Margaret H. Zhang

@marzhang.bsky.social

Law prof @ Widener University Delaware Law School. Reproductive justice, workplace justice, environmental justice. Philly. She/her.

@marzhang.bsky.social Jul 21, 2026, 2:48 PM Pinned

I'm excited to share my latest article, "The Haircut Cases Were Wrong," forthcoming with the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, and now posted on SSRN: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Screenshot from: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7118583

The Haircut Cases Were Wrong
47 Colum. J. Gender & L. (forthcoming 2026)

60 Pages Posted: 20 Jul 2026
Margaret H. Zhang
Widener University - Delaware Law School

Date Written: July 14, 2026

Abstract
Why an Exception for Sex-Segregated Grooming Standards Undercuts Title VII

Employers in the United States have courts’ approval when they require women to wear makeup at work or to dress in a different (sometimes more revealing) uniform than men. Despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s nationwide ban on workplace sex discrimination in the United States, courts routinely permit an exception not written in the statute: employers can require workers’ grooming—clothing, hair, makeup, etc.—to vary by sex.

This Article illuminates how this judicial gloss on the Civil Rights Act not only strays from the statutory text, but also contributes to manifold downstream problems. The lower federal courts’ invented exception flows from three “haircut cases” in the 1970s but was never adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The exception thus fails to reckon with the fact that now, under Bostock v. Clayton County, the Act protects gender nonconforming workers, who may not neatly fall into “male” or “female” categories. . . . And the exception props up an economy that often requires women to spend more on and use more makeup, hair, and other personal care products to comply with employer and social expectations—despite that these products may also contain chemicals that have been linked to health concerns such as infertility, adverse birth outcomes, adverse effects on offspring health, and cancer.

It is time for legal support for these sex-segregated standards to end. This Article advocates for a simple intervention: courts should reverse course and hold that sex-segregated grooming standards, on their face, can violate workplace antidiscrimination laws. . . .

@prisonculture.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 4:30 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2026/10/10/u...

nytimes.comChrista Pike Discharged From Hospital After Surviving Execution Attempt (Gift Article)Ms. Pike, 50 and convicted of the 1995 murder of a classmate, survived two doses of the drug pentobarbital late last month.

@darapurvis.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 12:29 AMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

PACK IT

@jamellebouie.net Oct 8, 2026, 10:32 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

a livestreamed execution is just a lynching

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.socialOct 8, 2026, 9:27 PM

The Pentagon says it will livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan

apnews.comPentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamedThe Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the execution would be “public.”

@marzhang.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 12:44 PM

Omg!! So sorry this happened and I'm glad it wasn't worse!!

@gailsimone.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 3:29 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

You guys want to hear a short but adorable story that happened right in front of me at the baggage claim in NYC yesterday? I wasn't part of it and there are bits I didn't catch but holy crap, I can't stop thinking about it.

@marzhang.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 4:07 AM

Just awful

@garrettepps.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 2:04 AMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

A reminder that if not for the Supreme Court in US v. MORRISON, Jane Doe would have had access to the federal courts for a civil rights action. The Court said that rape is a local matter no matter how great the impact on commerce.

@marzhang.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 2:15 AM

The menopause one is the one that caught my attention. Then I started searching and discovered so many more initiatives that sounded like good ideas but were vetoed. Ugh.

@marzhang.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 2:14 AM

Just catching up on all the Newsom vetoes this week. So disappointing. legiscan.com/CA/legislati...

@hannahnpbowman.com Oct 1, 2026, 2:35 AMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

End the death penalty. End it now. There is no reason for it, never.

@vrijevogel56.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 10:23 AMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

Unimaginable. Horrific.
Sentenced to death 30 years ago. So, 30 years of waiting to be put to death.
And then the execution goes wrong.

Tennessee Fails to Execute Woman After 2 Doses of Lethal Injection www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/u...

@marzhang.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 10:41 AM

What do we think about the homogeneity in the picture here, where every person is a man in a suit?

www.axios.com/2026/09/29/t...

@joedunman.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 8:07 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

How on earth is the non-government party supposed to brief and argue the fourth question?

@rtushnet.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 1:18 AMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

Calvinball enters its QP era.

@marzhang.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 3:20 AM

I'm just getting caught up on this now. 😭 SCOTUS continues to be awful but is now even delegating its authority to decide the legal issues at stake to the Executive Branch. 👎 (See fourth question presented)

@primuseve.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 10:28 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

Attn: @umichlaw.bsky.social and @mdefenders.bsky.social is hiring a Clinical Assistant Professor of Law/Associate Director for the new MDefenders Center for Public Defense. Job posting here: careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2.... Come work w/me to train the next generation of public defenders!

@drdgrossman.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 9:37 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

A new analysis shows that nearly 35% of U.S. counties have zero birth centers, zero hospitals providing labor and delivery services, and zero obstetric clinicians. It is difficult to overstate how alarming these findings are.

@marzhang.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 3:33 AM

Really good thread. I couldn't agree more.

@gillianbrockell.com Sep 21, 2026, 5:06 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

This will make it nearly impossible to file habeas petitions, because attorneys won’t even know what federal district their client has been moved to to stage for their removal.

Something like a third of all people in ICE custody.

apnews.com/article/ice-...

apnews.comAP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal ordersU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...

@chrisgeidner.bsky.social Sep 21, 2026, 10:33 PMReposted by @marzhang.bsky.social

If executive branch creates a system so that people under government control can be located and then just stops listing some people in that system — despite their still being under government control — that should be a five-alarm fire for the other branches, the states, and the public.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.socialSep 21, 2026, 4:57 PM

NEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.

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