Global Affairs Blog

Studying abroad in law school is definitely not the norm. That being said, while studying in Colombia has been a giant change, it has given me a completely different perspective on both international law and domestic law in the United States.
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The #MeToo movement has made significant progress exposing the prevalence of sexual violence in today’s society, while also helping to dispel myths that prevent victims from speaking out against their abusers. The movement has gained more power than ever over the past year, holding once untouchable men, such as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and Matt Lauer, accountable for their actions. #MeToo has also dismembered myths surrounding sexual assault and harassment, including the idea that such violence is unpreventable because “boys will be boys,” or that a woman is “asking for it” if she dresses or acts a certain way. However, even with such significant progress, the treatment of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court Nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh show the steps that still must be taken before the country takes sexual violence seriously.
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Kathy Ruemmler showed up to her first day of law school without ever having met a lawyer. Georgetown University Law Center was a far cry from the small, rural town in Washington State she called home, but she quickly learned how to overcome the challenges presented by law school and the legal profession. Within two years, she became the Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Law Journal, and by the time she was 40-years-old, she was the top lawyer in the White House.
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As world leaders convene at the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, the University of Pennsylvania is honored to host President Alain Berset, President of the Swiss Confederation on September 27^th.
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Students explore feminism and shared experiences through conversations with each other.
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In honor of Gender Equality Day, Penn Law celebrates Sophie L’Hélias LLM ’87, founder of the Gender Diversity Exchange℠ (GDE). In the story below, she digs deep into her intimate narrative and the powerful forces, both personal and political, that led her to create this groundbreaking index described by L’Hélias as “a search engine for positive impact, that draws upon my experience as an investor, lawyer and board director.”

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In the wake of these movements, India saw a “Naming and Shaming” Campaign spread through social media. Raya Sarkar, then an LL.M. Candidate at University of California, Davis School of Law, posted a crowd-sourced list of Indian academicians who were alleged to have committed acts of sexual harassment or assault on her Facebook account in October 2017, which soon became viral.
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Students explore feminism and shared experiences through conversations with each other.
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Through student conversations, the new blog series will serve as a platform to advance knowledge about gender through the voices of emerging women leaders at Penn Law. Starting out with a conversation between two women leaders of Penn Law, Leah Wong and Teresa Akkara, both trailblazing women of their generation, these conversations will recognize what the movement for the 19th Amendment did not:  that gender intersects with other axes of inequality, such as race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, religion, age, and nationality and can help cross-fertilize ideas across cultural and other divides.
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Trevor Noah’s video, though full of inconsistencies and loopholes, raises interesting and pertinent issues; that of duality and hybridity, of hyphenated identity.

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