News Archive

Professor Jennifer Drobac's expertise in the area of teens and consent law was sought out for a news story published on the digital platform, Swell.

Professor Drobac talks about the varying ages at which a teen can consent to sex with an adult, and the ways that teens reason for a story titled When Is a Couple's Age Difference Too Much? The legal age of consent varies among the states based on legislators' intuitions, she says, arguing instead for a focus on adolescent brain development.

Professor Drobac’s latest book, Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers: Adolescent Development, Discrimination, and Consent Law, was published in 2016 by University of Chicago Press. Professor Drobac was a Visiting Scholar during the Spring 2018 semester at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, and Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain and Behavior. She was there conducting research for her next book, The Myth of Consent, which she is co-writing with Professor Oliver Goodenough. That work will explore the neuroscience of adult decision making and how the science should influence law reform. She is a Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law.