The discussion board today is different from the other discussion boards. I'm assigning you court cases to analyze. It is not a "summary" of the case, but an analysis. In a way, I'm asking you to make an argument about why a particular court ruled in a particular way. Your evidence will be the facts of the case, yes, but also the readings we've had in the class thus far.
An overview:
- Law and court decisions can provide us with ways of seeing these intersections and the fact that these intersections can play out in more than one way.
- Court Cases reveal the assumptions, stereotypes, beliefs, cultural images and myths in society about sex, race, gender, sexuality and class.
- Judges and juries decisions are built upon a foundation of these societal assumptions, sometimes examined others not.
Historically, and some would argue today, the powerful white, heterosexual, cisgendered, male perspective is the "norm" on which cases about women, transfolks, working class folks, people of color and folks who identify as queer are judged.
- Our practice question is an historical case, that helps us bring to light these assumptions. In your discussion board, you will find some historical and contemporary cases.
Let's examine the following cases as an example:
(a) - 1889 - William Thomas, a wealthy white man with high social status, left his estate to the daughter he had with his ex-slave. The daughter looked after him at the end of his life. This would probably have made the daughter the richest person of color in Virginia. His legal (white) relatives challenged the will, but the court upheld Thomas' intent.
(b) 1873 - Clara Carter, a white woman, looked after Lewis Bivens in the remaining years of his life. The relatives and the court seemed to have assumed that Carter and Bivens had had a sexual relationship. Bivens left her his property, but the relatives claimed it and were given it by the court. The court concluded that Carter had been paid for her services.
So, first I'd ask myself, do I understand the case? In case A, Thomas' will was upheld. That means his daughter, a woman of color and "illegitimate" in the eyes of the law inherited his estate in Virginia in 1889, over his legal white relatives. Why?
I'd also try to understand why Carter lost her case (B) when she is a white woman who looked after a white man. When the court determined she was "paid for her services" is this an assumption of prostitution?
If I was to answer these questions, I would ask myself the following:
What are the assumptions made here in the rulings about men versus women's sexuality?
Black versus white women's sexuality?
1. Black versus white men's sexuality?
2. What might the courts assume about extramarital affairs, intra-racial, interracial differences?
5. What are some of the social norms for the late 1800's considering marriage, prostitution, inheritance, wills?
6. How does a person's wealth (or lack of) influence the way their testimony or will is perceived in court? Or their race, or their gender?
7. What kinds of ideas might be here about who is "deserving"? In each ruling?
8. What if Thomas was African American? Would his will be upheld?
9. What if Carter was a man? Would the same assumptions be there about sexuality? Would Bivens' will be upheld?
There is no one "right" answer to analyzing these court cases. Instead, there will be strongly supported answers (based upon logic, and supported by theories in our class readings) and weaker answers (unsupported, full of fallacies arguments).