New Books - Fall 2005, List 3
Toxic Diversity: Race, Gender, and Law Talk in America
by Dan Subotnik
New York : New York University Press, 2005
KF4755 .S23 2005 Third Floor
Shelved in New Books first, then at call number location
From New York University Press:
Toxic Diversity offers an invigorating analysis of race, gender, and law in America. By deconstructing the work of preeminent legal scholars such as Patricia Williams, Derrick Bell, Lani Guinier, and Richard Delgado, Dan Subotnik argues that critical race and gender theory poisons our social and intellectual environment by labeling white males as victimizers instead of proactively engaging them in a truly open dialogue that bridges instead of polarizes minority and majority voices.
Insisting, in the words of James Baldwin, that “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” and that thoughtful Americans regardless of race and gender can handle frank conversations about difficult topics, Subotnik’s critique of race and gender theory pulls no punches as it confronts such inflammatory issues as single parenthood, the merit system in academic and business settings, gender privilege in the classroom, and crime.
Dan Subotnik is professor of law at Touro College Law Center.
Out of the Closets & Into the Courts: Legal Opportunity Structure and Gay Rights Litigation
by Ellen Ann Andersen
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005
KF4754.5 A96 2005 Third Floor
Shelved first in New Books, then at call number location
From University of Michigan Press:
Over the past 30 years, the gay rights movement has moved from the margins to the center of American politics, sparking debate from bedroom to boardroom to battlefield. Out of the Closet and into the Courts analyzes the most recent gay rights cases, and explores the complex relationship between litigation and social change. Ellen Andersen describes what happens when these cases -- many overseen by the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, the nation's oldest and largest gay rights firm -- enter the courtroom, and explains why they have met with mixed success.
Delving into the heated debates over same-sex marriage, antigay initiatives, and anti-sodomy laws, Out of the Closet and into the Courts shows that the law's receptiveness to gay rights claims has varied enormously, over time and from issue to issue, in response to Lambda's choice of strategies and shifts in the sociolegal environment.
Out of the Closets and into the Courts explores both the promise and the limits of using legal mobilization to effect social change. Crossing disciplinary boundaries, Ellen Andersen draws on the accumulated knowledge of political science, law, and sociology to explain the origins and outcomes of gay rights litigation. The resulting book is essential reading for anyone interested in gay rights, legal change, and social movements.
Ellen Ann Andersen is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
Judges in Contemporary Democracy: An International Conversation
edited by Robert Badinter and Stephen Breyer
New York: New York University Press, 2004
K2146.J83 2004 Basement
Shelved in New Books first, then at call number location
From New York University Press:
Law, politics, and society in the modern West have been marked by the increasing power of the judge: the development of constitutional justice, the evolution of international judiciaries, and judicial systems that extend even further into social life. Judges make decisions that not only enforce the law, but also codify the values of our times.
In the summer of 2000, an esteemed group of judges and legal scholars met in Provence, France, to consider the role of the judge in modern society. They included Robert Badinter, former president of the Constitutional Council in France; Stephen Breyer, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; Antonio Cassese, the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; Dieter Grimm, former vice president of the Constitutional Court of Germany; Gil Carlos Rodriguez, president of the Court of Justice of the European Union; and Ronald Dworkin, formerly of Oxford University, now professor of philosophy and law at the New York University Law School. What followed was an animated discussion ranging from the influence of the media on the judiciary to the development of an international criminal law to the judge's consideration of the judge's own role. Judges in Contemporary Democracy offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the powers and the role of judges in today's society.
Robert Badinter is the former president of the Constitutional Council of France. Stephen Breyer is Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Understanding Disability: Inclusion, Access, Diversity, and Civil Rights
by Paul T. Jaeger and Cynthia Ann Bowman
Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2005
HV1553 .J34 2005 Basement
Shelved in New Books first, then at call number location
From Praeger (Greenwood Publishing Group):
Disability is rarely considered a social issue. Scholars tend to discuss it in the abstract; medical personnel view it as a health issue; and legal concerns for the disabled focus on how to advocate or protect an organization against demands for accommodation. As a result, disabled individuals are seen as bits and pieces of everyone's constituency but their own. The writers of this work, both having long personal experiences with disabilities, offer a holistic understanding of the lives of disabled individuals from representations in the media to issues of civil rights.
Written to educate and inform readers about the social roles of disability, this accessible and informative work addresses: social classifications of disability; social reactions to disability; legal rights and classifications of persons with disabilities; issues of accessibility to information and communication technologies; representations of disability in a range of media, including literature, painting, film, television and advertising; and major issues shaping the contemporary social roles of persons with disabilities. By examining the social roles of disability in the past and present from a range of perspectives and disciplines, this book reveals a portrait of the social place, limitations, and rights of persons with disabilities.
PAUL T. JAEGER is Manager for Research Development Information Use Management and Policy Institute, Florida State University. His publications have addressed issues of disability law and accessibility, information access, education, electronic government, and information policy and law.
CYNTHIA ANN BOWMAN is Associate Professor Literacy Education, Ashland University, OH. She is President-Elect of the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts and the author of numerous publications on teaching and technology.
