Gender Justice Clinic

The Gender Justice Clinic is representing twenty-seven former service members who were sexually assaulted while serving in the U.S. military in a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, as well as in related advocacy before the United Nations.

The petitioners had faced retaliation from their chain of command for reporting the incidents, and none received sufficient access to judicial remedies. These cases are the first brought by survivors of sexual violence against the United States before an international human rights tribunal.

Learn more about the clinic’s efforts on military sexual assault.

The clinic is engaged in a multifaceted project in collaboration with and in support of people working in the sex trades. The clinic works in collaboration with grassroots, sex worker-led organizations such as the Upstate New York Sex Worker Coalition on mutual aid and other community organizing projects. Among other activities, the clinic has partnered with Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic on a legal explainer of the 2018 Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which criminalized the posting or hosting of sex work ads online, incentivized online suppression of sex worker organizing, and made working in the sex trades more dangerous. The clinic also contributed to an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging FOSTA, made a submission to the International Commission of Jurists on the harms of criminalization of the sex trades, conducted research and policy analysis to support grassroots responses to issues impacting Asian American and Asian migrant sex workers, and developed harm reduction resources for people in the sex trades responding to stigma and criminalization. Earlier clinic work included policy advocacy, legal training, and fact-finding on issues relating to sex work and human trafficking in India, Tanzania, and Kenya.

The clinic represents individual clients in matters relating to gender rights violations in the workplace. For example, the clinic and Syracuse Disability Rights clinic settled a pregnancy discrimination case on behalf of their client, following nearly three years of litigation and negotiation. Clinic members and their community partners have also developed a model Domestic Violence and the Workplace Policy and Toolkit, which has assisted public and private employers in supporting employees who are experiencing domestic violence.

The clinic and its partners have engaged in research and advocacy relating to gender discrimination in the criminal legal system and in prison. With its community and Cornell partners, the clinic has published reports focusing on barriers to justice for domestic violence survivor defendants in New York State and the causes, conditions, and consequences of women’s imprisonment in Argentina. It has supported the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women with research on the causes, consequences, and conditions of women’s imprisonment globally and contributed to studies of these issues in Jamaica and Sierra Leone. The clinic has also collaborated with the Transgender Law Center to develop legal resources for pro se litigants who are transgender and incarcerated.

The Gender Justice Clinic, in collaboration with the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County, successfully advocated for the adoption of six local government resolutions in Tompkins County, New York, declaring that freedom from domestic violence is a fundamental human right (read the clinic’s policy paper). In adopting these resolutions, Tompkins County joined a growing number of communities across the United States that have embraced a human rights approach to domestic violence prevention and response. (Read more about the resolutions and national momentum here.)

In the years following the adoption of these resolutions, clinic students have undertaken a number of initiatives, including community outreach and education, legislative advocacy, and policy development aimed at implementing the right to be free from domestic violence that was recognized in Tompkins County’s resolutions.

The clinic is collaborating with the Kashmir Scholars Consultative and Action Network on a report that considers gender and human rights issues in Kashmir following India’s August 2019 abrogation of Articles 370 and 35 of the Indian Constitution. The clinic has also recently conducted research on gender-based violence for an international criminal tribunal.

The Gender Justice Clinic has represented survivors of gender-based violence in their claims for asylum or other immigration relief, sometimes in collaboration with the Asylum and CAT Appellate Clinic or Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic.

The clinic contributes to efforts to advance gender justice while preparing students to become thoughtful and effective legal advocates. Under faculty supervision, students work in teams on cases and projects that focus on a variety of issues relating to gender justice. These may include, among others:

• Intimate partner violence
• Military sexual assault
• Gender-based violence in schools, prisons, and other institutional settings
• Gender-based discrimination at work
• Gender-based discrimination in the criminal justice system
• Discrimination based on sexual identity or sexual orientation
• Violence and discrimination against people who work in the sex industries
• Immigration protection for survivors of gender-based violence
• Reproductive rights, maternal health, and obstetric violence

The clinic’s work also addresses the relationship between gender injustice and other multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence.

The clinic pursues a diverse range of advocacy strategies, which vary from semester to semester.

Clinic members may provide legal advice and representation to individuals who have experienced gender-based violence or discrimination. They may also participate in regional or international litigation, engage with human rights bodies, advocate for legal or policy change, conduct fact-finding, or contribute to legal training and community education initiatives.

The clinic seeks to contribute to efforts to advance gender justice while preparing students to become thoughtful and effective legal advocates. Over the course of the semester, students will have the opportunity to:

• Deepen their knowledge of one or more new areas of substantive law relating to gender-based violence and discrimination;
• Develop a critical understanding of gaps in the law or its implementation and of underlying policy debates;
• Gain experience in effectively researching and analyzing legal issues relevant to gender-justice advocacy, and in drafting well-crafted and persuasive legal advocacy documents;
• Develop and apply other important lawyering skills, such as interviewing, client counseling, fact investigation, trauma-informed practice, case or project management, or trial advocacy;
• Examine the role that gender, race, ethnicity, class, culture, and other intersecting factors can play in client representation, our legal system, and society;
• Identify ethical issues that arise in gender justice advocacy and understand how to address them;
• Learn how to collaborate effectively with other clinic students, clinic supervisors, and community partners; and
• Gain practice in evaluating and critically reflecting upon their professional role and work, and in continually learning from their experiences.

Students in the Gender Justice Clinic work as part of a team on one or more cases or projects. They meet with their team and supervisor at a regularly scheduled weekly meeting and at other times as needed. Clinic students often engage in off-campus travel and sometimes travel out of state or internationally to meet with clients, participate in hearings, or participate in factfinding or advocacy. Students also participate in a weekly seminar that includes classes on lawyering skills, substantive law and policy relating to the clinic’s work, and case rounds and other opportunities to reflect critically on our collective work. Students may enroll in the clinic for 4 or 6 credits, depending on the number of projects undertaken, with each credit counting for approximately 42.5 hours of work, including time spent in seminar class and team meetings.

Advanced clinic students are students who have participated in the Gender Justice Clinic in a previous semester or over the summer. These students participate in case and project work and provide guidance and leadership to new clinic students. Advanced clinic students may take the clinic for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 credits, the number to be determined in consultation with the clinic instructor(s), depending on the work undertaken, with each credit counting for approximately 42.5 hours of clinic work. Advanced clinic members are required to attend weekly team meetings and are asked to attend certain meetings of the Gender Justice Clinic (about four per semester), course schedules permitting. In case of scheduling conflicts with the Gender Justice Clinic seminar or in a semester where the Gender Justice Clinic is not offered, separate case round meetings may be scheduled for advanced clinic students.

To apply, students may submit a CV, transcript, and brief statement of interest in the online application process on the current student community site.