Two Legal Settlements Highlight Pervasive Problem of Pregnancy Discrimination
In the settlement, CUNY has agreed to adopt a new university-wide policy addressing the rights of pregnant and parenting students under Title IX, publish and disseminate that policy to its faculty, conduct training so that faculty members understand their obligations, and include the policy in the student handbook. CUNY also agreed to reinstate Stewart’s full-tuition scholarship and reimburse her for expenses she incurred taking an extra course this semester in order to graduate on time. The settlement will protect the rights of tens of thousands of parents and pregnant students in this sprawling New York City college system.
The entire CUNY system—spanning all five boroughs of New York City—has over 269,000 students this year. Women account for 58.4 percent of that student population, while approximately 15 percent of the student body are parents. But the national dropout rates among pregnant and parenting students are stark: 61 percent of women who have children after enrolling in community college do not graduate. This number is 65 percent higher than for women who do not have children while in college.
The second settlement involved claims between Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and Amy Crosby, a 30-year-old pregnant hospital cleaner in Tallahassee, Florida. NWLC filed a complaint last month with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Crosby’s behalf after Crosby was forced to take unpaid leave when the hospital refused to accommodate her doctor’s request that she not lift more than 20 pounds because of her pregnancy. “We are encouraged that the hospital and Amy Crosby have been able to resolve this matter,” Emily Martin, NWLC vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. “While the specific terms of the agreement are confidential, we are very pleased that as a result of their cooperation, Amy will be able to continue to work at the hospital. But it’s important to take note of the countless other pregnant women across the country—especially those working in low-wage jobs—who face discrimination on the job when they simply need a small adjustment or accommodation that would allow them to keep working. These women are often forced out on unpaid leave or simply fired, at the very moment they’re relying on their income and job security.”
The student argued that the school should focus less resources on developing a new mascot, and more on addressing the potentially frightening culture within the school’s athletic program. UConn’s athletics aren’t alone in that regard.
Nothing proves that someone is wrong about a misogynist culture on campus like sending rape threats.
ALL Doctors should be required to train in all facets of reproductive health — including family doctors! Agree? Sign and spread the word.
A majority of U.S. women get their basic health care from a family physician or other primary care provider, and often that includes reproductive health care. Especially in rural and low-income areas, family physicians do it all! They not only provide birth control but also provide prenatal care, deliver babies, manage miscarriages, counsel patients about unintended pregnancies, and, increasingly, offer pregnancy termination so that their patients do not have to travel long distances and see unfamiliar doctors for these services.
ACGME’s motivations are legitimate: It seeks to simplify the rules for the nation’s family medicine residency programs—numbering over 450—and to allow for more creativity and flexibility. In some areas of practice, this makes sense. Many programs will continue to teach contraception; it will depend on the culture of the institution. However, residency programs based in religiously-affiliated hospitals (which operate nearly 20 percent of inpatient community-hospital beds in the U.S.), will most likely drop birth control training immediately.
Because the ACGME currently requires birth control training, religiously-affiliated institutions must figure out a way to comply. Many rotate their residents through external clinics to learn these skills—which are essential since 99 percent of women in the United States who have ever had sexual intercourse have used a method of contraception other than natural family planning at some point in their lives. Without this requirement, residents in religiously-affiliated programs may get no training at all in contraception.
In a dismaying move, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has proposed changes to the guidelines for family medicine residency programs removing the requirement that residents learn to provide contraception.
In one of the clinics where we work, a 16-year-old girl came in with a sprained ankle. She left with a prescription for birth control.
This turn of events is not as surprising as it seems: As family physicians, we treat the whole person. A quick update revealed that our 16-year-old patient had recently begun to have unprotected sex—and had no plan to get birth control. One of the reasons we love practicing family medicine is that we get to know our patients over time and provide the preventive care they need at every possible opportunity.
A majority of U.S. women get their basic health care from a family physician or other primary care provider, and often that includes reproductive health care. Especially in rural and low-income areas, family physicians do it all! They not only provide birth control but also provide prenatal care, deliver babies, manage miscarriages, counsel patients about unintended pregnancies, and, increasingly, offer pregnancy termination so that their patients do not have to travel long distances and see unfamiliar doctors for these services.
Last week the National Women’s Law Center, along with a local law firm in Michigan filed a complaint in federal district court on behalf a high school student who was sexually assaulted at school by a fellow student and star basketball player
Rather than open an investigation into the allegations, the principal discouraged the student and her parents from filing charges, telling them that doing so could ruin the assailant’s prospects at being recruited to play basketball for a Division 1 school.
Despite repeated efforts by the victim’s parents and other students to alert the principal and the school’s Title IX Coordinator about the viciousness of the harassment by the attacker and other students, school administrators took no action.
Thankfully law enforcement did. Five weeks after the sexual assault, the Kent County Prosecutor’s office authorized two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct against the attacker for his assaults on NWLC’s client and the second female victim at the school. The attacker later pled guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault and battery. He was sentenced to attend Kent County’s Adolescent Sexual Offender Treatment Program for a second time. The only sanction the school imposed upon the student assailant was to temporarily bench him on the basketball court.
Ohio Lawmakers Work to Prohibit Teaching About “Gateway Sexual Activity”
an amendment to the budget passed by the committee yesterday would prohibit providing or distributing condoms or other contraceptives on school grounds and ban any instruction that promotes “gateway sexual activity.” Teachers or organizations that violate this ban could be subject to lawsuits by parents as well as a $5,000 fine.
Ohio legislators provided a definition of “gateway sexual activity.” And, because teenage sexual behavior is so bad as to be felonious, they took the language straight from the state’s criminal code. So schools cannot promote:
“…any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast, for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying either person.”
Abstinence-only-until-marriage speaker Pam Stenzel presented her message of shame to the wrong students last week. Many are complaining that her speech was “slut-shaming” and at least one is filing a complaint with the ACLU.
Katelyn Campbell, a student who attended the recent presentation, told the West Virginia Gazette that she is planning on filing a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) because Stenzel’s fear-based and inaccurate presentation amounted to “slut-shaming.” Campbell explained, “Many students felt uncomfortable with her outright condemnation of any and everyone who has ever had premarital sexual contact.”
A male student, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Gazette, “While her intentions may have been good, her tone was very loud, like she was shaming everyone in the audience. She was making girls cry. There were pregnant girls in the audience and she was implying, if you had sex, you’re not an OK person. The only reason I am standing up against it is so other schools in West Virginia don’t have to hear this.”
Other students took to social media to condemn what they had just heard, with one saying, “She doesn’t like you if you’re not a virgin. I hope people are calling in about the sex ed speaker this morning. Shaming girls for having sex isn’t teaching abstinence.”
How Do You End an Epidemic of STDs? It Takes a Country
While there is no easy answer or single reason “why” people contract an STD, research indicates that solutions must go beyond individual characteristics or behaviors. Educators, parents, youth advocates, HIV/AIDS organizations, physicians, legislators, health departments, and researchers, all have a role to play in reducing the impact of STDs.
Vagina Is an ‘Inappropriate’ Word, and Other Ridiculous Tales from the World of Sex Ed
Last week, a science teacher in Idaho found himself under investigation for the language he used in a class on reproductive biology. What outrageous thing did he say? It wasn’t the F word; it was the V word. That’s right, in explaining the human reproductive system to a room full of high school sophomores, he used the word vagina. And he got in trouble for it. In reality, it would have been shocking if he hadn’t said the word, given that it is a medically accurate term for a body part that plays an important role in the reproductive process. However, even though it is 2013 and references to sex are everywhere, sex education teachers across the country continue to get in trouble for the topics they cover, the information they teach, and the language they use.
A version for tumblr that can be read without opening a new tab, since plenty of people would scroll past this story otherwise.
Please, please, please. If you don’t know who Malala is, what she’s been through in the last several months, and why she represents the freedom and education of women and girls everywhere, start by reading this comic. It’s chilling and visceral and fucking beautiful.
This girl is my hero.
(via bubbaandbubbalicious)
