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Dara E. Purvis

Associate Dean for Research and Partnerships
Professor of Law
Co-Director, Penn State Higher Education Law and Governance Mentoring Roundtables at the Center for the Study of Higher Education – Penn State Law

SSRN Profile
Curriculum Vitae

Phone: 
(814) 865-8996
Education: 

J.D., Yale Law School
M. Phil., University of Cambridge
B.A., University of Southern California

Associate Dean for Research and Partnerships and Professor of Law Dara E. Purvis is a scholar of family law, feminist legal theory, masculinities, and sexuality, gender identity, and the law. Her work examines gendered impacts of the law and proposes neutralizing reforms, most recently in the context of how the law defines parenthood. She has been published in, among others, the California Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review, Florida State Law Review, Michigan State Law Review, Case Western Law Review, the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Cambridge University Press, and The New York Times.

Prior to joining Penn State Law, Professor Purvis was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and a visiting fellow at the University of Kent Research Centre for Law, Gender, and Sexuality. A former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, she clerked for The Hon. Gerard E. Lynch, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and The Hon. Raymond C. Fisher, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

 

Articles

Frozen Embryos, Male Consent, and Masculinities, 97 Indiana Law Journal (forthcoming 2021).

Legal Education as Hegemonic Masculinity, 65 Vill. L. Rev. 1145 (2020)

Police Sexual Violence: Police Brutality, #MeToo, and Masculinities, 108 Cal. L. Rev. 1487 (2020).

Gender Stereotypes and Gender Identity in Public Schools, 54 University of Richmond Law Review 927 (2020).

The Constitutionalization of Fatherhood, 69 Case Western Law Review 541 (2019).

Trump, Gender Rebels, and Masculinities 54 Wake Forest Law Review 423 (2019).

The Rules of Maternity, 84 Tennessee Law Review 367 (2017).

Transgender Children, the Heckler’s Veto, and Teaching Early Acceptance, in Austin Sarat (ed.) Studies in Law, Politics, and Society (Studies in Law, Politics and Society, Volume 72) Emerald Publishing Limited, pp.219 - 252 (2017).

Expectant Fathers, Abortion and Embryos, 43 J. L. Med. & Ethics 330 (2015).

The Origin of Parental Rights: Labor, Intent, and Fathers, 41 Fl. St. Univ. L. Rev. 645 (2014).

The Sexual Orientation of Fatherhood, 2013 Mich. St. L. Rev. 983. 

Gendered Self-Evaluation of Female Law Students, Symposium: Gender and the Legal Profession’s Pipeline to Power, 2012 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1693 (2013). 

Intended Parents and the Problem of Perspective, 24 Yale J. L. & Feminism 210 (2012). 

Clinical Evidence as Gendered, 21 Tex. J. Women & L. 85 (2011). 

Evaluating Legal Activism: A Response to Rosenberg, 17 Buff. J. Gender L. & Soc. Pol’y 1 (2009).

Government Advertising Space: Lessons for the “Choose Life” Specialty License Plate Controversy, 3 Original L. Rev. 28 (2007).

The Right to Contract: Use of Domestic Partnership as a Strategic Alternative to the Right to Marry Same-Sex Partners, 28 Women’s Rts. L. Rep. 145 (Spring/Summer 2007).

Book Chapters

Rewritten Reber v. ReissReproductive Justice Rewritten (ed. Kimberly Mutcherson), Cambridge University Press (2020).

Irish Fatherhood in the Twentieth Century, Ireland and Masculinities in History: From the Sixteenth Century to the Present, Genders and Sexualities in History series, Palgrave Macmillan (2019).

A Feminist Rewriting of Frontiero v. RichardsonThe U.S. Feminist Judgments Project (eds. Linda Berger, Bridget Crawford, & Kathryn Stanchi), Cambridge University Press (2016).

Book Reviews and Commentary

How Sex Ed Fails People with Periods, Columbia J. of Gender & L. (forthcoming 2021).

Article Review, Abortion, Motherhood, and Donald Trump, Jotwell Family Law Section (2019).

Article Review, When Abortion is Parenting, Jotwell Family Law Section (2020)

Article Review, Are Breastfeeding Protections Anti-Feminist?, Jotwell Family Law Section (2018).

Op-Ed, When Judges Prey on Clerks, N.Y. Times (Dec. 13, 2017).

Book Review, Legalizing LGBT Families: How the Law Shapes Parenthood. Amanda K. Baumle & D’Lane R. Compton, 9 Journal of Family Theory and Review 412 (2017).

Article Review, Personal Narrative and Paternal Stereotypes, Jotwell Family Law Section (2017).

Article Review, Inconsistency, Marriage Equality, and Legal Change by Stealth, Jotwell Family Law Section (forthcoming 2016).

Book Review, Merle Weiner, A Parent Partner Status for American Family Law, 31 Berkeley J. Gender, L. & Just. (forthcoming 2016).

Book Review, Leigh Ann Wheeler, How Sex Became a Civil Liberty, 2 Indiana J. L. & Social Equality 271 (2014).

Book Review, Joanna L. Grossman & Lawrence L. Friedman, Inside the Castle: Law and Family in 20th Century America, 30 L. & History Rev. 448 (2012).

Of Financial Rights of Assisted Reproductive Technology Non-Marital Children and Back-up Plans, 83 S. Cal. L. Rev. Postscript (Jan. 2011). 

Comment, Overruling the Jury: Duncan v. GMC and Appellate Treatment of Hostile Work Environment Judgments, 24 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 485 (2006).

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