Faculty and Staff

Professor Jessica Knouse joined the College of Law faculty in fall 2007. She teaches Constitutional Law I and II, Family Law, and Sexuality and Law. Her research interests include legal philosophy (specifically theories of justice, tensions between liberty and equality, and the impact of legal categories on identity) and constitutional interpretation (specifically postmodern methods and the instability of textual meaning).

Professor Knouse attended Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences, where she concentrated in Latin and English. After receiving her B.A., she served as Assistant Director of Boston University's College Honors Program. She then attended Albany Law School, where she was Production Editor of the Albany Law Review, a Dean Sponsler Honors Teaching Fellow, and valedictorian of her graduating class. After receiving her J.D., she worked as an Appellate Court Attorney for the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department, and then as a Law Clerk for Justice Howard H. Dana Jr. of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. She subsequently received an LL.M. from Yale Law School where she studied, among other things, legal philosophy, constitutional interpretation, and anti-discrimination law.

 

Publications

Civil Marriage: Threat to Democracy, 18 Michigan Journal of Gender & Law (forthcoming 2012).

Restructuring the Labor Market to Democratize the Public Forum, 39 Stetson Law Review 715 (2010).

From Identity Politics to Ideology Politics, 2009 Utah Law Review 749 (2009)

Using Postmodern Feminist Legal Theory to Interrupt the Reinscription of Sex Stereotypes through the Institution of Marriage, 16 Hastings Women’s Law Journal 159 (2005).

Intersexuality and the Social Construction of Anatomical Sex, 12 Cardozo  Journal of Law & Gender 135 (2005).

 

Presentations

• Toledo Women's Bar Association, CLE on Constitutional Law (May 2011, Toledo, OH)
• Toledo Bar Association, Federal Courts Section Meeting (December 2010, Toledo, OH)
• Constitutional Law Colloquium, Loyola University Chicago School of Law (November 2010, Chicago, IL)
• Supreme Court Preview Panel Discussion, University of Toledo (October 2010, Toledo, OH)
• Faculty Exchange, Case Western Reserve University School of Law (October 2010, Cleveland, OH)
• Constitution Day Celebration, University of Toledo (September 2010, Toledo, OH)
• Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Association (May 2010, Chicago, IL)
• Faculty Exchange with Indiana University School of Law (February 2010, Indianapolis, IN)
• AALS New Law Professors Panel (selected by panel of law faculty to present Restructuring the Labor Market to Democratize the Public Forum) (January 2010, New Orleans, LA)
• Labor & Employment Colloquium (September 2009, Seton Hall Law School, Newark, NJ)
• Ohio Legal Scholarship Workshop (June 2009, Ohio Northern University College of Law, Ada, OH)
• Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Association (May 2009, Denver CO)
• Ohio Legal Scholarship Workshop (January 2009, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH).
• Next Generation Legal Scholarship: A Works-in-Progress Symposium of the Graduate Programs at Yale Law School (2007, Yale Law School, New Haven, CT).
• Intersex Education, Advocacy, & the Law (2005, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, New York, NY).

 

Works in Progress

• Deconstructing the Liberal Quest for Impartial Principles of Justice
• Mitigating Law’s Regressive Nature through Evolutive Interpretation