Law and Sexuality

I'm in my fifth year of teaching law and sexuality at Sunderland and although it's a subject that has become much more common at law schools over those years, there are a variety of different approaches taken - and I get the impression they are generally much more conservative, and typically much more feminist driven than my own course.

A couple of news stories in the US recently highlight how this is an area that continues to grow globally.  Rutgers Law School announced with great fanfare that they are running a class in which students are looking at LGBT rights.  Although the story emphasises it's a small class, it is another Law School grappling with the agenda of law and sexuality.

There's a great quote in the Rutgers press release when N.E.H. Hull, a  professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law–Camden who teaches the course says:  "It’s the civil rights issue of the 21st century and it plays into so many areas of law."  Absolutely.

Read the full story here.

Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported that their Law School students headed down to New Orleans during their winter break to volunteer for a range of projects including one with AIDSLaw.  It's another example of Law Schools ensuring that their students are exposed to and engage with a broader socio-legal agenda that includes aspects of sexuality.  Brilliant stuff from the Law Schools and students concerned.

Now for something completely different...

For those of you who might be interested in the other research/policy work I get up to, you may be interested in this piece which quotes me and talks about legal apprenticeships.  British academics focused on REF Impact statements will understand why these things are helpful at the moment!

Check out the article to be published in the new issue of Lawyer 2B here.

Lives Online

Forgive some mild Law School publicity, but I accidentally discovered this today and think it's brilliant.  The University have done a Lives Online thing the last couple of years - following a student as they arrive, and progress through University life.  One of the participants this year is Dan Briscall who has just arrived to start an LLB at Sunderland.  I met Dan earlier today when I delivered a mooting workshop to freshers and he seemed a really great guy.  Academic bogs often focus on our own egos and brilliance, but it's nice to hear from the students who are on the receiving end.  So...follow Dan and see how he gets on with us.  I'm awaiting the "had a mooting workshop today.  it was awful" message.  I watch with trepidation...

Here's the full page for Dan, and you can check out his first full video below.

 

The Equality Flip-Side

The Telegraph reports today that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is examining whether "gay-only" guesthouses breach new laws designed to prevent people being treated unfairly in the provision of goods or services. My students will tell you that I do bang on about this aspect of equality. That is to say, gay venues that appear to discriminate against straight people - the gay hotel or the gay pub and bar. The ghetto has continued to discriminate in subtle ways despite equality legislation - bouncers asking "this is a gay bar, are you sure it's your type of venue gents?" Someone once said this to me and I remain unsure whether he was saying I was too unattractive to enter the venue or simple looked too straight.

Anyway, I think the review is right and over-due. It raises some very serious questions for those who have sought to see equality as something to be imposed upon others, and not apply to themselves. The trouble with this simple right-wing narrative is that it fails to appreciate that there's a reason for 'gay' bars, hotels and other spaces and it is a desire to appropriate a space that can be deemed 'safe'. Safe from fear, and safe from violence. We still need such spaces today. However, we must recognise that to argue such a position is to also argue against equality.

Student Writing and Sexual Justice

I've been a little bit (well - very) slow to pick up on this post on the Feminist Law Professors blog. It highlights a recent publication by Ruthann Robson (perhaps best known for Sappho Goes to Law School) in the journal Law & Sexuality (published once a year and edited by students - it's the official journal of the LGBT Bar Association). I've recently re-read Sappho in the course of a little project I'm working on (which hopefully I'll have excited news about in the next month or so) and she is a truly brilliant writer.

Her most recent article explores student writing and sexual justice. I've pasted in the full abstract below. The article is available for free download from SSRN here and will be of interest to scholars, students and their observers alike. Here's the abstract:

'Encouraging creativity and risk is an important—and underappreciated—dimension of the
mentor-student process in student scholarly writing. This Article models an imaginative reflection on collaborative supervision that produces student scholarship. The organizational motif of “sins” connects to extra-legal cultural constructions that permeate everyday life, including the life of writing, and more specifically confronts the conflation of “sin” and “sex” that persists in legal and nonlegal discourse. The boundaries of legal academic writing, like the limitations of sexual freedom, are sites of anxiety for both mentors and students; this Article suggests that these borders also can be places of adventure.'

Still Looking Back? Sex in the Noughties

Well if you are, I heartily recommend John Ozimek's excellent law and sexuality review of the decade published this week in the online magazine, The Register. John quotes a certain blogger and academic of your acquaintance but that's not the (only. lol) reason for linking to the story. It's an insightful insight and explores many important issues that are under-discussed elsewhere. He also makes reference to 'the increasingly militant Queer Academy' which has got me thinking about an article idea exploring the Queer Academy and the Law School but heaven only knows when I'll get round to it. Anyone want to co-author something? Anyway, the piece in the Register is called 'Sex in the Noughties' and it can be viewed here.