Rainbow Alliance Scores Early Victory in Battle Over University of Pittsburgh’s Gendered Facilities Policy

The first volley in a challenge to the University of Pittsburgh’s gendered facilities policy was resolved in the challengers’ favor last week, when the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations denied the University’s motion to dismiss a gender discrimination complaint filed by the Rainbow Alliance, a student group represented by the Women’s Law Project and Drexel University Professor David S. Cohen. As a result of this ruling, Rainbow Alliance’s case against the University will move forward.

Rainbow Alliance filed its discrimination complaint in April 2012, after University officials announced that students and faculty would be permitted to use only those bathrooms and other gender-specific campus facilities that correspond to the gender on the user’s birth certificate. This policy has had a particularly harsh impact on transgender students and faculty, as well as people whose gender expression does not conform to traditional gender roles.

Transgender people who don’t want to run afoul of this policy must travel with their birth certificate within easy reach and be prepared to produce it if challenged at the bathroom door. Moreover, changing the sex designation on one’s birth certificate can be a difficult, expensive and time-consuming process for transgender people; and in some jurisdictions, it is impossible.  For anyone without a corrected birth certificate, the choices are grim: violate the policy and risk the consequences; go off campus to search for a restroom; or endure the humiliation and harassment involved with using a restroom reserved for the opposite gender.

To bar transgender people from bathroom facilities is to bar them from full participation in the University community. Congratulations to Rainbow Alliance for challenging this policy!

For more information about the Women’s Law Project in fighting against gender discrimination and LGBT rights, please visit our web site.

WLP Celebrates the 10 Year Anniversary of Second-Parent Adoption in Pennsylvania

From WLP Staff

Join the Women’s Law Project on Saturday, August 18^th from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh (Shadyside), 605 Morewood Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA  for a potluck picnic celebration featuring food, fun and a chance to share what family means to you. Come enjoy a moon bounce, games (with fantastic prizes!), delicious burgers/veggie burgers, Rita’s Italian Ice and family photos. Register for Event!

August 20, 2012 marks the ten-year anniversary of the recognition of second-parent adoption in Pennsylvania, the result of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in In re R.B.F., 803 A.2d 1195 (Pa. 2002).  The Women’s Law Project (WLP) has particular cause to celebrate because of the pivotal role it played in helping same-sex parents each gain the right, through adoption, to have legally secure relationships with the children they nurture and love.

Before second-parent adoption was legalized across Pennsylvania, same-sex couples faced many obstacles in creating and protecting their families.  Women who had given birth to children in heterosexual marriages prior to entering same-sex relationships often had to fight to gain even partial custody of their children.  In fact, the courts were reluctant to recognize one, let alone two, gay or lesbian parents as legally fit.  Regardless of how same-sex couples became parents, they faced a major challenge:  only one partner in a same-sex couple could legally be “the” parent to a particular child.  While it might look as though the child had two mommies or two daddies, technically, only one partner was the official and legal parent.  This forced partners who were co-parents to choose between them who would play this role and have all the rights and obligations attendant on it.  This is a wrenching and divisive experience for even the most stable couples.

Educated, financially secure couples knew enough and had the resources to pursue legal “work-arounds” such as powers of attorney, advance directives, and other artificial surrogates for full parental rights.  In the absence of these cumbersome and costly measures, the non-legal parent could be excluded from making important decisions about the child’s life—such as approving medical care for the child—or even from just picking the child up from daycare or school.  Furthermore, if the partners separated, the non-legal parent could easily be denied visitation with the child and could not be made to pay child support.  If the non-legal parent were to die, the children would not be entitled to receive social security survivor benefits.  If the deceased parent had had the wherewithal to make a will, the children (and the surviving partner, without benefit of marriage) would be still required to pay much higher Pennsylvania inheritance taxes reserved for legal strangers; without a will, the partner and children would receive nothing.

Creating a family when the law did not consider same-sex parents with children as a natural or normal family was so complex a prospect that it required a handbook, a need filled in 1992 by Dabney Miller, longtime Associate Director of the Women’s Law Project, social worker, and adoptive parent, who, assisted by local adoption counselor Abby Ruder, wrote exactly that—a handbook on the rights of lesbian and gay parents in Pennsylvania to help couples negotiate the legal hurdles they faced.  This handbook became an invaluable resource for both parents and advocates, and led to the formation of a working group of lawyers, parents, advocates, and social workers who focused exclusively on making second-parent adoption a reality in Pennsylvania.

Miller recalls that, as the working group at the WLP began to ramp up, “a judge in York County granted a second-parent adoption, pretty quietly, no fanfare but not privately, not secretively.”  Encouraged by this development, members of the WLP’s working group began applying for second-parent adoptions in Philadelphia County and succeeded.  But not all counties in the state were open to this option.  When two families whose petitions for second-parent adoption were denied in other counties decided to appeal, the WLP and working group members stepped in again.  The WLP and the Support Center for Child Advocates provided support in the form of amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs, garnering support from children’s and women’s rights groups, attorneys and bar associations, religious organizations, day care and social service providers, and adoption agencies.  This creative collaboration paid off in August 2002 when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its unanimous opinion in In re R.B.F., 803 A.2d 1195 (Pa. 2002), holding that second-parent adoption is indeed permissible under the Pennsylvania Adoption Act, thus making it available in all counties in the state.

Despite this dramatic success, much remains to be done.  Lesbian and gay couples must be educated about the importance of securing second-parent adoption, and they must be able to afford an attorney to guide them through the process.  Though second-parent adoption is now legal across the commonwealth, there is no uniform process for handling these cases county to county.  Furthermore, second-parent adoption is not legal in every U.S. state, and adoptions recognized here many times will not be recognized elsewhere.  See videos and keep abreast of developments on this subject through the WLP website at www.womenslawproject.org.

Ms. Magazine Reports on the Women’s Law Project and Charlotte Murphy

Molly Duerig, WLP Intern

It’s been forty years since the passage of Title IX, a crucial piece of legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in federally-funded educational programs.  Although we’ve come a long way, cases continue to pop up that prove we still have a good deal of work to do before we obtain gender equity.

Last month, Ms. Magazine featured a story about eleven-year-old Charlotte Murphy of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Charlotte was distraught last year when her public elementary school disbanded the girls’ basketball team for a season due to lack of funding.  Then she learned that the boys’ basketball team would continue to operate as normal that season.

Charlotte was upset about the school’s decision.  However, unlike most people, she chose to speak up and call attention to the school district’s mistake.  She wrote a letter to the Superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools, Dr. Linda Lane, explaining that her school violated Title IX and asking for a meeting to discuss the situation.  Senior Staff Attorney Susan Frietsche of the WLP Pittsburgh office prepared Charlotte for the meeting.  Charlotte’s tenacity and her collaboration with the WLP resulted in a new policy that permits elementary schools in the Pittsburgh Public School District to sponsor a boys’ basketball team only if they also sponsor one for girls. The policy also requires equal treatment for both teams.

Charlotte won her battle and is once again able to play basketball at her school.  This year, there were girls’ basketball teams at 14 elementary schools, up from 3 in previous years.  While Charlotte and her team didn’t win, she was grateful to be given the chance to play just like her male peers.  As Erin Buzuvis, Western New England University law professor and Title IX expert, explained,

If the last 40 years are any indication, Title IX’s success is due to the eternal vigilance of the law’s supporters, who continue to defend it through the political process and in the courts. This vigilance must continue in order for the law to address persistent sex discrimination, and to guard against unwarranted sex segregation.

On the 40^th Anniversary of Title IX, WLP looks forward to future successes for gender equity.  We congratulate Charlotte Murphy for her spirited advocacy!

Visit our website to see a video of Charlotte discussing why she chose to speak up and why she thinks Title IX is so important.

“It’s the Economy, Stupid” – Occupy Pennsylvania and Legislative Priorities

Like most Americans, Pennsylvanians want jobs, fair taxation, and smarter spending… but all they’re getting are ill-advised spending cuts, bickering across party lines and moral grandstanding about women’s healthcare. 

A few weeks ago, the Occupy movement, a grassroots movement for corporate accountability that attracted so much attention on Wall Street, came to Pennsylvania. Local Occupiers set up camp in Philadelphia in the first week of October, and in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg on October 16th.

 These Occupations have sponsored a broad range of activities from civil disobedience in Philadelphia, to children’s story hours, community art projects and anti-police violence demonstrations in Pittsburgh, to a Halloween party and protest parade this past weekend in Harrisburg. Occupiers are notably politically and intellectually diverse, residing in a tent city where Marxists sleep next door to Ron Paul libertarians, who share donated food and resources with union leaders and die-hard Obama supporters.

In fact, they are so politically diverse that they’ve been widely mocked as disorganized and unable to reach consensus. Critics have publicly asked, “What are these Occupiers so angry about?” These charts speak to the varied interests of the demonstrations’ participants.

The Occupiers are a diverse group, and they don’t all want to end the Federal Reserve or elect the Green Party. But the demands and grievances they do share resonate with many Americans; according to a recent Associated Press poll, over one-third of Americans support the Occupy movement.

According to The Huffington Post:

The protesters cite the economic crisis as a key reason for their unhappiness. The unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent nationally. Many homeowners owe more than their homes are worth. Foreclosures are rampant. And many young people – the key demographic of the protesters – can’t find jobs or live on their own.

The most consistent key factor in all this anger – repeated twice in the above quotation – is unemployment. Jobs. People who had jobs lost them; people looking for jobs can’t find them; people who have jobs are dealing with cuts in their hours, pay, and benefits that make it harder to support themselves on those jobs. People in bad job situations can’t leave their jobs because they wouldn’t be able to find another source of income. All this job anxiety makes people’s lives uncertain, and that uncertainty is causing anger, frustration, and restlessness among American citizens.

You’d imagine that lawmaking officials in our state, wanting to get re-elected, would be scrambling to pass legislation that would create more job opportunities for the 8.2% of the Pennsylvania labor force that was reported out of work in September 2011.

This has not come to pass. In the past year, PA has slashed the budgets for public education (which gives people the work skills they need to get jobs), libraries (which enable people without home internet access to fill out online job applications), and public transportation (which gets people to and from their jobs). This is, of course, to say nothing of the people currently hired by schools, libraries, and bus and train companies who will be laid off as these cuts take effect. 

Pennsylvania’s current policies lay the groundwork for massive, long-term unemployment on a much larger scale than we’re seeing right now – and that’s just what the legislature is doing in its spare time!

In the first six months of 2011, Pennsylvania lawmakers spent a whopping one-third of their voting session days at the Capitol working to restrict access to safe, legal abortion at a time when and one in six children in the state lives in poverty.

Our lawmakers need to check their priorities soon, or Pennsylvania’s children – who are already suffering – will grow up with fewer job opportunities than their parents have right now. Although not everyone is rushing to Occupy the nearest city, most agree with the message that PA’s legislators could serve constituents better by making economic recovery a priority.

Georgia Anti-Sex Trafficking Law a Step in the Right Direction

On July 1, a Georgia bill mandating more compassionate treatment of victims of sex trafficking and harsher punishments for perpetrators will officially become law.  The law will increase the penalty for sex trafficking to up to 20 years in prison for those trafficking adults and up to 50 years for those trafficking minors. The law will make it so survivors of sex trafficking who are engaged in a legal proceeding will be treated “as victims, not criminals, by offering them recovery under the state crime victims fund and an affirmative defense when coming forward.”

The new law aims to help protect adult as well as child survivors of sex trafficking but focuses on survivors who are minors, dictating “a 25-year minimum prison sentence for coercing sex from anyone under 18.”

The law hopefully represents a growing recognition of the need to end domestic sex trafficking, an issue that has not received a lot of support in the past compared to sex trafficking in other parts of the world.

There’s support for “girls in India or Thailand, girls from fractured families, who have endured abuse, who are very vulnerable, who have been lured or kidnapped into being trafficked for sex,” says [the founder of Rebecca Project for Human Rights Malika Saada] Saar. “But girls from those same situations from American circumstances are not recognized as victims; they are cast down as bad girls making bad decisions.”

Unfortunately, the problem of sex trafficking minors in the United States is a growing one. This is possibly due to an increasing market demand “fueled in part by the larger society’s hypersexualization of young girls. ‘The commercial sex industry has ceased to be an industry of adults,’ says Saar. ‘It’s about buying girls. You talk to any pimp. He wants young girls; young girls make more money for him. Demand that exists is for very young girls.’”

The law received praise from anti- sex trafficking advocates such as Renee Kempton, the Atlanta ambassador for Stop Child Trafficking Now (SCTN).  She says she “like[s] a lot about the bill,” especially

the fact that the victims can claim an affirmative defense when they come forward…A lot of girls are scared to come forward and this creates a safe haven for them to do so. This also helps deter the Johns and pimps because they all thrive on fear. They get her to think she has no one but him. The way this law is written, it provides a safe place for girls to share information with authorities because they are usually controlled by fear.

Kempton said “the Governor’s Officer of Children and Families issued a report which estimated that 490 adolescent girls get trafficked in the state of Georgia per month, “ and though the exact number is unknown, the U.S. government estimates “thousands of men, women, and children are trafficked to the United States for the purposes of sexual and labor exploitation.” Given the upsetting number of victims of sex trafficking in the U.S., Georgia’s new law may be considered a small step in the right direction. To find out about Pennsylvania legislation to help end sex trafficking in our state and to find out how you can take action, click here. To learn about a proposed bill that would to help eradicate sex-trafficking in Pittsburgh specifically, click here.

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to Celebrate LGBT Pride Month This Weekend

On Sunday June 12^th Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will host their respective annual Pride parades and festivals. Philadelphia’s Pride Parade begins at 13^th and Locust at noon, ending at Penn’s lLanding where the festival will last until 6 PM. Pittsburgh’s Pride Awareness March begins at noon on Sunday followed by PrideFest on Liberty Avenue where the festival will continue until 6pm, the end of a five-day celebration of LGBT Pride.

Performers at Philadelphia’s events include Aisha Tyler and Dawn Robinson. Patti LaBelle will be a featured artist in Pittsburgh, performing at the Saturday evening “Pride in the Streets” event. You can find more information on Philadelphia’s events here and on Pittsburgh’s here.

Pennsylvania’s celebrations are part of LGBT Pride month. As we have written  before,  June has been a time of LGBT pride and activism since the Stonewall Riots of 1969 when customers of a LGBT-friendly bar fought back against police who were raiding the establishment. However, it was not until 2000 that June was officially recognized as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” This year, President Obama declared June LGBT Pride Month, as he did in 2010.

During this time of celebration it is important to remember the gains that have been made towards equality for all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation and gender as well as the work that is still left to be done. Last year Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed and recently Vermont ‘s governor signed into law a bill which “explicitly specifies that surgery is not required in order to obtain a new birth certificate,” a gain for the transgendered community. However, 20% of homeless youth are LGBT in an overall youth population that is only 10% LGBT and next year a proposed constitutional amendment will appear on Minnesota’s state ballot which would not only affirm the current ban on same-sex marriage but would prevent any future legalization.

Please support Pride events in your area and let us know about more LGBT victories and work that needs to be done to achieve equality in comments.

Standing Firm Focuses on Partner Violence in the Workplace

A new southwestern Pennsylvania program, Standing Firm, is bringing awareness to the problem of partner violence and its effects on business. Standing Firm’s mission is to “engage a critical mass of employers in Southwestern PA in addressing partner violence as a workplace and workforce issue.”

Data shows that partner violence incurs high costs medical care for employers along with the ever-present safety concerns:

The health related costs to employers of rape; physical assault, stalking, and homicide by intimate partners exceed 5.8 billion each year. Also, violence against women costs companies $727.8 million annually due to lost productivity.

These are the important issues Standing Firm seeks to address. They provide various resources for employers and victims. These resources include things such as templates for constructing office policies, and extensive information on procedures involving partner violence. In addition, they provide extensive contact to outside groups who have worked on the issue of intimate partner violence. It’s free and easy for companies and organizations to join, and opens the door for even more resources. Thanks Standing Firm, and keep up the good work!

Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney’s Office Opens New Civil Rights Section as Sex Discrimination Suit Filed Against Local Firm

On Tuesday, December 7, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh launched a civil rights section. According to the Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh’s is the newest of about a dozen federal prosecution offices nationwide to open a section dedicated exclusively to civil rights cases. The section will work in the western district of Pennsylvania.

Representatives from various civil rights-oriented groups attended a closed-door meeting with U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton regarding the new section. They brought with them a laundry list of issues they want to see addressed by the committee, with concerns ranging from local housing discrimination and police abuses to violence against women, hate crimes, and human trafficking.

Also on the list is enforcement action against companies that underpay women, a point of contention that made Pittsburgh headlines earlier this month when the Post-Gazette reported that a female attorney is suing Reed Smith, the city’s second-largest law firm, alleging gender inequality at the firm. A lawsuit filed last week in federal court alleges that Reed Smith’s female employees are rarely promoted and sexual involvement with male bosses is a major factor in possible advancement.

JoEllen Dillon, the plaintiff in the case, also claims that fair pay has been an issue since she started working for Reed Smith in 2002. She moved from her previous firm with two male partners, and both were offered $50,000 more per year than her. The firm increased her salary when the men rebuffed the initial pay disparity – a move that, while considerate, further illustrates the imbalance of power amongst genders at the firm.

Large firms such as Reed Smith have become notorious for discrepancies that violate the Equal Pay Act. According to researchers at Temple University and the University of Texas, there are 200 large law firms where women are less likely to be promoted from associate to partner and earn less even if they receive a promotion. The wage gap can be observed across the board though, and is not exclusive to large firms where millions of dollars of business are being brought in annually, writes Rich Lord of the Post-Gazette:

A salary study by the National Law Journal, which focused on small and midsize law firms, found that male associates made $9,000 more than women, male nonequity partners outstripped their female colleagues by $34,000, and among full partners, the pay gap was $88,000 a year.

Those numbers don’t factor in sexual harassment or engagement in sexual relations as a means of salary control, either. After Dillon was not awarded the promotion to equity partner (meaning she would share in the company’s profits), she took a few months off after giving birth to twins. Her salary was actually decreased by half during this time, she says, and then reduced by another $100,000 just a few months later. Her complaint claims that, in 2007, the firm had 49 male equity partners in Pittsburgh, but only seven female equity partners.  The men earned an average of $129,000 more per year than the women.

These claims, if they are true, are frustrating not only for the blatant mistreatment of female employees, but for the specific way Reed Smith management used sexual bargaining to determine the eligibility of female workers, encouraging them to compete for promotions in a way that is completely exploitative and irrelevant to their ability as attorneys.

Despite laws protecting their employment rights, women are still very obviously drawing the short straw when it comes to fair pay and gender equality in the workplace. We’ll keep you updated on both the Reed Smith case and the civil rights section of the U.S. Attorney’s office as time goes on.

March on Allegheny County Jail Tomorrow for Amy Lynn Gillespie

Amy Lynn Gillespie, 27, died on January 13, 2010. Ms. Gillespie was incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail and at the time of her death, was 18 weeks pregnant. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that she was in jail for “violating the terms of her work release by becoming pregnant.” At the end of December, she complained to jail officials of difficulty breathing and discharge from her lungs. According to a complaint filed in federal court last week, she was denied diagnostic tests and treated for viral influenza. But her condition worsened and she was taken to UPMC Mercy hospital on January 1, where she was diagnosed with bacterial influenza. The infection was too advanced to be treated with antibiotics and she died 12 days later.

Her family is now suing the Allegheny County Jail in U.S. District Court.

La’Tasha Mayes of New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice, said that Ms. Gillespie’s treatment was “clearly a reproductive injustice, and it’s a human rights violation.” Tomorrow, NVP is organizing a march to the Allegheny County Jail to speak out in honor of Ms. Gillespie. It begins at noon at Fifth Avenue and Grant Street. You can find more details about the march here.

June is LGBT Pride Month

This month, pride parades are occurring throughout the United States in honor of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. On June 13^th in Philadelphia, floats made their way to Penn’s Landing where retailers, community groups, and entertainers awaited them. On the same day, Pittsburgh had their annual Pride Awareness March. Over one hundred organizations and groups participated.

Pride marches occur in June in remembrance of the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. In 1969, New York City allowed bars to refuse service to LGBT customers. In establishments where members of the LGBT community were served, they were not allowed to touch members of the same sex when they danced. Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street offered a reprieve from discrimination for a three dollar cover charge.

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the NYPD First District raided the bar. Those inside fought back. The rebellion lasted for six days as more LGBT youth joined the fight.

Gay rights groups such as the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis had been active before the riots. But June 1969 marked a turning point when the gay liberation movement became more modern and aggressive.

On July 4, 1969, the Mattachine Society, Frank Kameny, Craig Rodwell and others protested in Philadelphia in what they called the “Annual Reminder.” The protest was calm and peaceful, but Rodwell thought the placid “Annual Reminder” was not enough. He organized the first U.S. gay pride parade called “Christopher Street Liberation Day” that took place on June 28, 1970. The parade covered fifty-one blocks.

Since then, June has been considered Gay Pride Month. And in 2000, it was officially recognized by President Clinton, who named it “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” President Obama made the month’s name more inclusive on May 28^th of this year, naming June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

In June, it is important not only to celebrate pride with large-scale parades but also to reflect on how far the LGBT rights movement has come since 1969 and how far it still has to go. Refusing to serve a gay person is now considered discrimination in many places and same-sex couples may touch each other as they dance. However, legal marriage is still impossible for gay couples in most states, including Pennsylvania. This results not only in excluding gay couples from one of society’s major cultural institutions, but also an increased financial burden on the couple, and depending on the state laws, increased difficulty with adoption and the legal fees associated with custody. Further, access to health care coverage can be impeded for domestic partners, while married couples easily share insurance policies. There are numerous ways in which the gay community is still disadvantaged (including legally, socially, and financially) and there is a lot of work to be done, though it is certainly inspiring to be reminded of how much work has been accomplished by the early activists.