Fatherhood, Family Law, and the Crisis of Boys and Men, with June CarboneJune Carbone joins Kim Krawiec, student co-host Damon Stefankiewicz, and members of UVA Law’s Taboo Trades seminar to discuss “Fatherhood, Family Law, and the Crisis of Boys and Men,” coauthored with Clare Huntington. Carbone argues that the difficulties facing boys and men—particularly those without college degrees—are rooted in economic precarity and policy choices, and that family law can compound these problems by excluding unmarried fathers from the support available to divorcing parents while subjecting lower-income families to punitive child-support and family-regulation systems. The conversation explores the authors’ proposal for voluntary, community-based family centers, along with difficult questions about safety, consent, funding, intimate partner violence, mandatory reporting, and how to promote engaged fatherhood without restoring patriarchal authority. About the GuestJune Carbone is the Robina Chair in Law, Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School. An expert in family law, assisted reproduction, property, law and medicine, and bioethics, she writes extensively about marriage, inequality, family structure, and the legal regulation of families. About the HostKimberly D. Krawiec is the Charles O. Gregory Professor of Law and Glynn Family Bicentennial Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Her research examines taboo or contested exchanges, including organ donation, reproductive markets, and sex work, as well as the regulation of financial markets and business organizations. She is the host of Taboo Trades. About the Student Co-HostDamon Stefankiewicz is a second-year student at the University of Virginia School of Law and the student co-host of this episode. Paper DiscussedJune Carbone and Clare Huntington, “Fatherhood, Family Law, and the Crisis of Boys and Men,” 124 Columbia Law Review 2153 (2024).Clare Huntington, the paper’s coauthor, is the Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. She does not appear in this episode.Books and Articles Discussed or ReferencedNaomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Nancy Levit, Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy(Simon & Schuster 2024).Clare Huntington, “Postmarital Family Law: A Legal Structure for Nonmarital Families,” 67 Stanford Law Review 167 (2015).Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It (Brookings Institution Press 2022).Melissa S. Kearney, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind (University of Chicago Press 2023).Tonya L. Brito, “The Child Support Debt Bubble,” 9 UC Irvine Law Review 953 (2019).Solangel Maldonado, “Deadbeat or Deadbroke: Redefining Child Support for Poor Fathers,” 39 UC Davis Law Review 991 (2006).Daniel L. Hatcher, Injustice, Inc.: How America’s Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor (University of California Press 2023).
