118 Yale L.J. 1022 (2009).

This Article responds to an emerging view, in scholarship and popular society, that it is normatively undesirable to employ property law as a means of protecting indigenous cultural heritage. Recent critiques suggest that propertizing culture impedes the free flow of ideas, speech, and perhaps culture itself. In our view, these critiques arise largely because commentators associate “property” with a narrow model of individual ownership that reflects neither the substance of indigenous cultural property claims nor major theoretical developments in the broader field of property law. Thus, departing from the individual rights paradigm, our Article situates indigenous cultural property claims, particularly those of American Indians, in the interests of “peoples” rather than “persons,” arguing that such cultural properties are integral to indigenous group identity or peoplehood, and deserve particular legal protection. Further, we observe that whereas individual rights are overwhelmingly advanced by property law’s dominant ownership model, which consolidates control in the title-holder, indigenous peoples often seek to fulfill an ongoing duty of care toward cultural resources in the absence of title. To capture this distinction, we offer a stewardship model of property to explain and justify indigenous peoples’ cultural property claims in terms of nonowners’ fiduciary obligations toward cultural resources. We posit that re-envisioning cultural property law in terms of peoplehood and stewardship more fully illuminates both the particular nature of indigenous claims and the potential for property law itself to embrace a broader and more flexible set of interests.

118 Yale L.J. 1182 (2009).

In a fiercely competitive labor market, large American law firms universally offer some paid leave to attorneys after the birth of the child. This Note offers an empirical investigation of those policies, finding that all firms offer paid leave to new mothers, and many firms offer at least some leave to fathers as well. In most cases, however, men receive much less leave than women. The most grossly gender-disproportionate policies harm attorneys of both genders—perpetuating stereotypes about women, stigmatizing fathers who spend time with their children, and entrenching the “ideal worker” norm that scholars have protested. Based on this analysis, the Note illustrates how some policies are vulnerable to a Title VII challenge by male employees. In particular, law firms that offer maternity leave of three to four months, without offering male attorneys a parallel benefit, violate Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination. Furthermore, some firms offering facially neutral policies may also manifest impermissible gender bias in the application of parental leave.