UC Law professor’s article named a Dukeminier Award recipient

Congratulations to Professor Ryan Thoreson, whose law review article “Discriminalization”: Sexuality, Human Rights, and the Carceral Turn in Antidiscrimination Law", 110 Cal. L. Rev. 432 (2022) was named a 2023 Dukeminier Awards winner for the best scholarship on sexual orientation and gender identity.  

In his article Professor Thoreson discussed states’ turn toward carceral punishment as a means of sanctioning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, particularly as LGBTQ rights grow across the globe. The carceral turn has been scrutinized in racial justice and feminist literature, but few LGBTQ scholars have contended with the growing use of incar­ceration globally to punish offenses like discrimination, degrading or insulting speech, or conversion practices. The use of carceral punishment to deter and punish these offenses—what Professor Thoreson calls discriminalization—raises questions about whether or when incarceration is appropriate to address affronts to equal dig­nity.

The Dukeminier Awards were initiated by The Williams Institute and students at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law to acknowledge and distribute the best published law review articles concerning various aspects of sexual orientation and gender identity law. Recipients of the award will have their article republished in the Dukeminier Awards Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law. The goals of the journal and its awards are to encourage scholars to begin or continue writing about sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy; provide valuable recognition and support for scholars, law students, and lawyers who write in this area; and provide easy access to each year’s best scholarly materials for those outside of legal academia, including lawyers, judges, other legal actors, and policy makers.

Lead photo: istockphoto.com