The Charles C. Wise Library : a retrospective

The Charles C. Wise Library: A Retrospective presents the fascinating story of the “tremendous setting for learning” and contains beautiful photographs documenting the library’s growth from 1931 to 2006

Rural Resentment and LGBTQ Equality

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges settled a decades-long national debate over the legality of same-sex marriage. Since Obergefell, however, local and state legislatures in conservative and mostly rural states have proposed and passed hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills. Obergefell may have ended the legal debate over same-sex marriage, but it did not resolve the cultural divide. Many rural Americans, especially in predominately white communities, feel that they are under attack. Judicial opinions and legislation protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination are serious threats to rural dwellers because they conflict with several core tenets of rural identity: community solidarity, self-reliance, and compliance with religiously informed gender and sexual norms. This conflict is amplified by the relative invisibility of gay and transgender people who live in rural areas, and the predominantly urban media representations of gay and transgender people. In several respects, the conflict is merely perceived and is not real. It is at these junctures of perceived conflict that we can draw important lessons for bridging the cultural divide, thereby protecting LGBTQ people across geographic spaces. This Article examines the sources and modern manifestations of rural LGBTQ resentment to provide foundational insights for the ongoing fight to protect all vulnerable minorities. Pro-LGBTQ legislation and judicial opinions symbolize a changing America in which white rural inhabitants see their identities disappeqaring, devalued, and disrespected. The left, popularly represented in rural America as a group of urban elites, characterizes anti-LGBTQ views a bigoted, and many people in small towns feel victimized by this criticism. Drawing on a robust body of social science research, this Article suggests that these feelings of victimization lead to resentment when outside forces, like federal judges and state and big-city legislators, tell rural Americans how to act, think, and feel. Rural Americans resent undeserving minorities who have gained rights and recognition, in contrasts to the identities of, and at the perceived expense of, white, straight, working-class prestige. They resent that liberal, largely urban outsiders are telling them that they must change who they are to accomodate people they perceive as unlike them. Opposing LGBTQ rights is thus one mechanism to protect and assert rural identity. It is important to unearth and pay attention to white rural anti-LGBTQ resentment in the post-Obergefell era because it is part of a larger force animating conservation politics across the United States

Dignity, Inequality, and Stereotypes

In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court held that same-sex marriage bans violate the Equal Protection Clause for two primary reasons. First, they subordinate; they send the message that lesbians and gays are inferior to heterosexuals. Second, they unequally deny lesbian and gay individuals the liberty to make fundamental decisions about identity and self. These two conjoined themes—anti-group subordination and pro-individual liberty—comprise the two pillars of “equal dignity” that anchor Obergefell’s holding. This Article proposes that these pillars also support the Court’s anti-stereotyping jurisprudence, and equal dignity is thus one important aspect of what the Equal Protection Clause protects. To illustrate: in sex discrimination cases, courts reject state stereotyping when it perpetuates ideas about men’s and women’s roles and reinforces women’s inferior social status; in transgender and sexual orientation discrimination cases, courts have begun to protect LGBTQ individuals from state demands for conformity to normative stereotypes about how to be a man or woman. Protecting individuals’ equal dignity can sometimes become complicated when the reasons for addressing a group’s purported needs elide individual concerns and attachments. For example, the government sometimes relies on normative and statistical information about groups to combat group-associated health and poverty risks, to remedy individual disparate treatment, and to prevent wholesale group exclusion from opportunities and civic duties. Addressing these group-based needs, however, may effectively perpetuate stereotypes about what group membership means. Individual group members may object to the identitarian implications of the government’s help. Not all stereotyping both subordinates a group and denies individuals the liberty to be and express who they are. Accordingly, stereotyping is not wrong in and of itself; how the government uses stereotypes should determine whether state action violates the Equal Protection Clause. Counterintuitively, stereotyping can sometimes promote rather than deny equal dignity. While any state reliance on stereotypes risks essentializing identity, an absolute stereotyping prohibition exacerbates certain forms of race, sex, and sexual orientation blindness. Groups are important, and the government requires some flexibility to address group-based needs

Real Men

Men are discriminated against every day in work and at school because they fail to look or behave like “real” men. Most courts hold that sex discrimination includes treating a man differently because he fails to conform to sex stereotypes. But judges are reluctant to infer intent to discriminate “because of sex” in these cases, in large part because they have no meaningful guidelines for analyzing the evidence. Accordingly, judges routinely grant defendants’ motions for summary judgment and to dismiss based on little more than their own ideas about what masculinity means. This Article encourages judges to approach intent contextually when evaluating sex stereotyping evidence, taking into consideration factors such as place, race, and class. If a plaintiff’s gender presentation differs in any way from the relevant dominant gender norms, that difference alone should support an inference of discriminatory intent. A contextual intent approach recognizes that what it means to be gender conforming looks different depending on whom and where one is, and that sex stereotyping evidence is likewise amorphous. Attention to context will lead to more accurate determinations of whether a plaintiff’s gender differs from what is accepted and expected, and thus whether it is fair to infer that a plaintiff was harassed for those differences. This Article challenges implicit social and legal assumptions that “real” masculinity exists. To the contrary, multiple versions of masculinity coexist in every social space, some are more dominant than others, and those dominant versions become the templates for appropriate male behavior. By deconstructing the meanings of manhood, this Article seeks space for all men to perform gender more freely. Releasing men from rigid gender constraints may progress society towards equality for things considered feminine, which can liberate both men and women

Rural Resentment and LGBTQ Equality

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges settled a decades-long national debate over the legality of same-sex marriage. Since Obergefell, however, local and state legislatures in conservative and mostly rural states have proposed and passed hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills. Obergefell may have ended the legal debate over same-sex marriage, but it did not resolve the cultural divide. Many rural Americans, especially in predominately white communities, feel that they are under attack. Judicial opinions and legislation protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination are serious threats to rural dwellers because they conflict with several core tenets of rural identity: community solidarity, self-reliance, and compliance with religiously informed gender and sexual norms. This conflict is amplified by the relative invisibility of gay and transgender people who live in rural areas, and the predominantly urban media representations of gay and transgender people. In several respects, the conflict is merely perceived and is not real. It is at these junctures of perceived conflict that we can draw important lessons for bridging the cultural divide, thereby protecting LGBTQ people across geographic spaces. This Article examines the sources and modern manifestations of rural LGBTQ resentment to provide foundational insights for the ongoing fight to protect all vulnerable minorities. Pro-LGBTQ legislation and judicial opinions symbolize a changing America in which white rural inhabitants see their identities disappeqaring, devalued, and disrespected. The left, popularly represented in rural America as a group of urban elites, characterizes anti-LGBTQ views a bigoted, and many people in small towns feel victimized by this criticism. Drawing on a robust body of social science research, this Article suggests that these feelings of victimization lead to resentment when outside forces, like federal judges and state and big-city legislators, tell rural Americans how to act, think, and feel. Rural Americans resent undeserving minorities who have gained rights and recognition, in contrasts to the identities of, and at the perceived expense of, white, straight, working-class prestige. They resent that liberal, largely urban outsiders are telling them that they must change who they are to accomodate people they perceive as unlike them. Opposing LGBTQ rights is thus one mechanism to protect and assert rural identity. It is important to unearth and pay attention to white rural anti-LGBTQ resentment in the post-Obergefell era because it is part of a larger force animating conservation politics across the United States

Disrupting Sexual Categories of Intimate Preference

The Article first explores what discrimination in the intimate realm may mean, and it discusses the ineffective application of traditional legal antidiscrimination measures in favor of Professor Vicki Shultz\u27s disruption model. The disruption model looks at institutional practices rather than individual intent, explaining that discrimination occurs when institutions create differential categories and apply hierarchical meanings to those categories. The Article then critically examines sexual orientation as an incoherent and oppressive social construct in need of disruption. Finally, the Article demonstrates the ways in which the law has created rigidly defined categories of sex, gender, and sexual identity (all inextricable components of sexual orientation), and frames the disruption of these mechanisms as the only means to achieve true intimate choice and remedy discriminatory romantic preferences

ACTING GAY, ACTING STRAIGHT: SEXUAL ORIENTATION STEREOTYPING

What does it mean to discriminate because of sexual orientation? This legal question will increasingly arise as many states and municipalities enact laws that include sexual orientation as a protected trait. Without evidence of overt hostility towards or moral disapproval of gays as a group, plaintiffs may introduce evidence of sexual orientation stereotyping to make their case: i.e., evidence that an actor relied on group-based sexual orientation stereotypes in deciding to discriminate against an individual plaintiff. But how should courts determine whether the stereotyping relates to sexual orientation? It is important to answer this question for the litigants and judges who must address it in legal disputes, as well as for those who are working on the greater project of creating an intersectional and anti-essentialist approach to discrimination. To classify evidence as sexual orientation stereotyping in some ways defines categories like gay or straight. When the law defines identity categories, it risks reinforcing regressive and narrow ideas about identities. Yet, like gender expression, sexual orientation expression can be highly individualistic. How courts approach stereotyping evidence thus determines both the contours of the protected trait and who is protected from discrimination. In determining when discrimination is because of sexual orientation, then, courts should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. To illustrate the individualistic and expansive potential of sexual orientation as a protected trait, this Article discusses how lesbian, gay, and bisexual ( LGB\u27) expression is contested and policed even within the queer community. It focuses on several tangible examples of LGB norm enforcement: masculine gay men who discriminate against effeminate gay men; discrimination stemming from respectability politics regarding how LGB people organize and structure their romantic and sexual lives; and discrimination at the intersections of sexual orientation and class, race, and geography. These internal divisions demonstrate not only the diverse meanings that attach to sexual orientation categories, but also which LGB people remain most susceptible to discrimination by straight and LGB people alike in an era of increasing tolerance and acceptance