Walking the Walk for Everyone in the Community: Andrea Schneider on Religion, Gender, and Negotiation in Jewish Communities

Andrea Kupfer Schneider is Professor of Law and Director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law. Schneider was the previous director of the nationally ranked dispute resolution (DR) program at Marquette University Law School in Wisconsin. In addition to overseeing the DR program, Schneider was the inaugural director of Marquette’s Institute for Women’s Leadership. Schneider has published numerous articles on negotiation, plea bargaining, negotiation pedagogy, ethics, gender, and international conflict. Her recent books include Discussions in Dispute Resolution: The Foundational Articles (edited with Hinshaw and Cole, winner of the 2022 CPR Book Award); Dispute Resolution: Beyond the Adversarial Model (with Menkel-Meadow, Love, and Moffitt); Negotiation: Processes for Problem-Solving (with Menkel-Meadow and Love); Mediation: Practice, Policy, and Ethics (with Menkel-Meadow and Love).

Schneider is a founding editor of Indisputably, the blog for ADR law faculty, and started the Dispute Resolution Works-in-Progress annual conferences in 2007. In 2016, she gave her first TEDx talk titled Women Don’t Negotiate and Other Similar Nonsense. She was named the 2017 recipient of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work, the highest scholarly award given by the ABA in the field of dispute resolution. Andrea Schneider was interviewed by Dmytro Vovk.

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Response to the UN’s “Call for Input to a Thematic Report: Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI)”

The following is a response to a United Nations’ “Call for Input to a Thematic Report: Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI).” Victor Madrigal-Borloz, UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on SOGI, issued the call to inform his June 2023 report to the UN Human Rights Council on the right to FoRB in relation to SOGI. 

Principal author of this response is W. Cole Durham, Jr., founding director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS). Contributors include Alexander Dushku, shareholder at Kirton McConkie; Scott E. Isaacson, shareholder at Kirton McConkie and ICLRS senior fellow; Denise Posse Lindberg, Utah senior district judge (Third District Court, inactive) and ICLRS senior fellow; and David H. Moore, former UN Human Rights Committee member and current associate director of the ICLRS and Sterling and Eleanor Colton Endowed Chair for Law and Religion at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. This Response reflects the personal views of the author and contributors and not necessarily those of their employers or sponsoring institutions.

Tensions regarding competing claims for freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights have been central to “culture wars” for many years. Addressing this tension in the context of a thematic report for the United Nations calls for particular wisdom and balance. A holistic approach sensitive to the countervailing considerations is particularly vital in this area. In many parts of the world, resentment of LGBT+ agendas takes the form of general disenchantment with the international human rights movement. On the other hand, FoRB claims in certain quarters are read as masks for bigotry. Such polarized and polarizing positions are both excessive and surely mark a failure of discourse and a deeper failure to apprehend the reciprocal claims to human dignity involved.

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Freedom of Religion or Belief and Gender Equality across the OSCE Region

In September 2022 The Review of Faith & International Affairs published an issue dedicated to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and women’s rights across the OSCE region. The issue was edited by Elizabeth A. Clark and Dmytro Vovk and brought together a broad and rich variety of papers focusing on international law issues; the role religions and religious freedom play in the promotion of gender equality, as well as in religion-related reservations and political opposition to relevant international law; and tensions between religious organizations and human rights defenders working in this sphere.

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