NATIONAL WOMEN’S LAW CENTER
The Center has worked for 40 years to expand, protect, and promote opportunity and advancement for women and girls at every stage of their lives—from education to employment to retirement security, and everything in between.
The Center’s research, analysis, and advocacy take place when legislatures are enacting or amending laws, the executive branch and its agencies are writing regulations or otherwise enforcing laws and policies, and the courts are reviewing actions. The Center also conducts campaigns and public awareness efforts to educate and mobilize the public to press for policy changes to improve women’s lives.
Today, the Center has an experienced staff of about 70 who identify and address the most important issues facing women and their families. Because of the Center’s work, a woman in a downtown office building or an Army tank overseas has more protection against discrimination and more opportunity for advancement than ever before; a high school girl has many more chances to play sports and benefit from courses in math and science; a single mother is more likely to find and be able to afford child care so she can earn a living; and a woman is more likely to have her prescription birth control covered by insurance and less likely to encounter a pharmacy unwilling to provide it. The areas the Center focuses on are described in more detail below, and staff with specific expertise are listed for each issue.
CHILD CARE
The child care needs of American families have increased sharply as women with children continue to enter the paid workforce in growing numbers and as recognition grows about the importance of high-quality early learning experiences to help parents work and to help children get a strong start so they can enter school ready to succeed. The Center works to create and strengthen policies and increase investments that improve the quality, affordability, and accessibility of child care and early education, especially as they affect low-income women and children.
– Helen Blank, Director of Child Care and Early Learning
– Amy Matsui, Senior Counsel
– Karen Schulman, Senior Policy Analyst
EDUCATION
Far too many students across the country do not receive an equal chance at a high-quality education that prepares them to be college- or career-ready, and young women, specifically women of color, continue to be denied equal opportunities in many important educational programs. The Center’s Education program fights for strong enforcement of Title IX and promotes programs that remove barriers to girls’ educational opportunities. The Center’s work includes improving graduation rates for girls and addressing the needs of young women who are most at risk of failing to meet their educational goals, including pregnant and parenting students; bringing groundbreaking lawsuits and undertaking other advocacy efforts to enforce Title IX’s promise of equal opportunity in education, including by leveling the playing field for girls in sports; ensuring that students have legal protections against sexual harassment; strengthening enforcement of anti-discrimination laws; fighting for strong affirmative action policies that take race and gender into account to remedy discrimination and promote diversity in education; and ensuring adequate funding for education at all levels.
– Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment
– Neena Chaudhry, Senior Counsel and Director of Equal Opportunities in Athletics
– Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Counsel and Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Students
– Liz Watson, Senior Advisor
EMPLOYMENT
Women continue to face significant limitations on their opportunities at work. The Center’s Employment program works to eliminate these barriers by fighting for equal opportunities and fair treatment for women in all aspects of their employment. The Center’s work includes closing the wage gap and ensuring women are paid fairly; promoting efforts to ensure that pregnant workers who need reasonable accommodations on the job receive them; expanding opportunities for women in non-traditional fields and at the highest levels of their professions; prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; promoting the creation and preservation of valuable equal opportunity programs in the workplace; improving the quality of jobs for low-wage working women; and improving opportunities for women in the military.
– Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment
– Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel
– Neena Chaudhry, Senior Counsel and Director of Equal Opportunities in Athletics
– Liz Watson, Senior Advisor
HEALTH
The Center is fighting to guarantee accessible, comprehensive health coverage for women and families and to promote policies that advance and protect women’s health on the federal and state levels. Women have an enormous stake in our nation’s health care system. Although the new Affordable Care Act made important gains for women’s health coverage and health care, women’s health is still under attack. The Center’s work includes protecting and implementing the Affordable Care Act, including the non-discrimination provisions, the Medicaid eligibility expansion, insurance market reforms and coverage improvements related to women’s health care needs. Part of the Center’s work on coverage improvements includes improving women’s coverage for maternity care and preventive services, access to birth control, critical health screenings, and well-woman visits without copayments. The Center works with state partners to ensure women benefit from the promise of the Affordable Care Act and to otherwise improve access to health care through policy analysis and public education.
– Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights
– Karen Davenport, Director of Health Policy
– Dania Palanker, Senior Health Policy Advisor
– Anna Benyo, Senior Health Policy Analyst
– Danielle Garrett, Health Policy Analyst
– Mara Gandal-Powers, Counsel
POVERTY AND INCOME SUPPORTS
Women are at greater risk of poverty than men at all stages of their lives because of ongoing employment discrimination and greater responsibilities for unpaid caregiving. The Center works to strengthen income and work support programs for economically vulnerable women, including single mothers, women of color, and older women. Current Center efforts include protecting and improving family tax credits that can boost the earnings of low-wage workers and help parents meet child care and other expenses; strengthening child support enforcement, unemployment insurance, and other family support programs that help women escape poverty and make ends meet; and raising the minimum wage, including for tipped workers.
– Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
– Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel and Director of Government Relations
– Amy Matsui, Senior Counsel
– Kate Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
– Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND HEALTH
Access to comprehensive and affordable reproductive health care is an essential part of basic health care for women. The Center works to ensure that women have access to the full range of reproductive health services – including affordable contraceptive care and other preventive health services and abortion care – to help protect their health and improve their lives. In addition, the Center’s work includes protecting women’s access to reproductive health care from those who attempt to undermine it, including those who refuse to provide or cover it.
– Judy Waxman, Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights
– Sharon Levin, Director of Federal Reproductive Health Policy
– Gretchen Borchelt, Senior Counsel and Director of State Reproductive Health Policy
– Leila Abolfazli, Senior Counsel
– Kelli Garcia, Senior Counsel
SOCIAL SECURITY AND RETIREMENT
Achieving a secure retirement is especially challenging for women because they generally earn less over their lifetimes, reach retirement with fewer resources, and have to stretch those resources over longer lifespans. The Center works to protect and strengthen Social Security, the foundation of economic security for older women, and to improve women’s access to employer-based retirement plans and other sources of retirement income.
– Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
– Amy Matsui, Senior Counsel
– Kate Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
TAX
The Center works for fair tax policies to ensure that the nation has the revenues needed to protect and strengthen programs vital to women and families at all stages of their lives, including by reversing provisions of the 2001-2003 tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest Americans, restoring a fair estate tax, closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and corporations, and assuring that individuals and corporations pay their fair share. The Center also works to protect and improve family tax credits that can boost the earnings of low-wage workers and help parents meet child care and other expenses and conducts an annual Tax Credits Outreach Campaign to help families get the tax assistance for which they qualify.
– Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
– Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel and Director of Government Relations
– Amy Matsui, Senior Counsel
– Holly Hemphill, Senior Counsel
– Kate Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
– Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel
THE COURTS
The Center seeks to secure women’s core legal rights, including the right to reproductive choices, the right to equal opportunities in the workplace and schools, and a broad range of other legal protections that promote women’s well-being and safety. The vigor of these rights depends on the appointment and confirmation of federal judges who recognize the fundamental legal principles that are critical to women and do not place powerful interests ahead of the rights of individuals. The current judicial vacancy crisis especially compromises individuals’ ability to enforce their legal rights. The Center is leading the way in promoting a fair and independent judiciary, including by consulting broadly during the judicial nomination process and supporting the swift confirmation of diverse and well-qualified nominees, including women. The Center also enforces women’s hard-won legal rights under the Constitution and federal statutes, through advocacy in the Supreme Court and the lower courts, and undertakes public education about the scope and significance of these legal protections and the need to advance them.
– Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel
– Amy Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts
WOMEN IN THE MILITARY
Today, over 200,000 women serve in the U.S military. They continue to distinguish themselves, performing critical jobs both at home and in war zones, including in combat in the air, at sea, and on the ground. The Center advocates for a strong military in which all military assignments are open to qualified persons regardless of gender, women can serve without fear of sexual assault or harassment, and women have access to full reproductive health care.