Professor Joslin Writes in Slate About Vance's 'Childless' Comments

Professor Courtney Joslin and Yale Law Professor Douglas NeJaime wrote an Aug. 2 op-ed for Slate. The piece addresses Republican vice presidential contender J.D. Vance’s characterization of Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris – stepmother to her spouse Douglas Emhoff’s two children – as “childless.”

“This claim has been made for decades, often to oppose parenting by LGBTQ+ people,” Joslin and NeJaime write, observing that the claim also is a “pillar of Project 2025.” The presidential transition blueprint declares, “Married men and women are the ideal natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

Joslin and NeJaime write that this position props up the heterosexual family, denigrates the more than 2.5 million LGBTQ+ people in the United States who are raising children, and stigmatizes children in a diverse array of families.

Professor Joslin is a scholar in the field of family and relationship recognition, with a particular focus on same-sex and non-marital couples. She is a two-time Dukeminier Award recipient and the 2023 recipient of UC Davis Law’s Distinguished Teaching Award.