Publication Date

2026

Document Type

Restricted

Abstract

In this honors thesis, “All Roads Lead to Family Court: Power, Inequality, and the Courts,” I argue for a cultural and political reckoning that places the family court system at the epicenter of the American justice system. This thesis begins by examining how American media and news networks have misinformed the public about the role of family court in both the legal system and broader society, leading to a devaluation of family court. Through interviews with legal professionals in the family court system, I reveal the wide array of problems family court confronts and the diverse legal professionals who seek to address those problems. I also show that family court operates despite a series of contradictions formed through both its practices internally and how the court engages with external forces, such as litigants and other courts. Due to privacy laws, family court is required to protect the confidentiality of its litigants and is isolated within the justice system. However, family court is deeply connected to litigation occurring in other courts. As a result, the family court is an insular community, but within that insularity, it is always evolving due to the hierarchal nature of the justice system. Because of the complexity of these contradictions, the family court has been tasked with solving the unsolvable. More specifically, the family court system is burdened with providing solutions to larger systemic issues of poverty, generational trauma, bias, and inequality. For the family court to fulfill its ultimate promise of protecting American families, both legal practitioners and scholars need to understand the family court system and the evolving construction of the family throughout American history. By situating the family court system both historically and in the present, I demonstrate why American family law requires intersectional training. For family court and its employees to adequately perform their jobs and assist their litigants, intersectional training should include legal studies but also political economy, human development, and the history of family and gender. Such training would highlight that inequality underlies many of the intractable problems facing families in family court, including the displacement and traumas that limit mobility and result in litigants’ years long involvement in the family court system. Studying the American family court system provides insight into every fabric of American life including law, politics, and culture.

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The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.