Jeannie Suk Gersen

Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast

This week on the pod we have Jeannie Suk Gersen, the John H. Watson Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a columnist for The New Yorker! We begin by discussing Professor Suk Gersen’s documentary “The Crits,” which focuses on the development and legacy of the Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement. Several modern ideas and movements have come out of and splintered from CLS. We compare the evolution of CLS to the law and economics movement, debating both why law and economics has become institutionalized in the mainstream and what constitutes success for a legal movement. After, we transition to discussing “The Sex Burueacracy,” which covers the govenrment regulatory apparatus and university bureaucracies that stem from Title IX and similar policies. Professor Suk Gersen leaves us with thoughts on what might happen under the Biden Administrations Department of Education after educational guidances in the sex bureaucracy varied during the Obama and Trump presidencies.

Referenced Readings:

• Duncan Kennedy, “Sexual Abuse, Sexy Dressing and the Eroticization of Domination,” New England Law Revew (1991).
• Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk, “The Sex Bureaucracy,” California Law Review (2016).
• Calvin Trillin, “Harvard Law,” The New Yorker (1984).