In a year when we’ve seen states throughout the South and Midwest move to ban abortion and restrict access to reproductive health, California could soon cement its reputation as a leader in reproductive freedom. This past week, the state legislature passed SB 24 to ensure that medication abortion is available to college students in public universities.

Jessy Rosales, a UC student, struggled with paying for care and dealing with the complexities of insurance plans when she needed an abortion. She had to go off campus to three different providers, which took time away from class, work, and other responsibilities. Jessy’s grades slipped as she tried to navigate the obstacles to getting an abortion. Such financial, logistical, and emotional tolls are completely unnecessary.

Every month, approximately 500 students at the UC and CSU campuses seek the abortion pill at off-site health care facilities. On average, a student seeking abortion in California will have to wait one week for the next available appointment at the facility closest to their campus — and that’s assuming they can make it to the appointment. More than half of all students in UC and CSU universities are low-income and over two-thirds of UC students and one-third of CSU students do not have a car, so cost and transportation are critical barriers for many. Students of color, low-income students, first-generation college students, and students who are already parents or supporting their families are particularly harmed by barriers to accessing comprehensive reproductive care.

State Sen. Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) authored the groundbreaking bill to require every University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) campus to provide the abortion pill — a safe and effective method to end a pregnancy — at student health centers. The law would eliminate barriers currently faced by students who struggle to travel off campus to obtain an abortion, which results in unnecessary hardship and delay. California’s effort to improve access to abortion care is a bright point in a national landscape that has seen access to abortion decrease significantly. In the first nine months of 2019 alone, seven states banned all or most abortions. And the Supreme Court is likely to further gut abortion rights, even if it doesn’t immediately overturn Roe v. Wade.

Student health centers already provide a range of reproductive health services including testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy tests, pregnancy options counseling, and contraception. It just makes sense that the abortion pill — safe, effective, and simple to provide — should be among the services offered.

Research shows that student health centers are well equipped to offer the abortion pill, and private funders have come forward to pay the costs of implementation and training.

In addition, students and allies from across the state have built a groundswell of support for SB 24. Six in 10 Californians support providing the full range of reproductive health care including the abortion pill, including majorities of every age bracket. The ACLU of California is proud to be one of seven organizational sponsors of SB 24, which has received support from over 130 organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other medical groups; reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations; and community groups from every part of the state. The Los Angeles Times editorial board came out in support of the measure, calling it a “sensible and smart addition to the healthcare services.”

Last year, California narrowly missed a chance to make history and support its students when a similar bill (SB 320) was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. At that time, now-Governor Gavin Newsom said he supported the bill. Today, SB 24 sits on his desk awaiting his signature.

The future of abortion rights in the U.S. may be uncertain, but California is poised to lead the nation in expanding access. SB 24 is a testament to California’s spirit of innovation, the drive of our young people, and our commitment to a better future. It sets a new standard for campus care that we can all be proud of.

Phyllida Burlingame, ACLU of Northern California
& Jennifer Dalven, Reproductive Freedom Project

If you own a credit card or a bank account, use a ride-sharing service, made an online purchase, or work in corporate America, chances are you have signed a forced arbitration agreement: a promise that, if any disputes arise between you and your employer or the business, you won’t sue. Hidden in the fine-print of a contract you may not even remember signing is language that says you’ve agreed, in advance, to give up your right go to court.

But today, the House of Representatives passed the FAIR Act, legislation that would prohibit the use of forced arbitration in employment discrimination and consumer contract cases. In the wake of #MeToo, the practice is drawing increasing criticism—making the FAIR Act one of the most important reforms we can make to ensure workplace equality.

Little known to consumers and employees, the use of this sneaky practice is on the rise—it has doubled in scope between the 1990s, and currently impacts more than 60 million workers. These kinds of agreements are prevalent in female dominated industries – 57.6 percent of female workers are subject to the practice – as well as in low-wage fields and industries dominated by women of color.  One estimate shows that by 2024, forced arbitration will be in place in over 80% of workplaces, covering more than 85 million workers.

Forced arbitration has had the effect of slamming the courthouse doors in the face of victims of workplace harassment and discrimination, and is a huge boon to employers. By sneaking forced arbitration into contracts, employers and corporations are ensuring that even if you did notice what you signed, and have the foresight to imagine what you would prefer to do if a dispute were to arise in the future, you have very little choice but to sign.

Studies have shown that employees are less likely to pursue discrimination cases in arbitration, and that when they do, they are less likely to win and their monetary awards far lower than they would be in court. For example, one report showed that in 30 years, only 17 women on Wall Street had won sexual harassment claims in industry arbitration.  The  widespread use of forced arbitration agreements is one major reason that many valid sexual harassment cases, and other discrimination cases, never see the light of day — and repeat offenders are not held to account.

Companies claim that this method is more efficient and less costly than court proceedings. That can be true in some cases – and there is no doubt that it should remain an option, particularly if both parties agree to use it after a dispute has actually arisen.

But what they don’t tell you is that arbitration also lacks critical procedural safeguards — for example, permitting access to evidence from the other side that can be the key to proving your claims – particularly in discrimination cases, which often hinge on how the employer has treated other employees. The arbitrators may or may not be lawyers, and may or may not be trained in resolving discrimination cases. Results are secret, helping companies evade public accountability. The outcome is binding, and there is generally no right to an appeal.

How did we get into this mess? Congress initially blessed arbitration agreements as a tool to settle disputes between corporations, and passed a law favoring their enforcement. But a series of Supreme Court cases has since permitted the practice to spread unchecked, and to extinguish the right to go to court in a host of contexts it was never intended to reach. These include not only employment discrimination cases, but also cases brought by rideshare passengers who allege they were raped by inadequately vetted drivers; families whose loved ones were abused or neglected in residential care centers; customers who bought furniture online and discovered it was infested with bedbugs, and, most recently, in the context of class actions to improve working conditions. These cases are a far cry from what was originally intended.

But the FAIR Act could finally allow workers, consumers, and others to choose how they wanted to pursue their dispute.  This bill could solve one of the biggest problems most of us never knew we had (until it’s too late).

Forced arbitration agreements have to go.  The House has taken the first important step but our fight has just begun – the bill has little chance of passing the Senate, unless each of us takes steps to let them know how we feel about being snookered into these agreements. It’s past time to pry the courthouse doors back open again – and make antidiscrimination laws more than an empty promise.

Galen Sherwin, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project
& Vania Leveille, Senior Legislative Counsel

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Supreme Court will address a question that would have been unthinkable to ask even until quite recently: Can a state be forced to underwrite religious education with taxpayer dollars? Although the court has previously allowed the government to adopt school-voucher programs that provide indirect government aid to religious schools, it has never suggested that the U.S. Constitution somehow requires them to do so — and certainly not in the face of state constitutional rules barring taxpayer funding of religious education. Yet that is essentially what the petitioners are seeking in Espinoza, the latest in a disturbing line of cases attacking the very foundations of the separation of church and state.

At issue in Espinoza is a voucher-type program in Montana designed to divert millions in government dollars to private schools, the overwhelming majority of which are religiously affiliated. The program, enacted in 2015, allows taxpayers to receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits for donations to Student Scholarship Organizations, which then award scholarships to students attending private elementary and secondary schools. In other words, if a taxpayer owes the state, say, $100 in taxes, she can decide instead to send that money directly to an SSO, which will then spend it on private-school scholarships. In practice, the tax-credit program has served its unmistakable goal of funneling government dollars to religious education: The only SSO operating in the state supports 13 private schools, 12 of which are religiously affiliated, and over 94 percent of program scholarships have gone to finance religious education.

Such religious funding, even though indirect, violates the Montana constitution, which includes heightened protections against government-funded religion. The state constitution’s “no-aid provision,” adopted to promote the separation of church and state and to ensure continued taxpayer support for public schools in Montana, expressly prohibits the government from providing “direct or indirect” aid for religious education. In light of the no-aid provision, the Montana Department of Revenue promulgated a rule that would bar SSO scholarships from funding religious education and training at private religious schools. Parents of students attending such schools challenged the rule in court, claiming that it unconstitutionally discriminated against them by excluding religious schools from the tax-credit program. Recognizing the clear conflict with the state’s no-aid provision, the Montana Supreme Court struck down the entire program, abolishing tax-credit funding for all private schools in the state, whether religious or not.

Read the rest of this piece on SCOTUSblog.

Daniel Mach, Director, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief