindlin

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

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Judge Shira Scheindlin

We’re excited to host Judge Shira Scheindlin, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (ret.) as our Jugdse-in residence the week of February 26, 2018. While in law school, only 10% of Judge Schiendlin’s class were women. Judge Schiendlin was nominated for the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Recently, she wrote an article about women in the legal professions. In this article, she not only shares her personal experience as a federal judge but also other women’s experiences.

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Balancing the Scales Feminism Gender Equality Gender-based discrimination Intersectionality lawyers legal profession LGBTQ Rights Race Discrimination RGSJ Events Social Justice wage gap Women in the Law work-family

Movie Review of Balancing the Scale

Balancing a Skewed Scale

Nikita Srivastava (’19)

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Women in the Profession: Balancing the Scales

In the 1980s, a young female lawyer and her lawyer husband attended a party hosted by a club only allowing male lawyers. The room was filled with young men celebrating their legal careers.  One of the guests at this party handed the woman a name tag. Instead of writing her name, she wrote “discrimantee” and proudly placed it on her chest.  “Well, it is true,” she said after getting several questions about it. (I should write “discrimantee” on all my name tags because nothing much has really changed)

Sharon Rowen’s Balancing the Scales, addresses discrimination using women’s narratives to guide the audience. Due to Ohio’s CLE requirements, Ms. Rowen had to pause the film and explain why she directed it this way. Rowen said the film is divided into 3 parts: 1) the oral history of female role models, 2) what keeps women from achieving higher positions, 3) women not making choices from a level playing field.