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Abstract: 

US v. Morrison, decided in 2000, inspired a great deal of legal scholarship, both before and after the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating the civil rights provision of the first Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). This outpouring of legal writing in response to the case occurred because Morrison raised so many important issues regarding the role of Congress and the courts in addressing violence against women, the roles of federal versus state courts and legislatures, the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause, the similarities and differences between sexism and racism, and other major questions. This article discusses articles and briefs, including: Victoria F. Nourse, “Where Violence, Relationship, and Equality Meet: The Violence Against Women Act’s Civil Rights Remedy,” 15 Wis. Women’s L.J. 257 (2000); Libby S. Adler, “Federalism and Family,” 8 Colum. J. Gender L. 197 (1999); Sarah B. Lawsky, “A Nineteenth Amendment Defense of the Violence Against Women Act,” 109 Yale L.J. 783 (1999); Sara E. Kropf, “The Failure of United States v. Lopez: Analyzing the Violence Against Women Act,” 8 S. Cal. Rev. L. & Women’s Stud. 373 (1999); Daniel G. Atkins, Jan R. Jurden, Dr. Susan L. Miller, and Elizabeth A. Patten, “Striving for Justice With the Violence Against Women Act and Civil Tort Actions,” 14 Wis. Women’s L.J. 69 (1999); Troy Robert Rackham, “Enumerated Limits, Normative Principles, and Congressional Overstepping: Why the Civil Rights Provision of the VAWA Is Unconstitutional,” 6(2) Wm & Mary J. of Women and the Law 447 (2000); Sally F. Goldfarb, “Violence Against Women and the Persistence of Privacy,” 61(1) Ohio State L. J. 1 (2000); “Brief of Petitioner, Brzonkala v. Morrison; U.S. v. Morrison,” 9 S. Cal. Rev. L. & Women’s Stud. 315 (2000); “Brief Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners, Mary-Christine Sungaila, Davis S. Ettinger, Lisa R. Jaskol, Martha F. Davis, Julie Goldscheid and Yolanda S. Wu,” 9 S. Cal. Rev. L. & Women’s Stud. 369 (2000); Brief Amicus Curiae of Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. in Support of Petitioners,” 9 S. Cal. Rev. L. & Women’s Stud. 413 (2000); Catherine MacKinnon, “Disputing Male Sovereignty (US v. Morrison),” 114 Harvard L. Rev. 135 (2000); Sally F. Goldfarb, “‘No Civilized System of Justice’: The Fate of the Violence Against Women Act,” 102 W. Va. L. Rev. 499 (2000); Mary-Christine Sungaila, “United States v. Morrison: The United States Supreme Court, the Violence Against Women Act and the ‘New Federalism,’” 9 S. Cal. Rev. L. & Women’s Stud. 301 (2000); Christy Gleason, “Presence, Perspectives and Power: Gender and the Rationale Differences in the Debate Over the Violence Against Women Act,” 23 Women’s Rts. L. Rep. 1 (2001); Akhil Reed Amar, “Foreward: The Documents and the Doctrine,” 114 Harvard L. Rev. 26 (2000).

Keywords: US v. Lopez; Brzonkala

Affiliations:  1: Associate Editor of DVR.