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Menkel-Meadow on Asylum & Gender

By Lawrence Solum

Carrie Menkel-Meadow (Georgetown University Law Center) has posted Asylum in a Different Voice: Judging Immigration Claims and Gender (REFUGEE ROULETTE: DISPARITIES IN ASYLUM ADJUDICATION AND PROPOSALS FOR REFORM, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Andrew I. Schoenholz and Philip G. Schrag, eds., NYU Press, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

An extensive statistical study of disparities in asylum adjudication throughout the United States reveals gross disparities in rates of asylum grants by region of country, experience of adjudicators, prior employment, and other factors. One of the most robust findings was one of gender disparities in adjudication rates. If the adjudicator of claims for asylum was female there was a 44% greater likelihood that asylum would be granted. This chapter in the book reporting these findings reflects on this significant finding of gender differences in judging and discusses, in light of the author's prior work on gender differences in lawyering, whether these findings are confined to immigration cases, other "gender salient" case types, or have more generalizable significance. The article also reviews the prior literature on the presence or absence of gender differences in judging behavior.

Recommended.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on April 13, 2010 (boomark / email).