Womxn + Laws

While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has expanded access to healthcare for millions of Americans since its passage in 2010, it's also continued to fundamentally challenge how we think about health equity in America - and how we provide reliable, accessible healthcare for all Americans while mitigating gender, racial, and socioeconomic biases that are intrinsic to the system. In this episode, we explore how the ACA has helped provide insurance coverage for many of our most vulnerable citizens - and take a closer look at who’s still left behind.

Title X is a federal family planning program that was created in 1970 to provide comprehensive and confidential family planning services and preventive health services. helping low-income, and low-access people get the comprehensive family planning services they need. Today, it provides grants to over 3500 healthcare providers in over 75% of counties across the U.S. This week, we learn about how Title X came to be, why it’s so important for millions of Americans today, and the barrier’s we’re up against in today’s landscape. For a full list of resources about this law, please visit www.womxnandlaws.com.

Continuing our tour of foundational legislation and impacts on womxn, our second episode breaks down Title IX (nine, for you roman numeral noobs). For many of us, when we think of Title IX, we think about women and college sports. But, the law is much broader than that. Title IX is a Federal civil rights law passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 and protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive Federal financial assistance.This week, we are joined by Regina D. Curran, a university Title IX coordinator, whose whole job is to make sure her university stays in compliance with the law by providing students with the support they need from a Title IX perspective. Regina walks us through Title IX, how implementation has changed over time, the relatively newer implications for campus sexual assault, and how she helps students in her role as a Title IX coordinator.

For our first-ever episode of Womxn + Laws, we bring you a foundational piece of legislation that changed the way federally funded institutions report out on campus crimes - including sexual assault and sexual harassment. The Clery Act requires campuses to warn their community members about dangerous activity, and stay transparent about what they’re doing to address and prevent crime on campus.This week, we’re joined by Abigail Boyer and Laura Egan from The Clery Center, a nonprofit that was founded by Connie and Howard Clery to prevent the kinds of campus-based violence that had taken their daughter, Jeanne, from them in 1986. Today, the Clery Center is dedicated to guiding higher ed. institutions to implement effective campus safety measures.