Profile

Jennifer A. Drobac

Professor of Law Emerita

Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
530 W. New York Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3225

E-Mail: jdrobac@iu.edu

SSRN | Curriculum Vitae | Web Page

Education

B.A., 1981, M.A., 1987, Stanford University
J.D., 1987, J.S.D., 2000, Stanford Law School

Courses

Contracts & Sales, Family Law, Juvenile Law, Sexual Harassment Law, Bioethics: AIDS Law, Professional Responsibility

Bio

» Hot Topics: With the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns, people in media and politics reach out to Professor Jennifer Drobac for her expertise regarding sexual harassment and assault law. To date, she has spoken with more than 100 local, state, and national media outlets since the story of the sexual abuse accusations against film producer Harvey Weinstein broke in early October 2017.

Jennifer Drobac joined the law school faculty in the fall of 2001. From 1992 to 2001, she practiced law in California, focusing on employment law issues and litigation. From 1997 to 2000, she served as a lecturer at Stanford Law School. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable Barefoot Sanders, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Her scholarly work has been published in a variety of law reviews and journals. Professor Drobac is currently working on The Myth of Consent for University of Cambridge Press. This book analyzes the neuroscientific and psychosocial aspects of decision making by vulnerable adults and offers legal solutions for reform. In 2005, she finished her first textbook, Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases and Theory. A new edition of that text was published in 2020 (with Carrie N. Baker and Rigel C. Oliveri, Carolina Academic Press). Professor Drobac has also completed a book concerning adolescent neurological and psychosocial development and the law, Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers: Adolescent Development, Discrimination, and Consent Law (University of Chicago Press, 2016).

Professor Drobac has engaged in her research as a visiting scholar or fellow at a number of academic institutions including: The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior; Clare Hall, University of Cambridge; and Berkeley Law, University of California, The Center for the Study of Law and Society. She became a Fulbright Specialist in 2015. She received the Indiana University 2010 Sylvia E. Bowman Distinguished Teaching Award. She also received the 2005 Indiana University Trustees' Teaching Award. She was named a John S. Grimes Fellow in 2006, 2009, 2017, and 2018, and a Dean's Fellow in recognition of scholarly excellence in 2005-2006.

Publications

(SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=114434)

Books and Chapters

• * SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF TEENAGERS: ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, DISCRIMINATION, AND CONSENT LAW (University of Chicago Press, 2016)—book which explores why the scientific facts concerning adolescent neurological and psychosocial development are incongruent with sexual harassment law, designed to protect our teenagers from sexual predators at school, at work, and at play.
• * "The Myth of 'Legal' Consent in a Consumer Culture" in FACETS OF CONSUMERISM IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY (Anand Pawar, ed., 2016).
• * "Consent, Teenagers, and (un)Civil(ized) Consequences," in CHILDREN, SEX AND THE LAW (Ellen Marrus, ed., NYU Press, 2015)—chapter that highlights the inconsistent legal treatment of adolescent consent, to recommend law reform based on the science of juvenile development and socio-legal public policy.
• * "Religion and Employment" (co-authored with Jill L. Wesley) in RELIGION AND THE STATE (Boris Bittker, Scott Idelman, and Frank Ravitch, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2015)—chapter which reviews employment antidiscrimination case and statutory law as it pertains to faith-based employment discrimination in a treatise concerning law, religion and the state.
• "Technology and the 'Right to Service' in India: Getting Reddy'd" (coauthored with Oliver R. Goodenough) in RIGHT TO SERVICE AND GOOD GOVERNANCE (Paramjit Singh Jaswal, ed., 2015).
• "Sex-Based Harassment: A Comment on U.S. and Indian Legal Responses" in WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND GENDER EQUALITY (Gurpreet Randhawa, et al., eds., Aashna Publications, 2015).
• SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAW: History, Cases, and Theory (Carolina Academic Press, 2005).
• ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, SEX-BASED HARASSMENT: Best Practices For the Legal Profession, Prepared for the Commission by Deborah L. Rhode and Jennifer A. Drobac (December 2002).

Law Review and Journal Articles

• "Equality, Dignity & Privacy: Indian & US 'Pansexual' Human Rights," INDIAN CONST. L.R. 1 (Apr. 2017).
• "Religion and Employment Anti-Discrimination Law: Past, Present, and Post Hosanna-Tabor," 69 NYU ANN. SURV. AM. L. 761 (2015) (co-authored with Jill L. Wesley).
• "Exposing the Myth of Consent: Strictures from Neuroscience, Economics, and Relational Contracting," 12 IND. HEALTH L. REV. 471 (2015) (co-authored with Oliver R. Goodenough).
• * "The Neurobiology of Decision-Making in High Risk Youth & The Law of Consent to Sex," 17 NEW CRIM. L. REV. 502 (2014) (coauthored with Prof. Leslie Hulvershorn, M.D.)(peer reviewed).
• "Wake Up and Smell the Starbucks Coffee: How Doe v. Starbucks Confirms the End of the 'Age of Consent' in California and Perhaps Beyond," 33 B.C. J.L. & SOC. JUST. 1 (2013)(lead article).
• A Bee Line in the Wrong Direction: Science, Teenagers, and the Sting to "the Age of Consent" 20 J. LAW & POLICY 63 (2012).
• Jazzing Up Family Law, 42 INDIANA L. REV. 533 (2009).
• A Uniform Domestic Partnership Act: Marrying Business Partnership And Family Law, 41 GEORGIA L. REV. 349 (lead article, coauthored with Antony Page)(2007).
• I Can’t To I Kant: The Sexual Harassment of Working Adolescents, Competing Theories, and Ethical Dilemmas, 70 Albany L. Rev.675 (2007).
• “Developing Capacity”: Adolescent “Consent” at the Workplace, at Law, and in the Sciences of the Mind, 10 U.C. DAVIS J. JUVENILE L. & POL’Y 1 (2006)(lead article).
• Sex and the Workplace: "Consenting" Adolescents and a Conflict of Laws, 79 WASH. L. REV. 471 (2004).
• The Oncale Opinion: A Pansexual Response, 30 MCGEORGE L. REV. 1269 (1999).
• Pansexuality and the Law, 5 WM. & MARY J. WOMEN & L. 297 (1999).
• Note, For the Sake of the Children: Court Consideration of Religion in Child Custody Cases, 50 STAN. L. REV. 1609 (1998).
• The "Perfect" Jointure: Its Formulation After the Statute of Uses, 19 CAMBRIAN L. REV. 26 (1988).

Book Reviews

• Fifty Shades of SEX IN THE OFFICE, WOMEN & SOC. MOVEMENTS IN THE U.S., 1600-2000 (MARCH 2013) (reviewing JULIE BEREBITSKY, SEX AND THE OFFICE: A HISTORY OF GENDER, POWER, AND DESIRE (2012)).

Electronic Publications/Products

• "Age-Of-Consent Laws Don't Reflect Teenage Psychology. Here's How To Fix Them," VOX (Nov. 20, 2017).

Work in Progress

• THE MYTH OF CONSENT (with Professor Oliver Goodenough)(contract for publication with Cambridge University Press, anticipated 2019)—book that analyzes the neuroscientific and psychosocial aspects of decision making by vulnerable adults and offers legal solutions for reform.
• SEX-BASED ASSAULT, EXPLOITATION & HARASSMENT: Cases Problems & Practice (2d ed. Carolina Academic Press, anticipated 2019).
• "Legal Catalysis" [draft title]—article that explores how legal catalysts might foster advantageous interactions and minimize legal disabilities.

Presentations

• "Adolescent Development, Discrimination & Consent Law: Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers," Special Lecture, Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina (December 14, 2017).
• "Sex-Based Harassment: Everything you wanted to know but might not know to ask," Special Lecture, IU School of Dentistry, Indianapolis, Indiana (Sept. 8, 2017).
• "2017 Family and Gendered-Related Constitutional Law," IU McKinney Constitution Day Lecture, Indianapolis, Indiana (Sept. 18, 2017).
• "Brain Science, Capacity, and Family Law: Science, Decision Making, and Law," Family Law and Family Realities, International Society of Family Law World Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (July 28, 2017).
• "Brain Science & The Civil Law re: Consenting Teenagers, Bio LawLaPaLooza, Stanford Law School, Stanford, California (April 21, 2017).
• "Adolescent Development, Discrimination & Consent Law: Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers," Seminar for Cambridge Socio-Legal Group and Centre for Criminal Justice, Cambridge, England (February 2, 2017).
• "Exploring the Myth of Consent: Neurological and Psychosocial Science of Decision Making and Law," Seminar for Clare Hall, Cambridge, England (February 23, 2017).
• "The Myth of Adult Consent: The Influence of Grief, Debt, Dementia, Disability, and More," Biolaw - Assessing Neurolaw: Promise, Accomplishments, and Limits, AALS 2017 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California (January 4, 2017).
• "Adolescent Development, Discrimination & Consent Law: Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers," 5th Annual Women of INfluence Symposium, Indianapolis, Indiana (September 16, 2016), Reading at the Table, Indianapolis, Indiana (September 20, 2016).
• "Consent" on College Campuses: Neuroscience, Culture, and Prevention, Conference on "Creating Cultures of Care and Compassion: Commuter and Regional Campuses' Role in the Prevention of Sexual Violence," Indianapolis, Indiana (August 11, 2016).
• Expert Interviewed by Larry Mantle, From Anita Hill to Gretchen Carlson, what's changed in the way we talk about sexual harassment? 89.3 KPCC AIRTALK (July 20, 2016).
• Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers: Parental Challenges and Legal Hurdles, International Society of Family Law North American Regional Conference, Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming (May 23, 2016).
• Keynote Speaker, Adolescent Development, Discrimination & Consent Law: Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers, R. Bruce Townsend Professorship Lecture, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana (March 1, 2016).
• Convener and Panelist, The Hunting Ground, McKinney Special Program, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana (November 12, 2015).
• Keynote Speaker, Juvenile Consent and its Exploitation by Adult Sexual Predators, The Gathering at the Skyline Club, Indianapolis, Indiana (November 19, 2015).
• Convener and Panelist, The Case Against 8: A Case For Marriage Equality, McKinney Special Program, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana (March 24, 2015).
• Fulbright Guest Lecture, Sex-Based Harassment Law, S.G.G.S. Khalsa College, Women's Rights and Gender Equality Conference, Mahilpur, Hoshiarpur, India (March 7, 2015).
• Fulbright Guest Lecture, Equality, Dignity and . . . Privacy: African, American and Indian "Pansexual" Human Rights, Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Third RGNUL International Multidisciplinary Human Rights Conference, Punjab, India (February 28, 2015).
• Chief Guest Lecture, The Myth of "Legal" Consent in a Consumer Culture, Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Global Consumerism: Challenges and Possibilities Conference, Punjab, India (February 21, 2015).
• "Legal Innovations: Law and the Noble Eight-fold Path," Association of American Law Schools and the Section on Socio-Economics, Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. (January 5, 2015).
• Expert interviewed by Karen Foshay, "LAUSD argued middle schooler can consent to sex with teacher," 89.3 KPCC (interview begins at 2:28) (November 13, 2014).
• Expert interviewed by Arun Rath, "Criminal Law Says Minors Can’t Consent — But Some Civil Courts Disagree," NPR (National Public Radio) ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (interview begins at 3:44) (November 16, 2014).
• Expert interviewed by Larry Mantle, "KPCC investigation reveals questionable tactics LAUSD used to defend rape lawsuit," 89.3 KPCC AIRTALK (interview begins at 4:19) (November 13, 2014).
• Panelist, "Legally Complicated: A Review of Legal Issues Unresolved by Marriage Equality," Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana (October 22, 2014).
• "Hobby Lobby: The Dissent," McKinney Constitution Day Program, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana (September 17, 2014).
• Convener and Panelist, "Anita Hill: her story and the development of sexual harassment law," McKinney Special Program, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indianapolis, Indiana (Sept. 2, 2014).
• "Innovation, Leadership, and Education: What’s Love 2.0 Got To Do With IT?," The Tobias Leadership Conference, Indiana University Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence, Indianapolis, Indiana (April 25, 2014) (discussing “the 3 Ms: meditation, mindfulness, and mentoring”).
• "The Myth of Consent: The Neuroscience of 'Developing' and 'Declining' Capacity and the Law," at “Neuroscience and the Law: Injury, Capacity, and Illness,” IU McKinney School of Law and School of Medicine Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana (March 28, 2014).
• "Exposing the Myth of Consent: Strictures from Neuroscience, Economics, and Relational Contracting," Association of American Law Schools, Annual Meeting, New York, New York (January 5, 2014).
• "Worldly But Not Yet Wise," University of Oregon School of Law, Eugene, Oregon (November 7, 2013).
• "Innovation and Education: What's Love 2.0 Got To Do With IT?," Gruter Institute for Law & Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley Conference, Squaw Valley, California (May 23, 2013) (discussing “the 3 Ms: meditation, mindfulness, and mentoring”).
• "Legal Catalysis," Gruter Institute for Law & Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley Conference (May 21, 2013).
• "Exposing the Myth of Consent: Strictures from Neuroscience, Economics, and Relational Contracting," Society for the Evolutionary Analysis of Law ("SEAL") Scholarship Conference (April 6, 2013).
• "Exposing the Myth of Consent: Strictures from Neuroscience, Economics, and Relational Contracting," Society of Socio-Economists Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana (January 3, 2013).
• "Abandoning Teenage Consent for Adolescent Assent: Harmonizing Developmental Sciences and the Law," 2012 Law Conference, Athens, Greece (July 16-19, 2012); Law & Society Association, 2012 International Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii (June 7, 2012); University of Sydney Law School, Faculty Seminar Series (June 21, 2012); University of Queensland, TC Beirne School of Law, Research Seminar Series (June 15, 2012).
• Student Speech in the Wake of Morse v. Frederick, Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Annual Meeting, Hilton Head, South Carolina (July 25, 2011).
• Abandoning Teenage “Consent” for Legal Assent: Harmonizing Developmental Sciences and the Law, Gruter Institute for Law & Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley Conference (May 24, 2011).
• The End of the Age of Consent, The Adolescent in Society Conference, Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn, New York (March 18, 2011).
• Consent, Teenagers, and (un)Civil(ized) Consequences, International Society of Family Law North American Regional Conference, Kansas City, Missouri (June 4, 2010).
• Children as Limited Partners: Filial Domestic Partnerships for All Children, Law and Society Association 2010 Conference, Chicago, Illinois (May 27, 2010).
• Adolescent Development and the Legal Capacity to Consent, Center for Children, Law & Policy at the University of Houston Law Center (October 23, 2009).
• Adolescent Brain Development and Its Legal Implications, University of Pennsylvania Neuroscience Boot Camp (August 12, 2009).
• "Minding" Civil Law's Regulation of Adolescents, Gruter Institute For Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley Conference (May 21, 2009).
• “Minding” Civil Law’s Regulation of Adolescents, 2009 SEAL (Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law) Scholarship Conference, Vanderbilt Law School, Nashville, Tennessee (April 16-18, 2009).
• Profiled IUI Faculty: research concerning the sexual harassment of working teenagers.
• Profiled Expert, NOW ON PBS, interviewed on camera for story concerning the sexual harassment of working teenagers.
• Presenter: Children, Sex and the Law, AALS 2009 Annual Meeting, San Diego, California (January 9, 2009).
• Organizing Host, Inaugural Midwest Family Law Conference, “Jazzing Up Family Law,” Indiana University School of Law- Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana (June 13, 2008).