Center for Gender & Sexuality Law | Columbia Law School
2008-2009 Academic Year
SPRING 2009
April 10: Symposium entitled “Gender on the Frontiers: Confronting Intersectionalities” sponsored by the Journal of Gender and Law.
April 6: Colloquium, Khiara Bridges, Center for Reproductive Rights-Columbia Law School Fellow
Capturing the Judiciary: Carhart and the Undue Burden Standard, Commentator: Ariela Dubler, Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
March 12: Barbara Black Lecture with Angela Harris.
March 10: Columbia Women’s Law Association annual Myra Bradwell dinner featuring guest speaker Susan B. Lindenauer’64.
March 9: Law Students for Reproductive Justice, Columbia Law School/Center for Reproductive Rights Fellow Khiara Bridges will discuss her work on how the health care system impacts the reproductive rights of low-income women.
March 9: Colloquium, Amy Adler, Professor of Law, NYU School of Law, Medusa: A Glimpse of the Sexualized Female Body in First Amendment Law, Commentator: Philip Hamburger, Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
March 9: Youth Justice Association Panel, Reproductive Law in American Society: The Recent Case of the Octuplets, Featuring Professor Patricia Williams, NYU Professor of Social Work Dr. Alma Carten, and Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons Professor Dr. Kenneth Prager.
February 17: Doing Good While Doing Well - Women and Pro Bono in Law Firms, sponsored by CWLA. Four attorneys from Skadden Arps will discuss their pro bono experiences in family law, women’s rights, and other issues of special concern to women.
February 17: Domestic Violence Project panel on Other Faces of Domestic Violence: Opening the Courts to Teen and LGBT Survivors, Andrew St.Ana from Sanctuary for Families and Farahnaz Rodriguez from the Brooklyn DA’s Youthful Offender Domestic Violence Court Program will discuss the particular difficulties facing these communities as well as how lawyers are finding innovative ways to work with teen and LGBT survivors of domestic violence.
February 16: CWLA reading group. Associate-in-Law Noa Ben-Asher will be leading us in a discussion of Glenn Cohen’s article, The Right Not to Be a Genetic Parent?
February 13 2009: Gender and Sexuality Law Program Symposium Celebrating the Work of Martha Nussbaum.The symposium was composed of three panels and an address by Martha Nussbaum. Panels and speakers included:
Feminism as Liberalism Panel:
Carlos Ball, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
Nancy Levit,Curators’ and Edward D. Ellison Professor of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
Tracy Higgins, Professor of Law, Fordham Law School
History, Identity and Sexuality Panel:
Mary Anne Case, Arnold I. Shure Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
Alice Kessler-Harris, R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History, Columbia University
Janet Jakobsen, Director, Barnard Center for Research on Women
Gender and Development Panel:
Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University
Amrita Basu, Domenic J. Paino 1955 Professor of Political Science and Women’s & Gender Studies, Amherst College
Aili Tripp, Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Conference Materials and Videos
January 28: Colloquium, Anna Marie Smith, Senior Fellow, Columbia Law School Program for Gender & Sexuality Law, Professor, Government Department, Cornell University, Reproductive Technology, Family Law, and the Post-welfare State: The California Same-Sex Parents’ Rights “Victories” of 2005, Commentator: Sudhir Venkatesh, Director of the Center for Urban Research and Policy, and Director of the Charles H. Revson Fellowship Program Columbia University
FALL 2008
November 24: Speak Out on Prop 8
November 15: Conference, LGBTQ Law 2008: Where Do We Go From Here, sponsored by Columbia OUTlaws, Gender and Sexuality Law Program, and the LeGaL Foundation.
November 17: CLWA lunchtime discussion with Professor Peter Rosenblum: “The Controversy over Trafficking Advocacy: Sex, Numbers, Tactics.” Reading available here.
November 12: Women’s Rights - A Global Perspective on Gender Inequality, recipients of the 2008 Gruber Women’s Rights Prize join the Human Rights Institute for a discussion on their organizations and their personal career development.
November 12: Neferti Tadiar, Professor of Women’s Studies, Barnard College: If Not Mere Metaphor - Sexual Economies Reconsidered, Commentator Katherine Franke, Professor of Law, Director, Gender and Sexuality Law Program, Columbia Law School
November 11: Jessica Ruth Gonzales v. United States - An Update on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Hearing, sponsored by the Gender and Sexuality Law Program and the Domestic Violence Project. In December 2005, after unsuccessfully filing suit against the Castle Rock (Colo.) Police Department for failing to enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband after he abducted her children, Lenahan (formerly Gonzales) filed a petition with the IACHR alleging that the failures of the police and the Supreme Court’s rejection of her claims violated the United States’ duty to protect women and children from domestic violence under international human rights law. Caroline Bettinger-Lopez, Professor Peter Rosenblum, and students from the Human Rights Clinic represented Ms. Lenahan before the IACHR, and Professor Jeffrey Fagan filed an expert report in conjunction with the Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic. Students from both clinics will explain their involvement with the case and discuss ways in which it can be influential for future domestic violence and human rights advocacy in the United States.
November 11: Ensuring Women’s Rights in Times of Conflict and of Peace, Gruber Foundation Women’s Rights Prize, sponsored by the Human Rights Institute. The three recipients honored this year are: Yanar Mohammed, co-founder of Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq; Sapana Pradhan Malla, a practicing Nepali lawyer and member of Nepal’s Constituent Assembly; and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a leading feminist scholar, therapist, and activist working to end domestic violence against Palestinian women. Reception to follow (JG Annex).
November 10: Barbara Black Lecture with Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, criminologist, Hebrew University: Between the Politics of Exclusion and the Culture of Control: Violence Against Women and Law in Conflict Zones. Dr. Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s work is directed toward the plight of Palestinian women who suffer from historical and current injustices and who face daily violations of their basic human rights. She uses the term “femicide” to describe the victimization to which Palestinian women have been subjected, preferring it to “honor crime,” “romantic crime,” or “crime of passion” because, in her words, these crimes involve no honor, passion, or romance. Much of Dr. Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s work is done in association with Mada al-Carmel, the nonprofit Arab Center for Applied Social Research located in Haifa, Israel, and with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.
November 3: CWLA lunchtime discussion with Professor Ariela Dubler regarding gender in the 2008 election.
October 27: Domestic Violence and Immigration Panel, sponsored by the Domestic Violence Project. The DVP welcomes practicing attorneys from local non-profit organizations who will speak about their experiences with domestic violence-based asylum claims, U-visas (available for victims of a qualifying criminal activity, such as domestic violence, who have been useful in the investigation or prosecution of the case), and T-visas (available for victims of trafficking).
October 22: Professor Liz Schneider on Law Reform in the 21st Century: Violence and Equality, sponsored by the Domestic Violence Project, the Human Rights Institute, and the Gender and Sexuality Law Program. Professor Schneider will speak on some of the most important developments in law reform concerning domestic violence within the past half century and explore some of the contradictions and conflicts that present challenges for legal work going forward.
October 21: Film screening of Crazy Love sponsored by the Domestic Violence Project.
October 20: Columbia Law Women Lunchtime Reading Group discussion of the CT same-sex marriage decision.
October 20: Panel on New Scholarship in Reproductive Rights, presented by The Center for Reproductive Rights and the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.
October 15: Documentary film screening of The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, sponsored by Amnesty International NYC Women’s Human Rights Action Team and the Columbia University Law School Amnesty International student group.
September 19-20: Conference, What Is Feminist Politics Now? Local and Global, sponsored by the Columbia Institute for Research on Women and Gender