From colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh:
The University of Pittsburgh School of Law invites applications for a tenure-stream position, beginning in the 2018-2019 academic year, to teach courses in the tax area. The successful candidate will become an integral part of Pitt Law’s tax program, which includes a Tax Law Concentration, a Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic, and the peer-reviewed Pittsburgh Tax Review. We anticipate hiring for this position at the rank of assistant, associate, or full professor, depending on the candidate’s qualifications. We strongly encourage applications from lateral candidates at all levels. An interest in teaching and research in international aspects of tax law and/or in business/commercial law is desirable, as is an interest in and/or experience with incorporating experiential learning and innovative pedagogy (e.g., writing intensive, inter-professional, flipped classroom, etc.) into the classroom. The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action, equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, veteran status, disability, national origin, creed, marital status, age, gender identity or sexual orientation in its hiring. In furtherance of our strong institutional commitment to a diverse faculty, we particularly welcome applications from minorities, women, and others who would add diversity to our faculty. Contact: Harry Flechtner, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, 3900 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Email: law-appointments@pitt.edu. Email submissions are preferred. The deadline for applications is November 1, 2017.
The idea that constitutions are gendered is not new, but its recognition is the product of a revolution in thinking that began in the last decades of the twentieth century. As a field, it is attracting scholarly attention and influencing practice around the world. This timely Handbook features contributions from leading pioneers and younger scholars, applying a gendered lens to constitution-making and design, constitutional practice and citizenship, and constitutional challenges to gender equality rights and values.
In 1984, the United States started down a path towards the criminalization of domestic violence that it has steadfastly continued to follow. The turn to the criminal legal system to address domestic violence coincided with the rise of mass incarceration in the United States. Levels of incarceration have increased by five times during the life of the anti-domestic violence movement. The United States incarcerates approximately 2.2 million people, with another 5 million under the scrutiny of parole and probation officers. While the criminalization of domestic violence did not have “a significant causal role” in the increase in mass incarceration in the United States, scholars have argued that the turn to criminal law to address domestic violence has contributed to the phenomenon of mass incarceration. Given the current focus on overcriminalization and decreasing mass incarceration, the time may be ripe to consider alternatives to criminalization of intimate partner violence. In her 2007 article, The Feminist War on Crime, law professor Aya Gruber wrote, “Although I am skeptical about the ability of criminal law to solve social inequality problems, there may be good reasons to keep domestic violence crimes solidly on the books.” Professors Cecelia Klingele, Michael Scott and Walter Dickey have called for the development of scholarship addressing “crime problems for which arrest, prosecution, and conviction are the most appropriate responses to crime, along with instances in which invocation of traditional response is particularly fruitless or counterproductive.” Both generally and specifically in the context of intimate partner violence, these articles ask about the continued utility of criminal interventions. This article takes up those questions and asks: should domestic violence be decriminalized?
Joan Meier (GW) has posted to SSRN her article, 
This Article identifies and offers solutions to an emerging problem in family law: same-sex divorce. The Article’s central claim is that parties to the first wave of same-sex divorces are not effectively bargaining against the backdrop of legal dissolution rules that would govern in the absence of an agreement. In other words, to use Robert Mnookin and Lewis Kornhauser’s terminology, they are not “bargaining in the shadow of the law.” Instead, the Article argues, many same-sex couples today bargain in the shadow of a myth that same-sex couples are egalitarian—that there are no vulnerable parties or power differentials in same-sex divorce. The Article shows how the myth of egalitarianism undermines current bargaining for same-sex divorce. First, the myth leads to what the Article calls divorce exceptionalism, that is when a party claims that existing marriage dissolution rules do not apply in same-sex divorce because they were designed to remedy the non-egalitarian conditions of different-sex marriages. Divorce exceptionalism disables effective bargaining because without default legal rules there is nothing to guide the bargaining process. Second, the myth of egalitarianism eliminates key bargaining chips: under a presumption of formal equality neither party really has anything to “give” or “get” in the bargain for divorce. Finally, the myth, combined with the general fog of uncertainty regarding how courts will treat same-sex divorces, may lead to increased strategic behavior. The Article proposes a realistic solution, arguing that the legal actors who participate in same-sex divorce, including lawyers, mediators, courts, and the parties themselves, should reject divorce exceptionalism and apply ordinary divorce rules. It also proposes to protect vulnerable parties by extending to same-sex divorce the current trend towards joint-custody presumptions. The myth of egalitarianism in same-sex couples, which was quite helpful in achieving marriage-equality, is now haunting the first wave of same-sex divorces and harming vulnerable parties. It is time to let the myth go and address the reality of same-sex marriage and divorce.
In Fisher v. University of Texas in June 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the use of race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions. While recognizing a university’s interest in the educational benefits that derive from a diverse student body, Justice Kennedy cautioned in the majority opinion: “A university’s goals cannot be elusory or amorphous — they must be sufficiently measurable to permit judicial scrutiny of the policies adopted to reach them.”
The Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments Project inaugurates a fresh dialogue on gender, legal judgment, judicial power and national identity in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Through a process of judicial re-imagining, the project takes account of the peculiarly Northern/Irish concerns in shaping gender through judicial practice. This collection, following on from feminist judgments projects in Canada, England and Australia takes the feminist judging methodology in challenging new directions. This book collects 26 rewritten judgments, covering a range of substantive areas. As well as opinions from appellate courts, the book includes fi rst instance decisions and a fi ctional review of a Tribunal of Inquiry. Each feminist judgment is accompanied by a commentary putting the case in its social context and explaining the original decision. The book also includes introductory chapters examining the project methodology, constructions of national identity, theoretical and conceptual issues pertaining to feminist judging, and the legal context of both jurisdictions. The book, shines a light on past and future possibilities – and limitations – for judgment on the island of Ireland.
