Sally Kenney

Director of Newcomb Institute, Tulane University of Louisiana

Areas of Expertise:

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About Sally

Kenney's research interests include sexual assault on campus, women’s imprisonment, women and leadership, gender and judging, judicial selection, feminist social movements, women and electoral politics, the European Court of Justice, exclusionary employment policies, and pregnancy discrimination.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

To Infinity and Beyond: What Will It Take To Create a Diverse and Representative Judiciary?

Commentary, September 2021

In the News

Opinion: "The Trail That Ruth Bader Ginsburg Blazed Ran Through Louisiana," Sally Kenney, The Advocate, September 24, 2020.

Opinion: "Time for More Women on the U.S. Supreme Court, and All Courts," Sally Kenney, MNN Post, May 7, 2009.

Opinion: "Nixon Gaffe Sparks Era of Judicial Advance," Sally Kenney, Women's eNews, May 4, 2009.

Opinion: "Gap on Federal Bench? 8th Circuit Here We Come," Sally Kenney, Women's eNews, April 17, 2009.

Opinion: "When World is Designed to Work Better for Caretakers, Everyone Benefits," Sally Kenney, Pioneer Press, August 12, 2004.

Publications

"Rethinking a Loaded Concept" (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Unpacks the argument that judicial recognition of rights or moving too far too fast sets backs social movements

"Does Any Woman Have Just One Survivor Story? One Vagina’s Monologue" in Me Too, Feminist Theory, and Surviving Sexual Assault in the Academy, edited by Laura Gray Rosedale (Lexington, 2020), 105.

Applies academic expertise to her own personal experiences of sexual violence.

"Gender and Justice Why Women in the Judiciary Really Matter" (Routledge, 2013).

Makes a nonessentialist case for more women judges and uses the concept of gender and the location of courts to rethink core political science concepts such as representation, emotions and social movements, and agenda setting.

"New Research on Gendered Political Institutions" Political Research Quarterly 49, no. 2 (1996).

Reviews four texts that analyze women in political institutions to develop a theory of gendered institutions. Argues women in political institutions will be advanced by continuing to look beyond the confines of the traditional subfields of political science, drawing on interdisciplinary work in feminist theory, critical race theory, and the sociology of work.

"For Whose Protection? Reproductive Hazards and Exclusionary Policies in the United States and Britain" (University of Michigan Press, 1992).

Shows how courts construct sex differences rather than discover them by comparing policies that exclude women from hazardous work.