Reproductive Rights Law & Justice 2017 COURSE SURVEY 2 REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS LAW & JUSTICE / 2017 COURSE SURVEY Contents INTRODUCTION 3 METHODOLOGY 4 Survey Process for 2017 4 Categorization 4 RESULTS 5 Number of Schools 5 Number of States 6 Increase in Course Offerings 6 New Courses 7 If/When/How Advocacy 8 APPENDIX: RRLJ COURSES AT LAW SCHOOLS 2003-2018 11 3 REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS LAW & JUSTICE / 2017 COURSE SURVEY INTRODUCTION If/When/How is a national nonprofit that trains, networks, and mobilizes law students and legal professionals to work within and beyond the legal system to champion reproductive justice. If/When/How believes that reproductive justice will exist when all people have the ability to decide if, when, and how to create and sustain families with dignity, free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. Achieving reproductive justice requires a critical transformation of the legal system, from an institution that often perpetuates oppression to one that realizes justice.1 From our own experiences and from our members we know that most formal legal education devotes little time to reproductive rights doctrine; lacks an intersectional analysis; or may even dismiss abortion jurisprudence as an erroneous feat of judicial activism bound to be overturned. These deficiencies send a misleading message to the current generation of law students that reproductive rights law is neither a legitimate field of study nor a worthwhile area of practice. If/When/How wants to counter this message. From its early days, If/When/How has supported law student campaigns for new reproductive rights law and justice (RRLJ) courses, believing such efforts constitute important steps in a larger movement toward the de- marginalization of reproductive rights law within the legal academy. As we institutionalized our curriculum advocacy programming through the Course Campaign Working Group and counted new course victories spearheaded by students, our members and supporters repeatedly asked for our assessment of the landscape of reproductive rights law within legal education. To understand the big picture, we launched the Reproductive Rights Law & Justice Course Survey in 2009 to collect information about RRLJ course offerings at all American Bar Association (ABA) - approved law schools since If/When/How’s founding in 2003. The results of the first survey, completed in 2010, confirmed much of what we already knew about the limited opportunities law students have to study reproductive rights law as part of their legal training. We found that from 2003 to 2010, less than one out of every five (18%) law schools surveyed had ever offered a reproductive rights- related course. However, the number of RRLJ courses offered at law schools has increased year by year, in part due to advocacy by If/When/How, and we remain optimistic that it will continue to do so in the future. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election and the renewed efforts by elected officials to curtail reproductive rights and health care access, issues pertaining to reproductive rights and justice continue to take center stage in the national conversation. These circumstances spotlight the importance of RRLJ courses to train the new generation of legal practitioners and thought leaders on reproductive rights and justice issues so that they can meaningfully engage with these topics in the public square. If/When/How is excited to publish the 2017 Course Survey, offering the latest data and analysis on RRLJ courses in U.S. law schools and serving both to support course campaigns and to encourage dialogue among professors, students, administrators, and practitioners. The Course Survey captures the results of sustained efforts by If/When/How staff, students, and alumni, as well as academic allies, to grow curricular offerings and expose law students to important reproductive rights and justice issues. 1 The terms “reproductive rights” and “reproductive justice” are rooted in different analyses and strategies. The reproductive rights framework is a legal model that serves to protect an individual’s right to reproductive decision-making. The reproductive justice framework employs a broader, intersectional analysis that emphasizes the ways that race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and immigration status can affect a person or community’s reproductive lives. For more information, see Forward Together, “A New Vision for Advancing Our Movement for Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice” (2005), http://forwardtogether.org/assets/docs/ACRJ-A-New-Vision.pdf. Copyright ©2017 If/When/How. All rights reserved. 4 REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS LAW & JUSTICE / 2017 COURSE SURVEY METHODOLOGY SURVEY PROCESS FOR 2017 Data compilation for the course survey concluded in October 2017. The surveyed period includes the 2016-17 and 2017-18 academic years.2 If/When/How reviewed online course information for the 201 American Bar Association (ABA) -approved law schools in the U.S. that confer Juris Doctor (J.D.) degrees3 and contacted instructors and law school registrars to obtain additional information not available from law school websites. If/When/How made every effort to gather accurate course information, but recognizes that inaccuracies may remain. We welcome corrections to the information contained in this report.4 CATEGORIZATION The philosophy and substance of law school courses often vary according to the priorities and preferences of individual instructors. Although reproductive justice topics may appear on syllabi in a number of different law school classes, from family law to bioethics to criminal procedure, we chose to focus specifically on courses dedicated to teaching reproductive rights law and justice (RRLJ) concepts. There are several reasons for this focus. If/When/How believes in the value of having independent, RRLJ-focused course offerings because it signals that this area of law is legitimate and worthy of study. We applaud professors who thoughtfully incorporate reproductive justice-related topics into a variety of courses; however, one or two class sessions focusing on reproductive rights and justice throughout an entire law school career is insufficient for meaningful engagement with the material. And while some professors may dedicate a greater proportion of time to reproductive rights and justice topics in their health law, family law, or poverty law courses, it would be impossible to identify these particular courses for inclusion in the survey without carefully examining each individual course syllabus—a task that currently exceeds If/When/How’s capacity. If/When/How largely relied on the language of the course title and description to determine whether a course should be counted in the survey, and when possible, examined the syllabus (when available) or communicated with the instructor when course names appeared ambiguous. Eligible courses include a combination of the following words or phrases: reproduction, reproductive law and policy, reproductive rights, reproductive justice, women’s health, abortion, sexual rights, pregnancy, and baby-making. We refer to the courses that fit these criteria as RRLJ courses. The constraints also guide our decision to exclude most “gender/sexuality and the law” courses and sex discrimination courses from the results of the survey. While these courses undoubtedly address important concerns about the regulation of bodies, gender, and sexuality in our society—issues that have shaped reproductive rights jurisprudence and continue to influence law and policy in this area—they generally cover a much more limited set of RRLJ issues. By excluding these types of courses, it is possible we will miss certain classes that are taught from a sustained reproductive justice perspective, but we anticipate such courses constitute a small number. Finally, we have also excluded most assisted reproductive technology (ART) and bioethics courses from the survey, unless we were able to determine that they included sufficient RRLJ content (via syllabus or communication with the instructor). Although the use and regulation of ART is an important reproductive justice issue, these courses tend to include lighter coverage of the law and policies governing reproductive rights and may lack an intersectional approach. Many ART and bioethics courses are taught by faculty with specialized backgrounds in bioethics and 2 The surveyed period covers the Fall 2016, Winter 2016, Spring 2017, Summer 2017, Fall 2017, Winter 2017, and Spring 2018 terms; these terms may be semesters or quarters, depending on the law school. At the time of the report, course data for Winter 2017 and Spring 2018 was only partially available for some schools. 3 ABA-Approved Law Schools, available at https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/aba_approved_law_schools.html. We did not survey law schools that have ABA provisional approval or the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) School. 4 All corrections and relevant additional information may be emailed to [email protected]. Copyright ©2017 If/When/How. All rights reserved. 5 REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS LAW & JUSTICE / 2017 COURSE SURVEY philosophy, rather than in constitutional law, human rights, or critical theory. This is certainly a valuable perspective for students grappling with various legal and moral issues raised by ART, and we applaud new courses in this area— including those secured through the efforts of the If/When/How Course Campaigns—but we believe that such courses should not preclude or supplant dedicated