Feminist Judgment Projects: United States
The US Feminist Judgments Project is a collaborative effort involving more than 100 feminist law professors to rewrite US legal decisions from a feminist perspective. Their first project took on the most significant Supreme Court cases involving gender issues from the 1800s to today. Each judgment is accompanied by explanatory commentary. The first 25 rewritten judgments are published in: Linda Berger, Bridget Crawford and Kathy Stanchi (eds), Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
The Project is also producing rewriting opinions from different areas of jurisprudence, including tax law, reproductive justice, torts, family law, trusts & estates and employment discrimination law. These can be accessed on the Cambridge University Press website.
The other projects are:
Anne Choike (ed), Feminist Judgments: Corporations Opinions Rewritten
Ann C McGinley and Nicole Buonocore Porter, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Employment Discrimination Opinions (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Rachel Rebouche (ed), Feminist Judgments: Family Law Opinions Rewritten (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Kimberly M Mutcherson (ed), Feminist Judgments: Reproductive Justice Rewritten (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Martha Chamallas and Lucinda M. Finley, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tort Opinions (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Eloisa C Rodriguez-Dod and Elena Maria Marty-Nelson, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Property Opinions (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Not yet published – available from November 2021
Deborah S Gordon, Browne C Lewis and Carla Spivack, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Trusts and Estates Opinions (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Available Extracts:
Linda Berger, Bridget Crawford and Kathy Stanchi, ‘Introduction to the US Feminist Judgments Project’
Dale Margolin Cecka, ‘Commentary for Price Waterhouse v Hopkins’
Bridget Crawford and Anthony C Infanti, ‘Introduction to Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions’
Reviews:
Trish Luker, Book Review: Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (2017) 51(4) Law & Society Review 1008
Sandra F VanBurkleo, ‘Is Law the Solution or the Problem?’ (2017) November/December Women’s Review of Books
Kris McDaniek-Miccio, ‘Feminist Judging’ on Criminal Law Jotwell (27 October 2017)
[abstract] Lawrence Solum, ‘Berger, Stanchi, & Crawford on Feminist Rewriting of Judicial Opinions’ (forthcoming in Notre Dame Law Review Online symposium on Feminist Judgments Projects, late 2018)
Elisabeth McDonald (2016) 27(2) New Zealand Universities Law Review 494
Commentary/Other Resources:
Bridget J Crawford, Kathryn M Stanchi and Linda L Berger ‘Feminist Judging Matters: How Feminist Theory and Methods Affect the Process of Judgment’ (2018) 47 University of Baltimore Law Review 167
Linda Berger, Kathryn Stanchi and Bridget Crawford, ‘Rewriting Judicial Opinions and the Feminist Scholarly Project’ (2018) 94 Notre Dame Law Review Online
Interview with Kathy Stanchi, (Temple Law Newsroom, 4 April 2017)
Kathryn M Stanchi, ‘Why are Feminist Judgments Necessary?’ on Cambridge University Press, Fifteen Eighty Four (12 September 2016)
In this blog post, an editor of the US Project discusses a real-world example of a feminist judgment in the England and Wales Family Court, due to its unconventional style, practical reasoning and concern for power dynamics (as discussed in their introduction extracted above): Bridget Crawford, ‘England and Wales Family Court Decision: Example of a Feminist Judgment’ on Feminist Law Professors (28 July 2017)
Linda Berger, Bridget Crawford and Kathy Stanchi, ‘Using Feminist Theory to Advance Equal Justice Under the Law’ (2017) 17 Nevada Law Journal 539
Samantha Michaels, ‘See How Your Life Would Change If We Cloned Ruth Bader Ginsburg’, Mother Jones (online) 10 October 2015