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08/16/2011
Workers' Rights

Want to Breastfeed Your Baby? You're Fired!

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Rebecca T. Wallace, ACLU of Colorado at 4:03pm

Imagine you've recently come back to work after maternity leave and you're using every last minute of your break time to pump breast milk to feed your baby at home. You just need a little help from your employer — an extra 20 minutes a few times a week. But your employer refuses to help, and tells you that, instead of breastfeeding your baby, you should consider switching to feeding him formula. Worse yet — imagine that after you complain, you're fired.

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06/18/2012
Breastfeeding Rights

Victory! Nursing Mothers Taking the LSAT Finally Catch a Break

By Tiseme Zegeye, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 4:24pm

Following action by the ACLU and numerous sister organizations, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), recently announced a new lactation policy for nursing mothers. The new policy allows nursing mothers, to request extended or additional breaks to pump during the LSAT, for up to one year following childbirth.

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12/16/2010

Human Trafficking Victims Take Significant Steps Toward Bringing Kuwaiti Diplomats to Justice

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Steven Watt, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 4:29pm

For two years, Mani Kumari Sabbithi, Joaquina Quadros, and Gila Sixtina Fernandes were held as slaves by a Kuwaiti diplomat and his wife at their home in McLean, Virginia. Deprived of food, underpaid, isolated from the outside world and threatened with their lives, the three women eventually escaped the home and were granted T visas (temporary visa for victims of trafficking).

In 2007, ACLU filed suit against the state of Kuwait, the diplomat and his wife seeking redress for their injuries. Since then, the ACLU has been fighting to get these women their day in court and Kuwait has vigorously opposed their attempts to get a hearing, arguing that the court should dismiss the case on the technical ground that it does not have authority to hear the case.

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10/06/2010

Keeping Gender Stereotypes Out of Classrooms

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 5:30pm

Increasingly, school districts throughout the country are instituting single-sex classes in coeducational public schools based on faulty and outdated stereotypes. Many of these programs are rooted in the theories of single-sex education proponents Leonard Sax and Michael Gurian, who assert that girls and boys brains are so different they need to be taught separately. Their faulty ideas include the theory that girls should not be given time limits on tests because they can't handle the stress, and boys are better at math due to daily surges of testosterone. The National Association for Single-Sex Public Education, a group that advocates for sex segregation, asserts that there are now more than 500 public schools in the country that have single-sex programs, up from only 11 in 2002.

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02/10/2012
Workers' Rights

Hey, Staples, Put This in Your "Lactation Chamber" and Pump It!

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 11:08am

Tom Stemberg, co-founder of the Staples office supply chain, complained in a recent interview that the Affordable Care Act (known by opponents as “Obamacare”) will cost jobs by mandating that employers set up “lactation chambers.”

This statement came on the same day as a court ruling in Houston that firing an employee because she asked for a private place to pump breast milk wasn’t sex discrimination under federal law, because lactation is not “a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth.”

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12/23/2011
Single-Sex Education

Madison School Board Rejects Sex Segregated School

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 10:13am

Early Tuesday morning in Wisconsin, the Madison School Board voted 5-2 against a proposal to start a charter school that would have segregated students on the basis of sex, relying on a model of “gender specific” instruction.  The vote marked the culmination of a year-long advocacy campaign in which ACLU-WI collaborated closely with numerous allies.  

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09/30/2011
Breastfeeding Rights

LSAT to Nursing Moms: Need Time to Pump? Tough Titties!

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 2:04pm

Women should not be forced to choose between breastfeeding their babies and pursuing a legal education — right?

Wrong — at least according to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that administers the LSAT.

This summer, our sister organization, MomsRising, contacted us about one of their members, Ashley (she prefers that we use only her first name), a new mom who was planning to take the LSAT in October. Ashley had asked for additional break time so that she could pump breast milk for her 5 month old son during the test. (It typically takes half an hour to pump, but the LSAT only has one 15 minute break during the test). Her request was denied — when she initially called to request this accommodation, she was told she would either have to take the test under standard procedure, wean her baby in time for the October 1 test date, or opt to take the test at a later time when she was no longer breastfeeding. Seriously.

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06/07/2011

Louisiana School Board Suspends Sex-Segregation Program

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project & Lenora M. Lapidus, Women's Rights Project at 3:24pm

A local school board in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, voted Thursday night to suspend a program at a public middle school that has for two years separated girls from boys in core curriculum classes. The decision was announced as the ACLU was poised to file papers in the District Court seeking to stop Rene Rost Middle School (RRMS) from providing sex-segregated classes during the 2011–12 school year, following a favorable ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in April.

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06/19/2012
Breastfeeding Rights

Congratulations Moms. This One Is for Us!

By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 3:49pm

Yesterday we told you about an amazing change in the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), lactation policy for nursing mothers. The new policy allows nursing mothers, to request extended or additional breaks to pump during the LSAT, for up to one year following childbirth.

We got involved after MomsRising contacted us about one of their members, Ashley Foxx, who was denied a lactation-related modification and was told she would either have to take the test without additional time to pump, wean her baby in time for the test date, or take the test when she was no longer breastfeeding. 

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03/01/2012
Student Rights in School

How Do I Marginalize Thee? One High School Principal Counts the Ways

By Heather L. Weaver, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief & Amanda Goad, LGBT Project & Galen Sherwin, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 5:01pm

Just how many ways can one public school official violate students' legal rights? The principal of Haywood High School in Brownsville, Tennessee, seems to be going for a record.

At an assembly earlier this month, Principal Dorothy Bond reportedly threatened to expel any gay student who publicly shows affection for members of the same sex. According to students and families who contacted the ACLU, Principal Bond proclaimed that gay students are "not on God's path" and are "going to a bad place." No, the "bad place" is not Haywood High. Rather, as Principal Bond made clear to a lesbian student she earlier singled out for displaying affection for her girlfriend, Principal Bond believes that gay students are "going to hell." Principal Bond also allegedly interfered with efforts to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance at Haywood High and may have prevented students in same-sex relationships from attending the school prom as couples.

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