Current Projects

What is the role of privacy in modern law and society?

What is the role of privacy in modern law and society? With Lawrence M. Friedman (Stanford Law School), I am writing a book on the law and social norms surrounding privacy.  We explore the non-constitutional meanings of privacy in American law and culture.  The book proceeds from the proposition that privacy is on the whole a modern invention, an embodiment of the notion that people feel that some aspects of life belong to them and them alone.  This is a product of many social forces, but particularly the rise of individualism.  Privacy law, in some sense, defines where the individual begins and ends, and where society (including the government) We consider the complicated web woven by social norms, law, technology, and sexuality, and the resulting rules that sometimes mandate privacy, sometimes make it elective, and sometimes preclude it.

Who is a legal parent?

Who is a legal parent? I am writing a book that explores the complicated answer to this question.  It will examine the body of rules and doctrines that determine which adults—and how many of them—are entitled to parental rights, and which adults are saddled with parental obligations like child support.  This book will consider the historical development of parentage law; the social changes that have led to new questions and challenges; the growing gap between people’s expectations about their legal rights and obligations as parents (or gamete donors or gestational carriers) and the law’s actual assignment of those rights and obligations; and whether, given the wide variety of family forms today, it is possible to think about parentage as unified doctrine.  Topics addressed in depth include surrogacy, sperm and egg donation, posthumous conception, de facto parentage, adoption, unwed fatherhood, paternity misrepresentation, third-party visitation, and parentage by contract.

Resources
From Verdict
The End of the Affair: Adultery in Modern Law In June 2010, a 41-year-old woman named Suzanne Corona was arrested for having sex on a picnic table in a playground with a 29-year-old man named Just...
Rest in Power: In Memory of Lilly Ledbetter and Her Fight for Women’s Equal Pay On October 12, 2024, this country lost a true hero. Lilly Ledbetter gave many years of her life fighting for women’s equal pay after being grossly dis...
Second in Misogyny: How Sexism Pervades J.D. Vance’s Worldview The misogyny of Donald Trump is hard to miss. From openly bragging about being able to sexually assault women because he is a celebrity to being held ...
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Tweets
12/12/2024
From the Blog
Raising Arizona Babies Arizona Supreme Court in McLaughlin v. Jones was asked an increasingly familiar question: Does the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges ...
Why Lesbian Co-Parents Still Live in Limbo Although the parenting rights of people in same-sex couples have generally been on the rise—particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2015 rulin...
So Many Unanswered Questions about ART Assisted reproductive technology (ART) surrounds us. Courts are certainly not strangers to the parentage questions that can arise out from situations ...
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Publications
Nine to Five: How Gender, Sex, and Sexuality Continue to Define the American Workplace
Nine to Five: How Gender, Sex, and Sexuality Continue to Define the American Workplace

by Joanna L. Grossman

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Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America
Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America

by Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman

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Gender & Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary, 7th Edition
Gender & Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary, 7th Edition

by Katherine T. Bartlett, Deborah L. Rhode, and Joanna L. Grossman

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Family Law in New York
Family Law in New York

Edited by Barbara Stark and Joanna L. Grossman

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Gender Equality Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship
Gender Equality Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship

Edited by Linda C. McClain and Joanna L. Grossman

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