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A Comparative Analysis of the Lack of Contractual Protections in Female Dominated Opportunities: Collegiate Competitive Dancers and Cheerleaders Compared to NCAA Student-Athletes and National Pageant Organization Titleholders Compared to Employees/Independent Contractors
The lack of contractual protections and regulations throughout female-dominated opportunities is abundantly clear in the collegiate competitive dance & cheer and the national pageant organization titleholders. Collegiate competitive dancers and cheerleaders have no standardized contractual requirements regarding their commitment to an academic institution or their engagement in NIL opportunities. Their NCAA recognized student-athlete counterparts, on the other hand, have extensive regulations and protections in place for both categories of contracts. In the pageant industry, pageant titleholders have no protection against the all-too-common procedural and substantive unconscionability of their service agreements, which can be found in confidentiality and arbitration clauses. In the parallel employment context, however, federal regulations and state case law alike protect members of the workforce from contracts with the same, or lower, levels of unconscionability that titleholders face. Action is needed to address this disadvantageous contractual trend. Institutional regulatory action from the individual colleges and universities and the individual pageant organizations is an attainable first step on the road to a solution. Action from governing bodies, such as the NCAA and the Corporation for National and Community Service, is another plausible launching pad for a long-term solution. The collegiate competitive dance and cheer and the national pageant organization titleholder landscapes are just two small facets of the much broader societal issue of the lack of contractual protections in female dominated opportunities, but imminent action is necessary to begin paving a way to resolve a long-standing inequity. Further areas of research include the loose protections professional cheerleaders receive from individual contractor agreements, while performing more synonymously with their player counterparts who are highly protected by the layers of regulations surrounding employee contracts.Gender and Consensus on the Courts
During group deliberation, women tend to be the harbingers of compromise, vying for consensus on even the most contentious topics. However, women cannot succeed in this endeavor if gender bias prevents their voices from being heard. In federal courts, collaboration is essential to reaching the simple majority needed to resolve a case. While the courts already function under norms of collegiality during deliberations, the practice of writing a separate opinion to acknowledge disagreement with a majority opinion remains relatively common. In this Article, I test two competing theories as to the effects of women judges on consensus. On one hand, I posit that women’s tendency toward democratized decision-making should lead to greater consensus. If women who are judges are more likely to compromise with their peers, it seems likely that case deliberation will be more consensual when women are part of the process. Alternatively, the possibility of gender bias might lead to greater levels of dissensus when a panel includes both men and women. If men are skeptical of positions taken by women and/or women perceive their voices as not being heard by men, dissensus may abound when women join panels. Using both empirical and qualitative evidence, I find support for both theories. Specifically, employing a dataset of more than 11,000 federal appellate opinions and 27,000 judge-case pairings, I find that the presence of women judges generally leads to greater dissensus on the courts. However, the data simultaneously indicate that all-woman panels reach the highest levels of consensus. A systematic analysis of the recorded oral histories of 29 federal appellate judges confirms that, while women may be more likely to pursue consensus building, they will sometimes fail, possibly due to perceptions of bias against them. However, this gendered dissensus may also simply be a byproduct of diverse deliberation that leads to more well-reasoned decision-making, a potentially desirable practice for the court.Health Care Civil Rights: Addressing the American Maternal Mortality Disparity Through Health, Law, and Policy
The United States is facing a pressing issue in maternal health, standing out as uniquely dangerous among similarly situated nations, with significant disparities in maternal mortality rates, particularly affecting Black American pregnant people. This paper, “Health Care Civil Rights: Addressing the American Maternal Mortality Disparity Through Health, Law, and Policy,” argues that by addressing the root cause of the Black Maternal Mortality Disparity (BMMD)—structural racism—and implementing rigorous, enforced standards of care, the United States can ensure safer childbirth experiences for Black pregnant people. Utilizing intersectional and anti-racist frameworks, the analysis identifies inferior medical care, particularly in diagnosing and treating preventable causes of death such as preeclampsia, and systemic failures as contributing causes of BMMD. The analysis further identifies legal and policy avenues—including civil rights enforcement under Section 1557, Congressional initiatives, enhanced Maternal Mortality Review Committees, standardized clinical protocols, and hospital accreditation—as pathways to reform, while acknowledging significant obstacles to enforcement and federal action. Evidence from California and other states indicates that robust, accountable implementation can substantially reduce mortality. Expanded support for Black midwives and doulas, patient education, and postpartum care are also identified as vital solutions. The paper concludes that while structural change is complex, immediate progress can be achieved at the state, institutional, and provider levels; coordinated, community-driven action and rigorous enforcement of standards are necessary to end preventable injustices in American maternity care.Blog
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