Events
Back to calendarReproductive Rights and Justice Stories: From Roe v. Wade to Young v. UPS
Free and open to the public
Reception to Follow
Young People Welcome: Young people of all ages are welcome at this event. There will be coloring books and crayons available for children.
Attacks on reproductive rights and justice are in the news daily—from the rollback of abortion rights and contraception access to the separation of children from their parents at the border. Come hear renowned legal scholars discuss the movement and litigation stories behind important reproductive rights and justice cases and what we can learn from them in this current political moment.
Panelists will discuss their recently released book Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories and topics ranging from coerced sterilization, abortion, and pregnancy discrimination.
Panelists
Linda Greenhouse, Lecturer at Yale Law School and Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist for her work reporting on the Supreme Court. She is the author of Becoming Justice Blackman and co-author with Prof. Siegel of Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Debate before the Supreme Court’s Ruling.
Reva Siegel, Professor at Yale Law School. Professor Siegel’s writing draws on legal history to explore questions of law and inequality and to analyze how courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution. In addition to Before Roe v. Wade, she is also the author of the law school textbook, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (with Paul Brest, Sanford Levinson, Jack M. Balkin, and Akhil Reed Amar, 2018), and Directions in Sexual Harassment (edited with Catharine A. MacKinnon, 2004).
Kate Shaw, Professor at Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University Professor of Law and the Co-Director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy, where her research and teaching focuses on constitutional law, legislation, administrative law, the Supreme Court, election law, and gender and sexual orientation and the law. During the Obama administration, Prof. Shaw worked at the White House Counsel’s Office as a Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President. She also clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Maya Manian, Visiting Professor at Howard University Law School. Professor Manian’s scholarship investigates the relationship between constitutional law, family law, and health care law, with a particular focus on access to reproductive health care. She previously practiced civil rights litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York and served as a California deputy attorney general.
Respondent
Loretta Ross, one of the founders of the reproductive justice framework and current visiting lecturer at Smith College. An activist-scholar who is widely known and respected in the U.S. and internationally as a leader in the struggle for human rights and reproductive justice, Ross is one of the co-founders of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective in Atlanta, GA, and the author or co-author of several books and numerous articles, including: Radical Reproductive Justice (2017); Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (2017); "The Color of Choice," Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology (2016); and Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice (2004).
Moderator
Jallicia Jolly, Consortium for Faculty Diversity Pre-Doctoral Fellow and Visiting Instructor of American Studies and Black Studies, Amherst College, whose research focuses on the transnational politics of race, gender, sexuality and health throughout the African diaspora.
Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories spans topics including contraception, abortion, pregnancy, and assisted reproductive technologies, telling the stories of these cases using a wide-lens perspective that illuminates the complex ways law is debated and forged―in social movements, in representative government, and in courts. Reading the cases together highlights the lived horizon in which individuals have encountered and struggled with questions of reproductive rights and justice at different eras in our nation’s history―and so reveals the many faces of law and legal change.
This discussion of reproductive rights and justice stories comes at a critical and perhaps pivotal moment for this area of law. The changing composition of the Supreme Court, increased executive and legislative action, and shifting political interests have all pushed issues of reproductive rights and justice to the forefront of contemporary discourse.
Location and Accessibility Information
Goodell Hall is located in the central part of campus, approximately one city block from the UMass Parking Garage (1 Campus Center Way, $1.75/hr). More information: bus schedule, campus map with Goodell Hall and nearby parking indicated.
Goodell Hall is wheelchair accessible. To request additional accommodations, email communications@history.
Sponsors
History, Umass
Five College Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Certificate
Five College Reproductive Politics Faculty Seminar
Major Funders
History, Umass
Lois E. Toko Fund College of Humanities & Fine Arts, Umass
Five College Lecture Fund
Student Affairs and Campus Life, Advocacy, Inclusion and Support Programs, Umass
Co-Sponsors
School of Public Policy, Umass
Health Promotion and Policy, Umass*
Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, Umass
Legal Studies, UMass
Political Science, Umass
Sociology, Umass
Center for Law, Justice and Societies, UMass
Center for Study of Women & Gender, Smith
Gender Studies, Mt. Holyoke College
Politics, Mt. Holyoke College
History, Amherst College
Sexuality, Women’s & Gender Studies, Amherst College
Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, Amherst College
PopDev, Hampshire College
Civil Liberties & Public Policy (CLPP) Program, Hampshire College
ACLU of Massachusetts
Abortion Rights Fund of Western MA
Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund
NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts
*Departmental sponsorship of various types of events does not constitute an endorsement of the views expressed at those events, rather it is an endorsement of the exploration of complex and sometimes difficult topics. Promoting the free exchange of ideas is one of the most important functions of the university. The Department of Health Promotion and Policy is committed to supporting the human rights of all, and to redressing the disproportionate burden of suffering that falls upon poor, disenfranchised and marginalized communities.
