Blog of Rights
Ariela
Migdal

Since joining the ACLU in 2007, Migdal has worked in such areas as women’s rights, gender-based workplace discrimination and single-sex education. She currently litigates cases concerning discrimination against women in traditionally male-dominated occupations. Migdal clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Judge Harry T. Edwards of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. She also clerked in the Israel Public Defender office. She received a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 2001. Migdal also holds an M.A. from London University and a B.A. from Harvard University.

09/28/2011
Family and Medical Leave Act

Tear Down the “Maternal Wall!” FMLA Protects Women in the Workplace

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 11:08am

More than 30 years after Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, employers still engage in two kinds of pregnancy-related sex discrimination. First, they discriminate outright against workers who get pregnant — firing them or refusing to promote them when they need to take time off for pregnancy-related care and childbirth, and forcing them off the job by refusing to accommodate some women’s temporary restrictions on heavy lifting or other physical job duties. Second, employers discriminate against women workers more generally, by firing or refusing to hire or promote women based on stereotypical assumptions that women in a certain age bracket will — or should — get pregnant, have children, and cost the employer money by leaving the workplace or shifting to a less work-intensive “mommy track.”

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02/17/2012
Combat Exclusion

DoD Comes Closer to Recognizing that Women Are Already Serving on the Front Lines

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Vania Leveille, Washington Legislative Office at 5:13pm

Last week, Pentagon officials got a few steps closer to recognizing what those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have known for years: servicewomen fight on the battlefield alongside their male counterparts, despite a longstanding rule barring them from being assigned to units that engage in direct ground combat. The Defense Department didn't altogether scrap the rules officially banning women from being assigned to such units, but it did loosen them. Under the new rules, women will be allowed to serve in some jobs — though not infantry, armor, or special operations forces — at the battalion level — that is, closer to combat than had previously been permitted. To the Pentagon's credit, it scrapped the infamous ban on women serving in units that are physically "co-located" with ground combat units, recognizing that the policy has become "irrelevant" on the modern battlefield. Now, 14,000 new jobs and assignment opportunities are open to servicewomen, though 238,000 positions still remain closed across all the armed services.

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06/22/2012
Title IX

Celebrating Title IX at 40: Texas Victory Leads to Better Response to Sexual Assault in Schools

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 10:56am

My kids’ school let out for the summer this week, and as I drove by the locked doors today I was overcome with a warm feeling that comes when you know your children were able to learn in a safe environment. Our client, Rachel Bradshaw (in previous communications about this case Rachel was referred to as “Faith” to protect her privacy while this matter was under OCR investigation), used to think that she was safe at school too, until that feeling was shattered after she was sexually assaulted by another student. Instead of supporting her or taking steps to support Rachel's ability to learn, her school responded to the rape by exiling her to a disciplinary program with her attacker, where she had to see him daily. 

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03/09/2012
Pregnancy Discrimination

Pregnancy Discrimination: Another Battleground in the War on Women

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:32pm

Access to birth control, forced ultrasounds – lately there’s been a lot of news about efforts to roll women’s rights back by decades. Less attention has been paid to the way in which pregnant women and nursing mothers have been stuck in the 1970s, or worse, when it comes to workplace equality.

Yesterday, the ACLU submitted comments to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – the body that enforces federal civil rights employment law – explaining how courts have been ignoring the basic premise of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and leaving women in the lurch.

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12/20/2011
Workers' Rights

Protections for Home Care Workers: Ending An Unjust Legacy

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Deborah J. Vagins, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:31pm

"Year in and year out, Evelyn Coke left her Queens house early to go to the homes of elderly, sick, often dying people. She bathed them, cooked for them, helped them dress and monitored their medications. She sometimes worked three consecutive 24-hour shifts. She sometimes worked 70 hours a week. She loved the work, but she earned only around $7 an hour and got no overtime pay…”

Though this New York Times’ obituary tells the story of one woman’s life, it illuminates some of what life is like for the approximately two million home care workers. Last week, a much-needed advancement began to move forward for these workers. The Obama administration proposed new regulations that, if adopted, would extend minimum wage and overtime protections to approximately two million home care workers. 

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11/08/2011
Title IX

Survey Shows Sexual Harassment in School Is All Too Common

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 1:18pm

According to a new study, sexual harassment, including unwanted sexual touching and sexual coercion as well as milder behaviors, is a regular feature of going to school for a significant number of American middle- and high-school students. The American Association of University Women released a study yesterday, surveying nearly 2000 students in grades 7 through 12. According to the study, girls reported being harassed more than boys, and harassment affected girls more negatively than boys. Of great concern, 13% of girls reported being touched in an unwelcome sexual way, 9% reported being physically intimidated in a sexual way, and 4% reported being forced to do something sexual.

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05/31/2011

Can Your School Punish You for Being Raped?

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 1:14pm

When a girl tells a teacher or coach that she was raped in the hallways or parking lot of her high school, is her school allowed to make her leave school, drop a class, or quit a team or activity? Can her school tell her to "work it out" one-on-one with the boy who attacked her? If the school investigates the attack, is it appropriate for the school to rely on gender stereotypes in trying to figure out what happened, such as assuming that the sex was consensual because the victim didn't cry when she reported it, or because the victim and attacker were dating?

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01/27/2012
Wal-Mart

Class-Action Discrimination Lawsuits After Wal-Mart

By Amanda Dysart, Women's Rights Project & Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 11:07am

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit hears oral argument in Davis v. Cintas, one of the first nationwide class action discrimination cases to be argued since the Supreme Court issued its decision in Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes last June. The court will decide whether women around the country who applied to be sales representatives at Cintas — a company that rents uniforms and supplies to businesses — can bring a class action to challenge what they claim are Cintas’s discriminatory hiring practices.

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11/17/2010

Putting Dignity on the Guest List

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 11:44am

Imagine if you had agreed to host Thanksgiving dinner — but your relatives weren’t allowed to come to your house, or anywhere near it. This is the situation faced by many families living in public housing, including the plaintiffs in an ACLU and ACLU of Maryland lawsuit who challenged the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis’s (HACA) policy of “banning” people it deems undesirable. Under the policy, anyone the housing authority designated as "detrimental to the overall quality of life for public housing residents" could be banned from HACA property for three years to life, with little to no recourse for being removed from the list.

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04/01/2009

Students Mobilize for Change During Sexual Assault Awareness Month

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 3:51pm

(Originally posted on Feministing.)

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and schools and colleges around the country are waking up to the power of Title IX — the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education programs — to combat sexual violence on campus.School administrators can't afford to ignore Title IX.

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