News Archive

IU McKinney Professor Jennifer Drobac talked about the loophole in Indiana law that may allow a juvenile accused of trespassing with a handgun to escape charges. Professor Drobac discussed the situation with WISH TV on September 21.

The juvenile, M.H., was charged with dangerous possession of a firearm, but at the time there was no such charge for an adult. “If it’s wrong for an adult to do it, and a child does it, then that child goes to juvenile court,” Professor Drobac said in the story. “The problem in this particular case of M.H., is that the law that M.H. was accused of violating was a law that pertained only to juveniles. So juvenile court said, ‘We don’t have jurisdiction.’”

Professor Drobac is a widely known expert in sexual harassment law. Professor Drobac also participates in the Indiana University Campus Insights Project with the Associated Press. IU promotes her expertise regarding civil rights and sexual harassment and assault to media sources throughout the world. She is an author of the textbook, Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases and Practice, recently published by Carolina Academic Press. She co-authored the book with Professor Carrie N. Baker of Smith College and Professor Rigel C. Oliveri of the University of Missouri School of Law.  Professor Drobac is at work on her next book, The Myth of Consent, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press. That work will explore the neuroscience of adult decision making and how the science should influence law reform, particularly the law of consent. She is a Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law.