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All men may be created equal in the United States - but more than 30 years after Congress proposed the Equal Rights Amendment, can the same be said for women? Elusive Equality offers a clear understanding of how government institutions - the executive branch, Congress, and state legislatures, as well as the federal courts - affect the legal status of women. Surveying the judicial and public policy issues central to the identification - and protection - of women's rights, Susan Mezey traces the developing legal parameters of gender equality. From early court rulings that prohibited employment discrimination and sexual harassment through today's decisions on reproductive rights and same-sex relationships, Mezey analyzes the broader political context within which critical judicial decisions have been made.
This book examines the transgender community’s struggle for equality over the last decade, comparing the Obama and Trump administrations’ stance on transgender rights policies. Transgender rights claims have assumed an important place on the nation’s policymaking agenda as society has increasingly become aware that transgender individuals are subject to discrimination because they do not conform to the norms of the gender identity they were assigned at birth. With Congress virtually absent from the policymaking process, the executive branch and the federal courts have been chiefly responsible for determining the parameters of transgender rights policies. The study contrasts the Obama a...
In this book, Susan Gluck Mezey examines LGBT policymaking over the last several decades, highlighting advances in LGBT rights as well as formidable challenges that still confront the LGBT community. With an emphasis on courts, she traces developments in the struggles for LGBT rights in the United States and abroad. The chapters focus on employment discrimination, transgender rights, marriage equality, and the ongoing battles over discrimination against same-sex couples and transgender persons in education, employment, and public accommodations. It also adds a global perspective by appraising issues affecting LGBT rights in other parts of the world, discussing claims of discrimination in the...
This book examines the gay community's efforts to achieve social and legal reform in the United States from the 50s to the 2000s within the "rights-based" discourse characteristic of earlier civil rights struggles.
Susan Gluck Mezey's newest book, Gay Families and the Courts, is a compelling examination of the role of the state and federal courts in furthering the goals of the gay and lesbian community. Unlike Mezey's earlier book, Queers in Court, this book evaluates the extent to which litigation is effective in advancing equal rights for gay families_families in which at least one member is gay_as they seek to expand their opportunities and battle discrimination. Mezey shows how the courts address gay and lesbian rights and sexual orientation in schools and social organizations such as the Boy Scouts along with family-oriented problems such as marriage and parenthood. In doing so, Mezey emphasizes the complexity of the issues involved in the cases, and assesses the degree to which the outcome of the litigation is explained by the type of case, the type of court, and the judge's perception of his or her role as a policymaker. It is a valuable reference for scholars interested in judicial, legislative, and executive policymaking at the federal and state level as well as anyone interested in LGBT politics.
"Susan Gluck Mezey's newest book, Gay Families and the Courts, is a compelling examination of the role of state and federal courts in gaining equal rights for members of the LGBT community. Unlike Mezey's earlier book, Queers in Court, this book evaluates the effect of litigation on achieving this goal for gay families - families in which at least one member is gay - as they seek to expand their opportunities and battle discrimination. Mezey shows how the courts address gay and lesbian rights and sexual orientation in schools and social organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, along with family-oriented problems such as marriage and parenthood. In doing so, Mezey emphasizes the complexity of the issues involved in the cases and assesses how the outcome of the litigation is affected by the type of case, the type of court, and the judge's perception of his or her role as a policymaker. It is a valuable reference for scholars interested in judicial, legislative, and executive policymaking at the federal and state level as well as anyone interested in LGBT politics." --Book Jacket.
Focusing on a class action lawsuit against the Illinois child welfare system (B. H. v. Johnson), Pitiful Plaintiffs examines the role of the federal courts in the child welfare policymaking process and the extent to which litigation can achieve the goal of reforming child welfare systems. Beginning in the 1970s, children's advocates asked the federal courts to intervene in the child welfare policymaking process. Their weapons were, for the most part, class action suits that sought widespread reform of child welfare systems. This book is about the tens of thousands of abused and neglected children in the United States who enlisted the help of the federal courts to compel state and local gover...
This book focuses on the Reagan administration's broad attempt from 1980 to 1984 to strike thousands of Social Security disability recipients from government rolls. . . . [Mezey] enriches her study with a brief history of federal disability policy and provides a review of contending arguments over public policy and judicial activism. Of particular interest is the legal battle over the medical criteria used for determining desability and the SSA's deliberate policy of nonacquiescence when confronted with adverse judicial rulings. . . . A well-documented and valuable addition to case studies on the Reagan administration's efforts to cut human services. Choice This book is a case study of judic...
"Burke drills deep into America's unique culture of litigation and is rewarded with a powerful insight: it is not the public or even lawyers that are so darn litigious, but American law itself. This meticulous, dispassionate book stands not only to advance the debate but—I hope—to reshape it."—Jonathan Rauch, author of Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working "Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights is a fascinating study of the American penchant for public policies that rely on lawsuits to get things done. Burke's analysis is insightful and original. This book compellingly shows that litigious policies have deep roots in our Constitution, culture, and politics."—Charles Epp, aut...
The women studied were clearly progressive in their opinions and the authors show that their original and varied opinions cast doubt on much of the standard literature about non-elite women's understanding of mainstream politics and the women's movement. These rural women differed significantly from the usual stereotypes of farm women as apolitical and conservative. Nor were they the reactionaries implied by theories of modernization. Instead, they were supportive of women's political activism, and of their equality and self-assertiveness, and were as feminist as other women in Canada and France.