Monogamy\u27s Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence

Right now, marriage and monogamy feature prominently on the public stage. Efforts to lift prohibitions on same-sex marriage in this country and abroad have inspired people on all sides of the political spectrum to speak about the virtues of monogamy\u27s core institution and to express views on who should be included within it. The focus of this article is different. Like an unmannerly wedding guest, this article invites the reader to pause amidst the whirlwind of marriage talk and to think critically about monogamy and its alternatives

The use of a behavior screener to predict outcomes on high stakes tests for elementary school students

Studies have consistently shown that teachers’ ratings of behavior were predictive of academic difficulties. While research has clearly indicated that behavior has a reciprocal relationship with academic achievement, there is a scarcity of research on the relationship between outcomes on high stakes tests and student behavior. Early identification of children at risk for academic difficulties is vital for successful intervention and remediation. Therefore, this researcher investigated use of a brief behavior screener as a predictor of students at risk for failing a high stakes test. Results from the Behavior Assessment System for Children–Teacher Rating Scale–Child Screener (BASC-TRS-C Screener) provided an assessment of behavior. Georgia’s Criterion Referenced Test – Reading and Math scores provided achievement in reading and math. An analysis of data on 636 second through fifth grade participants revealed a significant inverse relationship between teacher ratings of student behavior and achievement. Thirteen of the fifteen models suggested that teachers’ ratings of behavior indicated with greater accuracy students at risk for academic difficulties than did the model without the behavior ratings. While two models were not significant, they clearly suggested an inverse relationship between behavior and achievement. Logistic Regression analyses suggested that the BASC-TRS-C Screener predicted with 90% accuracy the pass fail classification group associated with the score. The odds ratio suggested that with each point decrease on the BASC-TRS-C Screener score, (in which high scores equal greater behavior concerns) the chances of passing the Criterion Referenced Competency Test reading high stakes test increased by 5%. In the area of math, the odds of passing increased by 6% with each point decrease on the BASC-TRS-C Screener. Other findings suggested that minorities have a significantly greater risk (p \u3c .05) of failing the Criterion Reference Competency Test in the areas of reading, math, or both reading and math than do their same age peers

Getting It: The ADA After Thirty Years

On the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), this essay examines the vital role that attitudes have played — and will play — in the success of this pathbreaking civil rights law. Drawing on the legacy of the late disability philosopher and bioethicist Adrienne Asch, the essay argues that the law alone cannot bring about the change that’s needed in the United States to realize the ADA’s promise. Attitudes to disability need to change. More people need to “get it” with regard to disability. The essay puts forward an updated account of what it means to get it and charts a path for shaping attitudes through law and other means in the years ahead

The Art of Access: Innovative Protests of an Inaccessible City

This Essay considers inaccessible New York City through the lens of artistic production. The landscape of disability art and protest is vast and wildly diverse. This Essay proposes to capture one slice of this array. From Ellis Avery’s Zodiac of NYC transit elevators, to Shannon Finnegan’s Anti-Stairs Club Lounge at the Vessel in Hudson Yards, to Park McArthur’s work exhibiting the ramps that provided her access to galleries showing her work – these and other creative endeavors offer a unique way in to understanding the problems and potential of inaccessible cities. Legal actions have challenged some of the specific sites these artists address, which will inform the Essay’s study of the interplay between disability, creativity, and urban life

Compulsory Sexuality

Asexuality is an emerging identity category that challenges the assumption that everyone is defined by some type of sexual attraction. Asexuals – those who report feeling no sexual attraction to others – constitute one percent of the population, according to one prominent study. In recent years, some individuals have begun to identify as asexual and to connect around their experiences interacting with a sexual society. Asexuality has also become a protected classification under the antidiscrimination law of one state and several localities, but legal scholarship has thus far neglected the subject. This Article introduces asexuality to the legal literature as a category of analysis, an object of empirical study, and a phenomenon of medical science. It then offers a close examination of the growing community of self-identified asexuals. Asexual identity has revealing intersections with the more familiar categories of gender, sexual orientation, and disability, and inspires new models for understanding sexuality

Admin

This Article concerns a relatively unseen form of labor that affects us all, but that disproportionately burdens women: admin. Admin is the office type work – both managerial and secretarial – that it takes to run a life or a household. Examples include completing paperwork, making grocery lists, coordinating schedules, mailing packages, and handling medical and benefits matters. Both equity and efficiency are at stake here. Admin raises distributional concerns about those people – often women – who do more than their share of this work on behalf of others. Even when different-sex partners who both work outside the home aspire to equal distribution of household labor, it appears that the family’s admin is more often done by women. Appreciating the unequal distribution of this work helps us to see the costs of admin for everyone. These broader costs include wasted time, lost focus, and interpersonal tension. Though the types of admin demands that people face vary by gender, class, age, and culture, admin touches everyone. The Article makes this form of labor more salient, both analytically, through an account of its features and costs, and practically, through proposals for public and private interventions. Admin is “sticky.” It frequently stays where it lands, whether with female partners of men, one member of a same-sex couple, an extended family member managing another’s affairs, or parents of some adult children of the so-called millennial generation. By demanding time and attention, admin impinges on leisure, sleep, relationships, and work. Admin warrants a range of possible regulatory responses. Government should create less admin and possibly do more kinds of admin for people. Regulatory infrastructure should protect people’s time and spur technological innovations that reduce admin. Courts should allow parties in civil suits to claim damages for lost personal time. These and other initiatives should help to make admin more salient as a legal and cultural matter and to reduce its burdens overall. Reducing admin should benefit everyone and, in turn, disproportionately benefit those who bear its greatest burdens

Compulsory Sexuality

Asexuality is an emerging identity category that challenges the common assumption that everyone is defined by some type of sexual attraction. Asexuals — those who report feeling no sexual attraction to others — constitute one percent of the population, according to one prominent study. In recent years, some individuals have begun to identify as asexual and to connect around their experiences interacting with a sexual society. Asexuality has also become a protected classification under the antidiscrimination law of one state and several localities, but legal scholarship has thus far neglected the subject. This Article introduces asexuality to the legal literature as a category of analysis, an object of empirical study, and a phenomenon of medical science. It then offers a close examination of the growing community of self-identified asexuals. Asexual identity has revealing intersections with the more familiar categories of gender, sexual orientation, and disability, and inspires new models for understanding sexuality. Thinking about asexuality also sheds light on our legal system. Ours is arguably a sexual law, predicated on the assumption that sex is important. This Article uses asexuality to develop a framework for identifying the ways that law privileges sexuality. Across various fields, these interactions include legal requirements of sexual activity, special carve-outs to shield sexuality from law, legal protections from others’ sexuality, and legal protections for sexual identity. Applying this framework, the Article traces several ways that our sexual law burdens, and occasionally benefits, asexuals. This Article concludes by closely examining asexuality’s prospects for broader inclusion into federal, state, and local antidiscrimination laws