Profile

Biography:
B.A., Chatham College
J.D., University of Pittsburgh
LL.M., Harvard University

Professor Bender taught constitutional law II, bioethics and law, civil rights: power, privilege and law, women and law, race and law, family law, special topics seminars in bioethics, contemporary legal theories, and for over a dozen years, she taught torts. She also directed the Street Law (high school externship) program. She is the “law” member of an interdisciplinary faculty team awarded an Empire State Stem Cell Board grant to design an innovative, multidisciplinary undergraduate course on Stem Cells for higher education institutions across the state. Professor Bender's scholarship includes published articles on tort law, feminist legal theories, bioethics, assisted reproductive technologies, civil rights, legal education, and constitutional law. Her feminist torts scholarship is included in most torts casebooks and many torts and feminist legal theory anthologies. She is coauthor, with Daan Braveman, of Power, Privilege, and Law: A Civil Rights Reader (West 1995). Two of her most recently published articled discuss mistakes that have occurred while people were using assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and the complicated issues of parentage that arise, particularly in light of gender, race, and genetics dynamics. Professor Bender's current scholarship is on race and equality and on the frustrating lack of connection between law and justice.

Professor Bender graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Chatham University and magna cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Professor Bender served as a law clerk for Justice Sam Harshbarger, Associate Justice & then Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court and as an Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, West Virginia Attorney General's Office. After five years of practice, she returned to school and received her LL.M. at Harvard Law School. She taught at Ohio Northern University Law School and Washington and Lee Law School. Professor Bender was a Research Fellow at the Five Colleges Women's Studies Research Center in Massachusetts and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Arizona School of Law, where she also taught. Between July 2000 and June 2003, she served as Associate Dean. Professor Bender was awarded a Board of Advisors professorship from 2004-2007. She has been teaching at the College of Law since 1987. Professor Bender has a faculty appointment in the Women's & Gender Studies Department and is a faculty affiliate with several other programs across campus, as well as at LeMoyne College, the Consortium for Culture and Medicine, and Upstate Medical University's Center for Bioethics and Humanities.

Publications:

BOOKS

 

Power, Privilege and Law: A Civil Rights Reader, West Publishing Co., 1995 (co-author Daan Braveman)

 

Power, Privilege and Law: Teacher's Manual, West Publishing Co., 1995.

 

 

ARTICLES AND ESSAYS

 

“To Err is Human”, ART Mix-ups: A Labor-Based, Relational Proposal,” 9 Journal of Gender, Race and Justice 443-508 (2006) also published at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=889723

 

“Whose Torts Stories Are They, Anyway?” 55 Journal of Legal Education 108-115 (2005).

 

“Genes, Parents, and Assisted Reproductive Technologies: ARTs, Mistakes, Sex, Race, and Law”, 12 Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 1 – 76 (2003) also published at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=340420 

 

“Fixing Feminist Jurisprudence,” Books on Law (Oct. 6, 1999).

 

“Tort Law’s Role as a Tool for Social Justice Struggle,” 37 Washburn L.J. 249 (1998).

 

“Feminism and Bioethics: Beyond Reproduction,” 25 J. L. Med. & Ethics 58 (1997).

 

"Teaching Torts As If Gender Matters: Intentional Torts" Symposium Issue, 2 Va. J. Social Policy & Law 115 (1994).

 

"Is Tort Law Male?  An Example of Foreseeability of Third Party Rapes and Tort Liability for Premises Managers," Symposium Issue, 69 Chicago-Kent Law Review 313 (1993) (with Perette Lawrence).

 

Feminist Perspectives on Health Care Ethics: A Review Essay," 61 Cin. L. Rev. 1251 (1993).

 

"An Overview of Feminist Torts Scholarship,"  78 Cornell L. Rev.  575 (1993).

 

"Feminism's Healing Effect," 5 J. Clinical Ethics (1993).

 

"A Feminist Analysis of Physician-Assisted Dying and Active Voluntary Euthanasia," 59 Tenn. L. Rev. 519 (1992).

 

"Impassioning a Civil Rights Course," 16 Vermont L. Rev. 943 (Spring 1992)(co-authored with Daan Braveman).

 

"Hidden Messages in the First-Year Required Law School Curriculum," 40 Cleve. St. L. J. 387 (1992).

 

"For Mary Joe Frug:  Empowering Women Law Professors,"  6 Wisconsin Women's L. J. 1 (1991) (obituary).

 

"Feminist (Re)Torts: Thoughts On the Liability Crisis, Mass Torts, Power, and Responsibilities,"  1990 Duke L. J. 848.

 

"From Gender Difference to Feminist Solidarity:  Using Carol Gilligan and an Ethic of Care in Law,"  15 Vermont L. Rev. 1 (1990).

 

"Changing the Values in Tort Law," 25 Tulsa L. J. 759 (1990).

 

"Sex Discrimination or Gender Inequality?" 57 Fordham L.Rev. 941 (1989).

 

"Critical Legal Studies," Pro Bono (Spring, 1989).

 

"Trends in Tort Law," 17 N.Y. St. Bar INCL J. 2 (June, 1988).

 

"A Lawyer's Primer on Feminist Theory And Tort Law," 38 Journal of Legal Education 3 (May/June 1988).

 

"The Powell-Stevens Debates: Federalism and Separation of Powers" 15 Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 549 (1988).

 

"The Takings Clause: Principles or Politics?", 34 Buffalo Law Review 735-832 (1986).