Corcos on Growing Up With Popular Culture in the Time of Title IX @LpcProf @lalawreview @LSULawCenter

Christine A. Corcos, LSU Law Center, has published Growing Up With Popular Culture In the Time of Title IX at 83 Louisiana Law Review 60 (2022). Here is the abstract.

Generally, while popular culture has reflected Title IX’s existence since its enactment, characters who discuss the impact of the law rarely mention the actual statute. Instead, they discuss its impact and its effects. The writers of these episodes and films might believe that the public cannot understand Title IX’s sophistication, but that might well not be the case. Nevertheless, what the writers do is clear away what they might think is unnecessary information—the name of the statute, the rulings, the procedures—and concentrate on the issues and the effects: the reasons that Title IX exists, the reasons that Congress enacted it, and the conflicts that endure. These issues include peer-on-peer sexual harassment and peer-to-peer bullying, supervisor harassment, inappropriate sexual relationships, and sexual assault. The other information that writers omit is in reference to other statutes and legal theories that might also support harassment or bullying claims.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Curtis on Due Process Demands as Propaganda: The Rhetoric of Title IX Opposition

Annaleigh E. Curtis, Independent, is publishing Due Process Demands As Propaganda: The Rhetoric of Title IX Opposition in volume 29 of the Yale Journal of the Law and the Humanities (2017). Here is the abstract.

This Article focuses on a particular kind of objection to Title IX, which I call due process demands. They may take many forms, but the central idea is that students who are accused of misconduct, like sexual harassment or assault, are denied due process in campus adjudications—that such adjudications are unfair to the accused. This has become a criticism of Title IX, rather than universities themselves, largely because of the Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), which clarified some of the ways that universities must conduct these adjudications. This, in turn, is taken to be either a devastating objection to compliance with the DCL and/or an imperative on universities to provide more process for the accused, whether within the bounds of the DCL or not. I argue that such demands function as political rhetoric, specifically as a sort of propaganda, drawing on a recent taxonomy of propaganda. First, I explain what due process demands are, focusing particular attention on the discourse surrounding Title IX at Harvard Law School. Second, I explain what propaganda is and is not, drawing on recent philosophical work on propaganda and philosophy of language generally. Third, I apply the analysis to the case of due process demands, showing how and why such demands function as propaganda. Finally, I draw conclusions about what this means for the debate over Title IX itself.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.