Lawyers and Caring: Building an Ethic of Care into Professional Responsibility

In the last decade, a new literature has arisen, grounded in feminism, reconsidering morality, identity, and moral development. Professor Glennon applies these feminist-based ideas about moral development to a pedagogy of responsibility. She explores some of the ways in which this alternative view of moral development might affect our understanding of teaching. Professor Glennon shows that students must view themselves as capable, cared-for, and empowered in order to achieve an enlarged self-definition of professional responsibility and conceive of themselves as professionals in ways other than the dominant, privatized mode

Empathy’s Promise and Limits for Those Disproportionately Harmed by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Structural race, ethnicity, and class disparities in the United States concentrated and intensified the health, economic, and psychological impact of COVID-19 for certain populations. Those same structural disparities and the belief system that maintains them may also account for the weak policy response that left the United States with high rates of infection and death, economic devastation of individuals, families, and small businesses, and psychological distress. A more equal society with a stronger pre-pandemic safety net may have prevented or eased the disproportionate hardship and avoided the drama and cliffhanging. Or the shock of a pandemic and likelihood of extreme hardship might have garnered a stronger and more timely policy response. Yet, many federal lawmakers failed to empathize with and take compassionate action to aid the many victims of COVID-19 across American society, and especially to alleviate the disproportionate suffering by Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latinx and Asian American communities, along with many working class and impoverished adults and children

Shelter from the Storm: Human Rights Protections for Single-Mother Families in the Time of COVID-19

COVID-19’s arrival, and the changes it has unleashed, reveal how longstanding legal and policy decisions produced structural inequalities that have left so many families, and especially single-parent families with children, all too insecure. The fragility of single-mother families is amplified by the multifaceted discrimination they face. While all single parents, including single fathers and other single relatives who are raising children, share many of these burdens, this Article focuses on the challenges confronting single mothers. Federal policy choices stand in sharp contrast to the political rhetoric of government support for families. Social and economic policy in the twentieth century developed to support white two-parent marital homes, with a working father and a stay-at-home mother as the ideal norm. Much of the federal government’s support for families is designed to aid this idealized family form. In contrast, single mothers, who deviate from this norm, have historically been subject to vilification. Their pervasive hardships have been justified by sexist stereotypes of single mothers—painting them as immoral, lazy and opportunistic—and policies reflect this deep suspicion. Other nations have applied human rights norms to reshape economic and social policies to benefit all families. The United States should not be left behind. U.S. government officials and the public should become knowledgeable about these human rights and accept these obligations as well. Educating ourselves about human rights norms and obligations, advocating for ratification of key human rights treaties, and learning from their implementation in other countries are crucial first steps to ensuring justice and protection for all families

Divided parents, shared children<br> Conflicting approaches to relocation disputes in the USA

Custody relocation disputes pose intractable dilemmas for courts in a highly mobile society. The custodial parent, most often a woman, seeks self-determination, freedom of movement and a continued custodial relationship with the child. The non-custodial parent seeks to preserve a geographically close relationship with the child. Courts must identify the best interests of the children amidst these multiple and conflicting interests. They make decisions that may determine the course of custodial parents’ lives, affecting remarriage, employment, education, and proximity to family. A narrow doctrinal focus on children’s best interests ignores these key aspects of relocation disputes. This article examines the varied legislative and judicial approaches to relocation disputes in the US and proposed principles for resolution of these disputes. It reviews scholarship analyzing relocation disputes from a wide range of perspectives, including: conflicting social science research; competing ideologies of the post-divorce family; alternative dispute resolution; parents’ constitutional rights; domestic violence victims; and proposals to eliminate geographic presumptions and remedy the economic effect of restraints on relocation. Relocation doctrine in the US should be realigned to address these complex perspectives. States should also assist post-divorce families to support children through the common experience of relocation