Recently, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the LSAT, refused to accommodate a nursing mother who asked for additional break time to pump her breast milk. You can read more about it here. Two members of the LSRJ family want to share their thoughts on the situation: new mom Sara Taylor (’11, University of Michigan Law School) and resident blogger Joanne Caceres (’13, Harvard Law School).

If you want to take action, visit the ACLU Women’s Rights Project website.

Dear LSAC:

I am writing to ask you to seriously reconsider the Law School Admissions Council’s alleged policy of refusing accommodations for breast feeding women during the LSAT.  Breast feeding is not an ethos, it’s a serious physical issue that deserves serious consideration.

As a nursing mother, I would not think twice about asking for accommodation.  Having to be away from my infant and pump is an incredibly inconvenient enterprise, and one that I have to engage in as a working mother who ascribes to medical studies that breast milk has marvelous and unparalleled health benefits for my daughter.  I already have to suffer a great many social consequences for this choice.  This is the new century but people are no less disparaging of breast feeding in public.  While out, there are no outlets or chairs in public restrooms.  I have frequently had to feed my daughter bent over a changing table or sitting on a toilet.  While working, I have to find twenty minutes and an available conference room with a locking door and no windows, then I get to carry my pump equipment to the bathroom to wash it and find a spare spot in the fridge for all to see.  But I do it willingly, I do it for her.

I recently received a job interview that required travel.  I asked if, as a nursing mother, I could bring my daughter.  In the alternative, I asked to be gone no more than two days because I would have to pump milk ahead of time (which is exhausting and laborious).

The schedulers went out of their way to accommodate me, letting me take my daughter as a lap infant and making sure travel was short and that I had everything I needed.  And they did so as a pure matter of course, no problem at all.  I thought to myself, how wonderfully far we’ve come, when ten years ago I would have been afraid to mention that I was a mother when going to an interview, and I can now mention it and no one thinks twice.

When a nursing mother tells you they need time off to pump, they are not asking for any favors.  A pump isn’t the functional equivalent of a child; it doesn’t get all the milk out, reduces output later, extracts milk forcefully, and it requires lugging the pump around, washing out all the parts, and finding a way to store or dump the milk.  Pumping for 20 minutes doesn’t yield much milk and it takes about 45 minutes just to do it.  Plus, having that many calories removed from you at once is exhausting!  It’s a major hassle – it is not something one would choose to do unless they needed to do it.

Disappointingly few mothers are applying to law school and their perspective is both meaningful and worth cultivating.  Let’s try and minimize their barriers to entry wherever possible.  Pumping itself is a barrier, why in the world would you make it harder than that?

A proudly pumping attorney,

Sara Taylor (’11, University of Michigan Law School)

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I’m sure anyone who keeps track of reprorights issues has heard about LSAC’s refusal to accommodate a nursing mother during the LSAT. After outreach from the ACLU, MomsRising and other advocates, LSAC’s response was that it was under no legal obligation to provide such accommodations. We should be mad at the policies of LSAC, and reach out to let them know this behavior isn’t acceptable. However, what is most troubling to me in not that in this day and age an organization could be so callous, it’s that we are moved to public outrage and letter writing because LSAC is right, they have no legal obligation to accommodate a nursing mother who is not an employee. I think that’s the real problem.

For all the benefits and advances women have thanks to Title IX in school and Title VII in employment, moments like these should remind us that those two laws do not encompass all of society. The most recent outrage with LSAC is a great illustration of the role private businesses—who may be restricted from discriminating against female employees but not clients—can affect something as fundamental to the American notion of equality as education.

So what should be done? Don’t let this blog serve to keep you from writing to LSAC. Public shaming does work to make single organizations fix audacious behavior in some instances. It may even cause other testing companies (whose policies I don’t know) to think hard before denying a similar request from a nursing mother in the future. Perhaps a case can be made to extend Title IX to private organizations whose services are used for entry into an educational program or activity that accepts federal funding. But if we want to promote more systemic change, I think we need better laws to protect women’s rights outside of work and the classroom. To do that, we need more pro-women politicians in office!

Joanne Caceres, Harvard Law School

Burke Bindbeutel, University of Missouri School of Law

Last Sunday night I felt an urge to see Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers crushed by opposing linebackers. This was not because I am an Indianapolis Colts fan (I am not). No, I wanted the beefy quarterback to be Theismannized because his off-the-field conduct has earned him two accusations of sexual assault. Roethlisberger continues to receive the adulation of the Pittsburgh faithful despite behavior that puts less talented men behind bars.

Last year, right in my hometown, the Missouri Tigers suspended their team captain indefinitely due to a sex crime allegation. He was eventually convicted. Could it be that there is a necessary link between football and sexual violence? (more…)

This is the third in a series of posts by LSRJ alum Heather Sager (’10, Indiana University Maurer School of Law) who recently took a position at the Human Rights Law Network in India. Heather will be bringing us along on her journey through the field of international reproductive rights work.

I’ve mentioned before that part of my work with HRLN focuses on holding public tribunals. At these tribunals, we host people who have approached the State Human Rights Commissions and were ignored. Since we can only host a limited number of complainants, we choose based on a variety of factors, one of which is the inclusion of a variety of human rights violations. We try to focus on some of the most pervasive issues within whatever state we’re working. One of the most common, disturbing problems we see across the board is rape.

Part of my research into any human rights issue includes looking into the relevant legal and procedural background. In the process of researching rape, which I believe to be worsened by largely systemic issues within the country, I began to write about some of the more all-encompassing legal and social problems. This introduced me to rape investigation procedure in India.

Last September, Human Rights Watch issued a report calling attention to the use of the per vaginum examination (or, ‘finger test’ as it has been affectionately dubbed) in examining rape survivors in India. The report called for Indian legislation to introduce a standardized method of examining women and for the government to ban the use of a cruel, archaic process.

The per vaginum examination has been a controversial method of post-rape examination for some time. The method requires that a doctor insert his fingers into the vagina. Through this, he determines whether the hymen is present or absent, the ‘laxity’ of the vaginal tissue, the general shape and consistency of the vagina.

Until recently, this method was used across the board, in every case of reported rape where a medical examination was performed. In many instances, the per vaginum examination was performed without the woman’s prior knowledge or consent.

The per vaginum examination has long been discredited as a reliable test for medical purposes. Not just highly subjective, with unpredictable results, because of the test’s methodology (if we’re being generous with the word), it’s particularly cruel when administered immediately following a traumatic sexual assault.

But despite the widely agreed-upon fact that a finger does very little to serve as a consistent standard, the state has done very little to see that this practice is stopped. In March of this year, the Union Health Ministry of India issued new standards of post-sexual assault examination that, while improved, are greatly lacking.

The good news is that the new standards have barred using such helpful medical determinants as how well the woman is dressed and how well she keeps up her oral hygiene. The bad news is that the guidelines only limit the use of the finger test, allowing medical personnel significant leniency in deciding whether a situation warrants the use of the test.

Arguments that the test could still be of some use have been put forth, and the Ministry seems to have been listening. I wonder if they were also listening when the courts have used ‘finger test’ results in rape proceedings, calling attention to whether the woman is ‘habituated to sexual intercourse.’ Although the Supreme Court of India ruled in 2003 that a woman could not be cross-examined on her moral character in a rape case, courts across the country have continued to issue opinions on the general believability of her testimony, based in part on whether she may or may not have been sexually active.

Although my work in Delhi doesn’t focus solely on women’s rights issues, we deal very heavily in the area. As part of the Tribunals we hold, I’ve met with rape survivors here who were beaten by their attackers, refused help by the police, and ignored by the Commissions whose responsibility it is to protect them. Let’s add to this the doctors who may or may not decide this “test” is necessary in order to examine them and a court that may or may not use her ‘vaginal laxity’ to determine her reliability as a witness.

And the standard that decides whether one is ‘habituated to sexual intercourse’? Two fingers.

Sara Taylor, former LSRJ national office intern, LSRJ resident blogger, ’11 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, and new mother, wanted to share some of her hopes for her daughter.

Dearest Overlords,

Within days of bringing a little girl into “our” world, there are a few things I wish to discuss with you—some critiques and possibly some ground rules for going forward.  You seem to have convinced quite a few of us that we’ve come a long way, maybe far enough that we can stop “nagging” or else prove, as you said all along, that we’ll simply “never be happy.”  Knowing how sincere you are about this, I wish to point out (for my daughter’s sake, at least) some places where it’s possible you may have misunderstood what I want. (more…)

As proponents for reproductive justice, we advocate for access to the resources people need to thrive and to decide whether, when, and how to have and parent children with dignity, free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. What happens, however, when we don’t agree with the decisions other people are making?

Maria Hvistendah discusses the large gender imbalance occurring in certain parts of the world due to sex-selective abortion in her new book, “Unnatural Selection.” In places such as China and India, cultures with a strong son preference, many couples are partaking in sex selection abortion to terminate pregnancies when they find out the fetus is female. This practice skews the gender ratio so that by 2020, there will be about 45 million more men than women in the world. This gender imbalance significantly impacts culture and society, not only because it sends a clear message that women are less valuable to society than men, but because it fuels other practices like the selling of women from rural areas for marriage and even sex trafficking. (more…)

Those of you following Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes are no doubt frustrated and saddened by Monday’s Supreme Court decision, in which the Court threw out an enormous class-action employment discrimination suit on behalf of 1.5 million women. The case hinged on whether Plaintiffs could get certified as a class, by claiming that Walmart’s corporate policies created a culture of pay and promotion discrimination. The Court, however, held that there was no “common answer to the question, why was I disfavored?”

Here is why the decision will have far-reaching negative consequences: (more…)

Psychologist Joseph Nicolosi is the author behind the book, Parents Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, as well as an “expert” in what is called reparative therapy, which seeks to “repair” one’s homosexuality. The CNN featured series, “The Sissy Boy Experiment” includes personal stories and reflections by Nicolosi’s former patients who, as young boys, were sent to Nicolosi to “bring out the heterosexuality in them,” leading to emotionally detrimental effects. (more…)

This blog is cross-posted from ChoiceUSA’s blog.
Hannah Geyer, George Washington University Law School

So lately I’ve noticed that a lot of people categorize reproductive rights as Not Real Rights. Reproductive rights aren’t like voting, or free speech, or the right to access public accommodations. Reproductive rights are special rights, according to some – including Above the Law’s (snarky lawyer blog whose commentariat aren’t super into social justice or, um… just not being a terrible person when commenting) Ami Cholia.

Law Students for Reproductive Justice (bias alert: I’m the President of GW Law’s chapter) recently released a study that revealed that out of the 177 responding law schools, only 32 of them offered a course in reproductive rights. ATL’s Cholia wrote a post asking if lawyers-in-training really need these classes:

“Academic classes rarely give one a true representation of how the concepts we study play out in real life (think back to your middle school sex-ed class for a minute). That is usually learned on the job. You are trained to ask the right questions and argue your point effectively — a rounded understanding of law, then, should prepare you to take on a reproductive case, regardless.

Should we interpret the dearth of repro-rights courses as representative of gender-imbalance at schools and within the profession at large? Again, I don’t think so. It’s not about man v. woman or even life v. abortion. It’s about rights. And as a trained lawyer, you are taught about those rights. Reproductive rights aren’t special rights, are they?”

Call me a crazed feminist, but it seems that the “special rights” question was asked sarcastically, implying that all of us humorless wenches complaining about a lack of reproductive rights courses are being hypocritical, since men and women are equal, aren’t they? Marginalizing reproductive rights as “special” rights or “women’s” rights misses the whole point. (more…)

On page 12 of the September/October, 2010 issue of Mother Jones, an inset feature called “Conspiracy Watch” details the efforts of various pro-life groups to propagate the idea that abortion is a racist genocidal plot. This is, sadly, not a belief confined to the lunatic fringe of a shadowy misogynist far-right coalition. Unfortunately, there is a very real and unsettling history of reproductive injustices that range from Planned Parenthood’s early ties to the eugenics movement to the Supreme Court’s notorious holding in Buck v. Bell (upholding the forced sterilization of a woman said to be mentally retarded, an opinion in which Justice Holmes famously wrote “Three generations of imbeciles is enough”). If these tactics were embraced by pro-choice movements today, it would legitimately be seen as a dangerous movement, circumscribing the rights of populations of women who tend to be low income and/or people of color. But it is much worse than misleading to imply that the pro-choice movement continues to hew to such ideals. (more…)

Film actress and television host Ricki Lake, twice pregnant (in real life and also in the movie Mrs. Winterbourne, alongside his royal hotness, Brendan Fraser), brings one of her birth experiences to the silver screen in The Business of Being Born.  Upset with the hospital birth experience the first time, Ms. Lake opts for a home birth the second time (Go Ricki! Go Ricki! Go Ricki!).  Her second son, Owen Sussman (now 9 years old), greets the world in gooey glory about 45 minutes into the movie, so you know it’s good.  The only thing that might have made it better is, as is the case for all movies, Brendan Fraser.

Somewhere between Frontline and Fahrenheit 911, this documentary presents a fact-based albeit slightly sanctimonious (and one-sided) examination of midwifery (mid-whiff-er-ee) and birthing options in America.  The statistics are frequently sobering – the one that really stuck with me was that, in 1900, 95% of all U.S. births took place at home, which was down to 50% by 1938 and <1% by 1955 (where it is today).  The movie partially credits hippy communes with the “rebirth” of midwifery in the U.S., noting necessity and the empowerment aspects of home birth.  (more…)