Equal Rights Advocates
August 2011 Newsletter
Litigation News
Victory for Title IX in Mansourian v. Regents of University of California
ERA and its co-counsel from the Sturdevant Law Firm, Equity Legal and Duckworth Peters Lebowitz Olivier LLP are celebrating a Title IX victory along with clients Arezou Mansourian, Christine Ng, and Lauren Mancuso against UC Davis.
The Plaintiffs filed suit in 2003 when they were removed from the varsity wrestling program at a time when UC Davis was eliminating sports opportunities for women throughout its athletic program. On August 3, after a three-week trial on liability, the United States District Court issued a decision finding that UC Davis violated Title IX by refusing to provide female students with an equal opportunity to participate in intercollegiate athletics while Plaintiffs were students. UC Davis dropped and refused to replace more than 60 intercollegiate sports opportunities for women program-wide while the Plaintiffs were students; enough to field several women’s sports teams.
Title IX of the Education Amendments was passed nearly 40 years ago to ensure that young women and men across the country have equal educational opportunities, including in athletics. ERA’s Managing Attorney, Noreen Farrell, the lead trial attorney, remarked: “The Court made clear that if a school contends it is expanding athletic opportunities for women to comply with Title IX, it must prove expansion. Excuses do not cut it. Generations of young women depend on schools making gender equity a priority.”
Plaintiff Christine Ng stated: “We brought this case nearly a decade ago to ensure that all women at UC Davis had a fair chance to play sports. I am proud to be part of a case that led to important changes at UC Davis that did just that.”
- Learn about the related class action suit that led to the settlement that equalized athletic participation rates for men and women at UC Davis
- Read “Student-Athletes Benefit from Title IX Women in Sports Equity Settlement Fund,” a monetary fund to support developing women athletes
- Follow Title IX news updates on our Facebook page!
ERA Successfully Resolves Case on Behalf of Pregnant Worker
ERA has successfully resolved a case on behalf of Nikole*, who called ERA’s A&C Line after she requested a pregnancy accommodation at work and her employer sent her home.
Staff attorney Jamie Dolkas took on Nikole’s case. She immediately began contacting the company to try to get Nikole back to work with a proper accommodation pursuant to California law, which not only prohibits pregnancy discrimination like federal law, but goes further as one of the handful of states to require employers to provide reasonable accommodations to allow pregnant workers to continue working.
The company was unresponsive. With ERA’s help, Nikole filed a complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The parties reached a confidential settlement agreement in May 2011, three months after Nikole gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
*Complete names have been omitted for privacy
These litigation efforts are highlights of ERA's campaigns focusing on Education Equity, Marginalized Women Workers and Working Families.
Support ERA in these efforts today!
National Summit on Paid Sick Days and Paid Family Leave
As part of ERA's work with the California Work & Family Coalition, last month Staff Attorney Monali Sheth attended the National Summit on Paid Sick Days and Paid Family Leave in Washington, D.C., which was sponsored by the National Partnership for Women & Families and Family Values @ Work.
Over 200 attorneys, policy makers, worker representatives, campaign leaders, and business owners nationwide came together to share best practices and learn from one another’s campaigns on paid sick days legislation and paid family leave programs. Attendees also lobbied their Congress members to co-sponsor the Healthy Families Act, which includes the right to paid sick days, and to vote in favor of a fund in the Department of Labor's budget, which would be dedicated to the implementation of and education and outreach for state paid family leave programs.
Class Actions: Dead or Alive?
The Future of Class Action Litigation
in the Wake of Recent Supreme Court Decisions
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Altshuler Berzon
177 Post Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94108
Please join this lunch hour brown bag panel discussion about the future of class actions after the recent Supreme Court decisions in Dukes v. Wal-Mart and AT&T Mobility v. Concepción
Sponsored by:
Lewis Feinberg Lee Renaker & Jackson P.C., Equal Rights Advocates, American Constitution Society, Alliance for Justice, and The Impact Fund
Check our website for more details closer to the event date
ERA Welcomes NYU Women's Rights Fellow Mia Munro
Mia is a 2011 graduate of New York University School of Law. She spent her summers in San Francisco and Honolulu working on impact litigation and providing direct services for individuals and communities seeking to vindicate their employment, education, housing, and foster care rights.
As Co-Director of NYU Law's Suspension Representation Project, Mia represented primarily single women of color who contested their children's public school suspensions at administrative hearings. She also participated in a civil rights clinic and served as an editor for the Review of Law and Social Change. While at ERA, Mia will be focusing her efforts on our Marginalized Women Workers and Working Families Campaigns.
