My Pace colleague Emily Gold Waldman and I have a new draft article, The Unconstitutional Tampon Tax, forthcoming in the Richmond Law Review. Here is the abstract:
Thirty-six states impose a sales tax on menstrual hygiene products, while products like spermicidal condoms and erectile dysfunction medications are tax-free. This sales tax—commonly called the “tampon tax”—represents an expense that girls and women must bear on top of the cost of biologically-necessary items that they need in order to go to school, work, and otherwise participate in public life. This Article explores the constitutionality of the tampon tax and argues that it is an impermissible form of gender discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause. First, menstrual hygiene products are a unique proxy for female sex, and therefore any disadvantageous tax classification of these products amounts to a facial classification on the basis of sex. There is no “exceedingly persuasive justification” for taxing menstrual hygiene products, and so the tax must fail intermediate scrutiny. Even assuming arguendo that the tampon tax is not viewed as a tax on female sex, it is still unconstitutional because it cannot pass rational basis review.
Since 2016, four states and the District of Columbia have repealed their sales tax on menstrual hygiene products. Many state legislatures will consider similar repeal bills in upcoming legislative sessions. At the same time, women also have brought class action litigation in four jurisdictions, seeking a declaration that the state tampon tax is unconstitutional and requesting a refund of prior taxes paid. The Article develops the constitutional arguments that can be used by litigators in any ongoing or future case, recognizing that menstrual equity activism, including impact litigation, is likely to continue in the future.
Ultimately what and who a society seeks to tax signals its larger values. The continued imposition of state sales tax on menstrual hygiene products, seemingly without a principled distinction from other products that are exempted as necessities, exacerbates the aggregate economic inequality that already exists between the sexes. The tampon tax should be repealed in all states.
The full paper is available here.
There’s also a new student note on the tampon tax, published in the Northwestern University Law Review: Jorene Ooi, Bleeding Women Dry: Tampon Taxes and Menstrual Inequity, 113 Nw. U. L. Rev. 109 (2018).
I’m looking forward to reading more tax and constitutional scholarship that addresses the state sales tax on menstrual hygiene products!
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Mathilde Cohen (U Conn) and Yoriko Otomo (SOAS, University of London) have published an edited volume, 
From the student editors at UC Davis:
This book seeks to interrogate the classical fiqh formulation on gender and homicide with a view to exploring further the debate on whether the so-called gender injustice in Islamic law is a human creation or attributable to the divine sources of the Qur’an and Sunnah. The study is in response to the increasing criticism of the Islamic criminal law regime and the accusation that it discriminates on the basis of gender. It argues that any attempt to critique a religious question through the lens of traditional Western human rights ideals would be resisted by the vast majority of Muslims. An examination of the question and any suggested solutions offered would be much more effective if situated within the system they identify with; that is to address the question of gender justice deficit from within the Islamic legal tradition. Focusing on Nigeria and Pakistan, the book achieves this by drawing on classical fiqh literature, contemporary literature, legislative sources and relevant case law.
A brief history of professional cheerleading shows how we got here. At first, 
Haverford College invites applications for a one-year visiting Assistant Professor in its Peace, Justice and Human Rights Program for AY2018-19. The position is open to scholars at all pre-tenure levels with training in the humanities or social sciences who focus in their work on questions of justice, peace and conflict, human rights and related fields. Candidates should be able to teach an introductory course in issues of human rights, as well as offer more specialized courses. The teaching load is five courses.
