Trans-formation

A year ago, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation naming June “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Pride Month.”  The proclamation effectively incorporated the transgendered community into President Bill Clinton’s 2000 proclamation, which named June “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month.”  In honor of the transgendered community, their legal rights, and the month of June, it seems appropriate to discuss gender identity discrimination and the infamous “trans panic defense.”

The overall struggle that transgender people face is similar to the struggle that gays and lesbians face, but for transgender people, the progressive change for their legal rights seems to be slower.  Currently, in 38 states it is still legal to discriminate based on gender identity.  Comparatively, 30 states have not yet developed laws against sexual orientation discrimination.  Wisconsin was the first state to ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, and it did so in 1982.  However, as of yet, it has not created equal legislation regarding gender identity.

Continue ReadingTrans-formation

What’s Good for the Goose . . .

Earlier this week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued its decision in In Re Sherwin-Williams Co. The court upheld Judge Lynn Adelman’s decision not to recuse himself from a case pending before him in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Burton v. American Cyandamid, et al. 

Sherwin-Williams is currently before Adelman as a defendant in a personal injury action involving lead paint, heard in diversity jurisdiction. S-W believed “his impartiality might reasonably be questioned” (the relevant legal standard) because he had written an article defending the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s controversial lead paint decision in Thomas v. Mallett, 2005 WI 129.  (The article is Adelman & Fite, Exercising Judicial Power: A Response to the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Critics, 91 Marq. L. Rev. 425 (2007)). In the article, Adelman defended the Court’s 04-05 term generally and praised Thomas particularly as a “positive development” which ensured that “the doors of the courthouse remain open.” Id. at 446. 

Based on this characterization, S-W sought his recusal in this case. 

Continue ReadingWhat’s Good for the Goose . . .

The Reporter’s Privilege Goes Incognito in Wisconsin

Few professional groups in our society are less popular than journalists, so it’s a rare occasion when legislators – obsessed as they are with reelection – take actions specifically designed to help the press.

The Wisconsin Legislature showed some of that political bravery this month when it passed the state’s first reporter’s shield law (although some members still seem a little sheepish about it). The new statute, signed into law by Gov. Jim Doyle on May 20, gives “news persons” protection from certain subpoenas seeking their testimony, work products or confidential information, including the identities of their unnamed sources.

Journalists have been fighting for these statutory protections since 1972 when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to recognize a First Amendment reporter’s privilege in Branzburg v. Hayes. Wisconsin is now the 39th state to have responded by adopting concrete statutory protections for journalists.

As anchorman Ron Burgundy might say, this is kind of a big deal. But so far the response has been muted: no significant news coverage, no pubic outcry, no dancing in the streets.

Continue ReadingThe Reporter’s Privilege Goes Incognito in Wisconsin
Newer Posts
Older Posts