Projects You Should Know About

Margot Brooks, JD
Rape Law’s Resistance Requirement and Workplace Sexual Harassment

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH
Margot’s research focuses on legal aspects of rape and workplace sexual harassment. Specifically, she examines the “force and resistance” component of the traditional definition of rape which requires proof that the sexual act was committed “forcibly and against [the victim’s] will” (i.e., that there must force, a lack of consent and proof that the victim resisted or “fought back”). Margot also co-authored a law review article with Professor Joan Williams and Professor Jodi Short about workplace sexual harassment.

BIO
Margot Brooks has a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities from Stanford University, class of 2011. She is a graduate of University of California, Hastings College of the Law, class of 2018. Margot has a longstanding interest in gender and the law. She has previously worked at the Family Violence Law Center, the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project, and as an extern for Judge Charles Smiley and the Girls Court program, which aids teenage victims of commercial sexual exploitation. She has also served as a research assistant and summer law fellow at the Center for WorkLife Law.

READ MARGOT’S PAPERS:

But She Didn’t Fight Back: Rape Law’s Resistance Requirement and the Need for its Elimination
Abstract: The resistance requirement is an outmoded construct in rape law that impedes women’s access to justice. Although it has largely been removed as a formal element of the crime of rape, the presence of the resistance requirement still looms, thereby generating significant problematic consequences for the processing of rape cases. This article employs a feminist lens to examine the history of the resistance requirement and provide criticisms which bolster the argument for its elimination. It begins with a discussion of societal ideas about rape and gender underlying rape law constructs and the grave consequences of these constructs for women. It next reviews the progression of the requirement from its place in traditional common law through subsequent reforms, and relays the development of efforts towards its displacement. After situating the requirement’s use in present law, the article provides recommendations for further reform, calling for the requirement’s complete eradication.

Access this article here or email Margot directly at brooks@uchastings.edu.

What’s Reasonable Now? Sexual Harassment Law after the Norm Cascade
Summary of Article; This Article began in reaction to a panel on sexual harassment presented to federal judges, in which a defense attorney included a squib on Brooks v. City of San Mateo from a past continuing legal education program she conducted. During a call to prepare for the program, which included Professor Joan Williams and other members of the panel, joshing ensued as the employment attorneys kidded each other about what they all called the “one free grab” case. This led Professor Williams to look more closely at the details.

This Article asks whether Brooks v. San Mateo and four other appellate hostile-environment sexual harassment cases that have each been cited more than 500 times remain good precedent in the light of the norms cascade precipitated and represented by #MeToo. The analysis is designed to interrupt the “infinite regression of anachronism,” or the tendency of courts to rely on cases that reflect what was thought to be reasonable ten or twenty years ago, forgetting that what was reasonable then might be different from what a reasonable person or jury would likely think today. These anachronistic cases entrench outdated norms, foreclosing an assessment of what is reasonable now. To interrupt this infinite regression, this Article pays close attention to the facts of the cases-in-chief discussed below enabling the reader, and the courts, to reassess whether a reasonable person and a reasonable jury would be likely to find sexual harassment today.” 

Access this article here or by following this link: https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/lr/vol2019/iss1/4/.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MARGOT
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margot-brooks-b665a255/ 

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