Katie Eyer
Professor of Law
Katie Eyer is an anti-discrimination law teacher, scholar and litigator. Her award-winning scholarship draws on legal history and social psychology to illuminate contemporary debates in anti-discrimination law and theory. Prior to entering academia, Professor Eyer litigated precedent-setting cases on behalf of LGBT and disabled employees.
Biography
Katie Eyer is an anti-discrimination law scholar, teacher and litigator. She is a leading expert on LGBTQ employment rights and on social movements and constitutional change. Her 2019 article, Statutory Originalism and LGBT Rights, has been credited with originating the textualist argument that the Supreme Court adopted in the landmark case of Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. __ (2020) (holding that anti-LGBT discrimination is discrimination "because of...sex" under Title VII).
Professor Eyer is a member of the American Law Institute and has been recognized at the national, university and local level for her scholarship, teaching, service, and work as a litigator. Her work has been published in numerous top law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and others.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Professor Eyer was a lawyer doing cutting-edge work in the area of LGBTQ employment rights. In 2005, she founded the Employment Rights Projct at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, one of the first projects in the country to focus on the employment rights of LGBTQ workers. Professor Eyer later joined the private firm of Salmanson Goldshaw, PC, where she continued to represent LGBTQ clients, as well as litigate race, sex, disability, and other discrimination and ERISA claims. Professor Eyer's work resulted in several precedent-setting decisions expanding the rights of LGBTQ and disabled employees, including one of the first appellate decisions in the country allowing a gay plaintiff's Title VII claims to go to trial.
Professor Eyer clerked for the Hon. Guido Calabresi in 2004-2005, and was a Research Scholar and Lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania from 2009-2012. She was a visiting professor of law at University of Chicago Law School in the Fall of 2023.
Publications
Textualism and Progressive Social Movements, 90 U Chi. L. Rev. Online __ (2024) (forthcoming).
Anti-Transgender Constitutional Law, 77 Vanderbilt L. Rev. __ (2024) (forthcoming).
As-Applied Equal Protection, 58 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. __ (2024) (forthcoming).
Disability and the Ongoing Federalism Revolution, 133 Yale L. J. 839 (2024) (with Karen Tani).
Transgender Constitutional Law, 171 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1405 (2023).
Transgender Equality and Geduldig 2.0, 54 Ariz. St. L.J. 475 (2023).
Disentangling Textualism and Originalism, 13 Con. L. Now 115 (2022) (based on keynote Constitution Day lecture).
The “But For” Theory of Anti-Discrimination Law, 107 Va. L. Rev. 1621 (2021).
Am I Disabled? Disability Identity, Law Faculty, and Social Change, 71 J. Legal Education 76 (2021).
Claiming Disability, 101 B.U. L. Rev. 547 (2021).
Irrational Inequality: The Role of Fact-Based Review in Equality Change, 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 177 (2020).
The Return of the Technical McDonnell Douglas Paradigm, 94 Wash. L. Rev. 967 (2019).
The New Jim Crow is the Old Jim Crow, 128 Yale L. J. 1002 (2019) (review essay).
Statutory Originalism and LGBT Rights, 54 Wake Forest L. Rev. 63 (2019).
Animus Trouble, 48 Stetson L. Rev. 215 (2019) (symposium article).
The Canon of Rational Basis Review, 93 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1317 (2018).
A Casebook Section Companion to The Canon of Rational Basis Review (2018).
Sex Discrimination Law and LGBT Equality, American Constitution Society Issue Brief (2017).
Protected Class Rational Basis Review, 95 North Carolina L. Rev. 975 (2017).
The Declaration of Independence as Bellwether, 89 S.Cal. L. Rev. 427 (2016) (symposium article).
Ideological Drift and the Forgotten History of Intent, 51 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (2016) (reviewed by Helen Norton on JOTWELL here).
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Employees in Legal Issues Affecting Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Clients (PBI Press 2008, 2d ed. 2012, 3d ed. 2016) (earlier version published in 2006 as an ACS White Paper).
Brown, Not Loving: Obergefell and the Unfinished Business of Formal Equality, 125 Yale L. J. F. 1 (2015).
Constitutional Crossroads and the Canon of Rational Basis Review, 48 U.C. Davis. L. Rev. 527 (2014) (symposium article).
Constitutional Colorblindness and the Family, 162 U. Pa. L. Rev. 537 (2014) (awarded Honorable Mention in the 2013 AALS Scholarly Papers Competition).
Lower Court Popular Constitutionalism, 123 Yale. L. J. Online 197 (2013).
Marriage This Term: On Liberty and the "New Equal Protection", 60 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 2 (2012).
That’s Not Discrimination: American Beliefs and the Limits of Anti-Discrimination Law, 96 Minn. L. Rev. 1275 (2012) (reviewed by Charles Sullivan on JOTWELL here).
Have We Arrived Yet? LGBT Rights and the Limits of Formal Equality, 19 Law & Sexuality 159 (2010) (selected for publication by a peer-review panel of the AALS Section on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues).
Administrative Adjudication and the Rule of Law, 60 Admin. L. Rev. 647 (2008).
Note, Rehabilitation Act Redux, 23 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 271 (2005).
Litigating for Treatment: The Use of State Laws and Constitutions in Obtaining Treatment Rights for Individuals with Mental Illness, 28 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 1 (2003).
Case Note, Related Within the Second Degree? Burns v. Burns and the Potential Benefits of Civil Union Status, 20 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 297 (2002).