Suzanne Lenon and Danielle Peers, ‘Wrongful’ Inheritance: Race, Disability and Sexuality in Cramblett v Midwest Sperm Bank, 25 Feminist Legal Studies 141 (2017). While few seriously hold up litigating as a path to happiness, lawyers, historians, and activists often associate an expanded capacity to sue with increased justice. Thus the married woman’s right to sue in her name and minorities’ prerogative to respond to discrimination and hate crimes via legal proceedings are markers of progress. However costly and uncertain litigation is, the real issue is of course the potential for oppression wherever the powerful unjustifiably limit one group’s scope for legal action relative to that enjoyed by others. Crucially, my examples don’t typically evoke the worry that increasing one potential plaintiff’s options imposes costs on another historically subordinated group. The example in Suzanne Lenon and Danielle Peers’ engaging new essay in Feminist Legal Studies does precisely that … (more)
[Robert Leckey, JOTWELL, 21 November]
First posted 2017-11-21 13:16:10
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