Columbia Law School has built one of the premier faculties in Gender Studies.  The study of gender at Columbia Law School seeks to explore the complex dynamics that make up the gender of law and the law of gender.  Offered courses seek to introduce students to the gendered aspects of law through history, policy and doctrine.  How are gendered hierarchies reinforced by and, in turn, dismantled through law?  What are the unstated masculine or feminine assumptions that unlie important legal rules, such as self-interested, welfare maximization in law and economics, or the meanings of motherhood in family law?  How can law be used as a progressive tool to eradicate complex social problems such as domestic violence, employment discrimination, unequal education for girls, and international women's rights, while not reinforcing stereotypes about women and men?  Should the goal of efforts to combat sex discrimination be the eradication of sex/gender differences or the celebration of the ways in which men and women differ?  The Gender Studies curriculum is designed to offer students a range of opportunities for study that emphasizes doctrinal, theoretical and practical aspects of gender and law.  Courses such as Gender Justice, Family Law and Employment Discrimination will introduce students to the fundamentals of the problematic of gender in particular areas of law.

Columbia Law School also runs the only Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic in the nation.  More intesive study is available in seminar format in Perspective on Family and Gender; Meanings of Motherhood; Abortion: Law and Context; Domestic Violence and the Law; Feminist Theory Workshop; Sexual Harrassment in Employment: Policy and Practice; Gender and Development; Topics in Sexuality and Law; and Lawyering, Social Change and the Rights of Gay, Lesbian, Bixesual and Transgender People.  Students also have a unique opportunity for intensive practical study in the Battered Women's Legal Services Externship.

L6243 EMPOLOYMENT DISCRIMATION LAW (3 pts)
(see Racial, Economic and Social Justice)

L6327 EMPLOYMENT LAW (3 pts)
(see Labor and Employment Law)

L6252 FAMILY LAW (4 pts)
(see Family Law)

L6506 GENDER JUSTICE (3 pts)
K. Franke
This course will provide an introduction to the concrete legal contexts in which issues of gender and justice have been articulated, disputed and hesitatingly and provisionally resolved. Readings will cover issues such as Women and the Legal Profession, Sexual Harassment, Sex Role Stereotyping, Work/Family Conflict, Marriage and Alternatives to Marriage, Parenting, Domestic Violence, Reproduction and Pregnancy, Rape, Sex Work & Trafficking, Gender & Cultural Equality, and International Women's Rights. Through these readings we will explore the multiple ways in which the law has contended with sexual difference, gender-based stereotypes, and the meaning of equality in domestic, transnational and international contexts. So too, we will discuss how feminist theorists have thought about sex, gender and sexuality in understanding and critiquing our legal system and its norms. Students will be evaluated both on class participation and on a final take-home examination. For more information, go to: http://www2.law.columbia.edu/faculty_franke/Gender_Justice/home.html.

L9169 SEMINAR: ABORTION: LAW IN CONTEXT (3 pts)
(see Family Law)

L8006 SEMINAR: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND THE LAW (2 pts)
(see Family Law)

L9551 SEMINAR: FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY WORKSHOP (1 pt)
K. Franke, P. Williams
The Feminist Legal Theory Workshop will provide students exposure to new work by scholars of feminist legal theory. Each week a prominent scholar in this area will come to the Law School to present new work or a work-in-progress and discuss it with the members of the seminar. Students enrolled in the Workshop will be expected to read each paper and write a short response paper in advance of the Workshop meeting. Class attendance is mandatory and students will be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. The Workshop will meet every other week. The list of speakers will be available at the beginning of the spring semester.

L8010 SEMINAR: LAWYERING, SOCIAL CHANGE, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUALITY AND GENDER LAW (2 pts)
S. Goldberg
This is a course on multidimensional lawyering and advocacy. More specifically, the course will explore various dimensions of lawyering for social change in the context of efforts to secure rights for different identity groups. The primary focus will be on advocacy for women and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals, but the seminar will also include analysis of advocacy efforts on behalf of immigrants, people of color, and people with disabilities, among others. The seminar will begin with an introduction to the historical and contemporary landscape of advocacy organizations and their dockets. We will then explore several specific issues in depth, with an eye toward understanding how lawyers identify problems, set priorities, and develop and execute strategies by choosing among litigation, public education, grassroots organizing, and legislative advocacy. Issues may include relationship recognition (marriage, civil union, and domestic partnership); affirmative action; the military's ban on service by lesbians and gay men and the Solomon Amendment; domestic violence; parenting; immigration; and employment. Our discussion of these issues will require consideration of complex constitutional doctrine, procedural strategy, ethical canons, social science research, and constitutional and political theory. Course evaluation will be based on class participation, several small assignments during the semester (including a draft brief, a draft press release, and a few short reflection papers), and a final research paper that includes independent research and incorporates class readings. Minor writing credit is awarded in this course.

L9816 SEMINAR: MEANINGS OF MOTHERHOOD (3 pts)
(see Family Law)

L8158 SEMINAR: PERSPECTIVES ON FAMILY AND GENDER (2 pts)
(see Family Law)

L9149 SEMINAR: SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN EMPLOYMENT: POLICIES AND PRACTICES (2 pts)
(see Labor and Employment Law)

L9153 SEMINAR: TOPICS IN LAW AND SEXUALITY (3 pts)
K. Thomas
This seminar explores aspects of the legal regulation of sexuality. The seminar will pursue two main goals. The first goal is to read and discuss the formal "black letter" law found in judicial decisions, statutes, and administrative rules. The second, overlapping, goal is to introduce and discuss concepts from a variety of disciplines (and from other legal systems) that can be used be understand and interrogate the deeper ideological and political determinants of U.S. sex law. Among the questions on which we will focus throughout the semester are these: How has sexuality (and related notions such as sexuality and gender) been defined, posed and addressed as a problem in and for the U.S. legal system? What role do various conceptions of sexuality play in framing the terms, the argumentative strategies and resolution of legal disputes? What shaping functions do legal constructions of sexuality exert in and on broader political conversations about sex and social justice in the contemporary U.S.?

Topics to be discussed include the scope and limits of the "public/private" distinction as a conceptual framework in U.S. sex law; legal efforts to define and distinguish sex, gender and sexuality, sexual acts, gender identities and expressions (male, female, transgender, transsexual, intersex), and sexual identities ("homosexuality," "heterosexuality," and "bisexuality"); law, sexuality and intimate association; sexuality, gender, and reproduction; law gender, and sexuality in the U.S. military; gender, sexuality, surveillance and citizenship; law, sexuality, kinship and family relations; gender identity, sexuality and the legal construction, and regulation, of the human body; sex, sexuality and sexual commerce; law, sexuality and violence.

L9232 SEXUALITY AND GENDER LAW CLINIC (4-7 pts)
(see Clinics)

The following are not offered in 2007-2008 but are part of the regular course offerings at Columbia Law School.

L9213 SEMINAR: RACE AND GENDER-CONSCIOUS REMEDIES (2 pts)
(see Racial, Economic and Social Justice)

L8151 SEMINAR: REGULATING SEX & SEXUALITY (2 pts)
Dubler
This seminar will explore the ways in which American law regulates sex and sexuality. We will examine which forms of consensual sexual expression are legally prohibited and ask why the law deems these acts illicit. Likewise, we will examine how the law privileges particular forms of sexual intimacy through laws that regulate family formation. We will further interrogate how courts and lawmakers understand the relationship among sexual acts, sexual identities, and legal rights. Throughout, we will pay particular attention to the ways in which the interaction between these forms of sexual regulation and legal constructions of gender.

Topics will include: the relationship between marriage and licit sex; laws prohibiting various forms of consensual sex between adults and between minors (including age of consent laws, statutory rape, laws requiring health care professionals to report sex between minors); debates about same-sex marriage and their relationship to the construction sexuality; the role of constitutional and statutory antidiscrimination law in defining categories of gender and sexual orientation; and the legal rights of transgendered people.

This seminar is intended for students who want to write a paper on a topic related to the legal regulation of sex and sexuality. At the end of the semester, course time will be set aside for students to workshop drafts of their papers. In addition, students will be expected to write weekly one-page response papers posing a question about the week's assigned readings.