Professors Zietlow and Porter speak at gender equality workshop

July 15, 2015

Two College of Law professors presented at the midyear meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in Orlando, Fl. on June 24-26 during a three-day workshop titled “Next Generation Issues on Sex, Gender, and the Law.”

The workshop gathered legal academics from across the country whose scholarship seeks to identify and analyze the next generation of gender equality legal issues and challenges.  

Rebecca Zietlow, the Charles W. Fornoff Professor of Law and Values and an expert in the area of constitutional history and politics, moderated a panel titled “The Social Safety Net.” Her 2013 article in the Indiana Journal of Law & Social Equality, “Rights of Belonging for Women,” called for the economic empowerment of women as a means for achieving gender equality.

Nicole Porter, professor of law and an employment and disability law scholar, presented on a panel addressing work place discrimination. Recent articles by Porter, including “Mutual Marginalization: Individuals with Disabilities and Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities” in the Florida Law Review and “Caregiver Conundrum Redux: The Entrenchment of Structural Norms” in the Denver University Law Review, focus on the employment rights of women.

“Presenting at AALS Meetings is one of the most prominent opportunities for law professors,” said D. Benjamin Barros, dean of the College of Law, “and the fact that Professors Zietlow and Porter were selected comes as no surprise given their record of outstanding academic work.”

Dean Barros was one of the youngest educators to serve on the AALS Executive Committee. He is currently chairing the Program Committee for the January 2016 AALS Annual Meeting, which is the largest gathering of legal educators in the world.