Todd Berger (00:00):
It can come as a surprise to lay people to learn just how dynamic the law can be from changes in society and culture developments in technology. And to be frank, the ideological shifts of a group of a few powerful individuals. Sometimes the law can feel more like loose sand than bedrock. Over the last few years, the Supreme Court has overruled more than a dozen prior decisions. Most recently with Lober Bright overruling Chevron, but undoubtedly, the most high profile reversal came in 2022 with DA Dobbs decision overruling Roe versus Wade and Planned Parenthood. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, abortion law is at the heart of some of the most critical constitutional debates of our time. For law students, this is an opportunity to see with the unusual clarity, the dynamics of the law in motion understand state federal conflicts and to consider where your legal career might fit in. Today we're going to explore one such legal response arising in a post dos America to better understand our legal process in action. This is the ABA Law Student podcast.
(01:19):
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the ABA Law Student podcast. Today's episode is going to be a little different from our normal procedure as regular listeners of the show. Now I'm usually joined by our student host during our opening here to introduce our topic before we hear an interview, and we usually conclude with a group discussion. But instead today you're going to hear not one but two interviews conducted by our host, Chay Rodriguez. And to afford these discussions enough time, we've decided to forego our usual group discussions. In addition to these format changes, today's topic may run a little more controversial than usual. It brings together not only the longstanding legal debate over abortion access, but also the rapidly evolving role of telehealth services in reproductive healthcare. Our two guests, Temple Law School's, Dean Rachel Rebouche, and Dressel Law School's Professor David S. Cohen, are two of three co-authors of an article entitled "Abortion Shield Laws".
(02:16):
Their legal scholarship on the subject helped lead to a new wave of state laws implemented in response to Dobbs and are currently in the spotlight due to high profile cases in both Texas and Louisiana. It's our pleasure to explore what motivated them to write their work and to better understand the legal mechanisms at play. Here at the a a Law Student podcast, it's not our goal to spark debate specifically on the subject of abortion, but to use this uniquely high profile moment in time to better equip you as future lawyers to understand the never ending push and pull that the law reflects. With that, let's turn our interview with De Reer.
Chay Rodriguez (02:55):
Professor Rebouche, thank you so much for sitting with me today. First, I want to tackle the intersection of where the states are going to kind of have some sort of conflict and telemedicine and what it means for providers. And I would like to speak about that in kind of the nutshell of a telemedicine abortion shield law. Can you talk a little bit about what that means for our audience that might not be too familiar?
Rachel Rebouche (03:25):
So SHIELD laws have been passed by 18 states and dc. They are state statutes that define legally protected reproductive healthcare, which for the state enacting a SHIELD law is abortion care, contraceptive services, other reproductive health services. Some states, many of them at this point also include protections for gender affirming care. And what the laws seek to do is to create a state policy that if someone is providing legally protected reproductive healthcare in this state. So you are in New York providing care with a New York license that New York is going to try to shield you from criminal or civil investigation from extradition, which is when a state sends someone to another state to stand trial shield you from disciplinary actions from that shield state's medical board, from insurance hikes if you're investigated by another state which can have repercussions or your insurance rates. So essentially shield laws seek to convey a state policy that the state enacting a shield law is not going to become the legal apparatus for a civil or criminal investigation if the person providing care in the SHIELD state is acting in accordance with the SHIELD law.
(05:00):
And the telemedicine piece of it has gotten a lot of attention lately because eight states of the 18 define legally a protected reproductive healthcare regardless of the patient location. So essentially says it's not the provider's responsibility in acting in accordance with this law to determine patient location. It doesn't matter for the purposes of this shield state where the patient is located. And there's been a lot of high profile stories of providers in shield states like New York that are acting in accordance with the SHIELD law and mailing medication abortion after a telehealth consult to people across the country in places where abortion is legal and to places where it's not. And that's I think the telemedicine telehealth piece of it because much of this contact is happening through online contact. But I think it also, it might be interesting and bears repeating that there are also outside of the Shiva context, there are virtual clinics that provide male medication abortion across the country. They tend to limit their services to particular states for a variety of reasons, but the phenomenon of having a consult online as you would for mental health or any other telehealth services, and then having your provider who is licensed to provide that kind of care in the state they're in, sending you a prescription or delivering care in another way that's not novel. But what's changed is that Texas and Louisiana have cases now against a New York provider under their laws claiming that that provider violated Texas or Louisiana law respectively.
Chay Rodriguez (06:59):
And I think I just want the audience to know that you were instrumental in helping to create the Connecticut Shield law. I read that that was one of the first abortion to telemedicine shield laws. So you are an expert on this topic
Rachel Rebouche (07:14):
And just a couple of quick revisions if that's
Chay Rodriguez (07:17):
Okay.
Rachel Rebouche (07:18):
Connecticut does not have the telemedicine language in it. It doesn't define, so Connecticut is not one of the eight, but it was the first state to pass a shield. So you're absolutely right about that. And again, with those professors that I mentioned, David Cohen and Greer Donnelly, what happened was, as we were talking about, we got together to write this piece about the interstate conflicts that follow in rose absence. And in that piece we proposed the idea of a shield law because what we were doing was we were trying to map all the interstate conflicts that would be possible even before Rowe was overturned. You had some states making the suggestion that they would try to chill, travel or keep people from traveling or through fetal personhood laws or laws that confer rights on the fetus would try to use other legal mechanisms to attack conduct That led to an abortion.
(08:21):
We had seen SB eight in Texas and there had been these attempts kind of in different periods of time. And so really what we were set out to do is if you're an anti-abortion state, what is it that you might do to keep people from traveling or to keep pills out of your state or to try to not just ban abortion where you legislate, but as broadly as possible? Because it's, I think fair to say that for the anti-abortion movement in this country, the end goal is not just to ban abortion in Louisiana. The idea is to ban it everywhere, which makes sense if you're the anti-abortion movement, right? And
Chay Rodriguez (09:06):
If I am able to discourage the doctors from helping you, if I'm able to discourage your friends and family from wanting to take you to where you can go to get the help, if I can kind of take away the ways in which you can complete that abortion, I don't even have to really criminalize you because I do think it looks, it's bad optics. I'll put it that way to say that you want to imprison a pregnant woman, but if I can criminalize everybody else that can help her, then I'm not the bad guy putting someone in this horrible situation that could be pregnant. But I'm just the person that has made it impossible for her to find any other alternative to do so, which I think is very interesting when you look at how a lot of pro-abortion movements like to counter their points by saying that they will help and be a community for that person, but they can try to push and pass laws that eliminate the community for the person when they want to make a choice and decision differently than what the pro-abortion group would want them to make. We proposed this
Rachel Rebouche (10:12):
Idea, and then because of how law review articles are published, we kept revising it because this was before Dobbs, it was before the first draft. We have a footnote that says, dear editors, we just assume that row is going to be overturned. If it's not, then we're going to have to revise all of this. But actually, a legislator from Connecticut contacted us and they drafted the First Shield bar having read our draft and we provided testimony, but I just wanted to make clear that it was the work of the Connecticut legislator in their offices that was doing the drafting.
Chay Rodriguez (10:58):
Do you see this issue, at least the interstate piece going up in front of the Supreme Court sooner rather than later?
Rachel Rebouche (11:06):
I think it's very likely there's a default judgment out of Texas. It's not clear what happens next. One option is that Texas could go to New York courts and say, New York enforce this judgment. New York courts could decide that they don't have a constitutional obligation to enforce that judgment because it of exception to the full faith and credit clause or any number. And then that tees up the question for the Supreme Court, Louisiana could sue New York for not extraditing seeking original jurisdiction before the court. That is really where I'm not an expert in the federal court procedural landscape. But yeah, I think that these issues will come before the Supreme Court.
Todd Berger (11:52):
Thank you so much to Dean Rebouche for talking with us in this episode. When we return, we'll hear from our interview with Professor David Cohen.
Chay Rodriguez (12:07):
Professor Cohen, thank you so much for joining me. I have to ask, and this might be like a bit of a hot button question, but what is the post dos reality right now?
David S. Cohen (12:19):
It's interesting because in some ways it's exactly what we expected. In other ways it's not at all. It's expected that a bunch of states would ban abortion. We kind of thought it might be close to half the states. It's been lower than that right now. There are 12 states with complete abortion bans. Another seven or eight states have bans on abortion that are before what Roe v Wade would've allowed. And so for people in those states, they're faced with some difficulties in terms of getting care. But in that regard, that's where we've seen the big surprise abortion numbers have actually gone up after Dobbs. I think most people thought they would go down some down quite significantly, right? If a third to a half of the country bans abortion, then numbers would drop. But they've actually gone up. And there's a whole host of reasons for that. But that has been a big surprise. Now that doesn't mean everyone who wants or needs an abortion is getting one, but it means a lot of people are, even though they're still living in states where abortions are banned and they're doing it through travel or pills or other means, but that's probably the big surprise. So I think it's been a really complex situation in a lot of different ways.
Chay Rodriguez (13:32):
When you talk about the different methods now that people can go about getting an abortion, it's making me think of the Dr. Carpenter case with New York and Louisiana and New York and Texas, and there seems to be a practice area connection here from health law to criminal defense to law. And there's quite a few ways to jump into this abortion law subject. We talked to your colleague Professor Ache earlier, and she laid down a lot of the legal foundation for us regarding shield laws. But can you talk to us about the full faith in credit clause and how abortion shield laws directly test that
David S. Cohen (14:10):
The full faith in credit clause requires states to give effect to final judgements from other states? So if you and I are in a car accident in New Jersey, and I live in Pennsylvania and the verdict is in New Jersey, you might try to get the verdict from me by going into Pennsylvania and saying, Hey, I got this verdict in New Jersey, but I need to now enforce it against someone who lives in Pennsylvania, which is where I live. So Pennsylvania courts please respect the judgment and enforce the judgment from New Jersey, and that's required under the Constitution, through the full faith and credit clause. But there are exceptions, just like most things that you learn in law school, there are exceptions to this rule, and a couple of those exceptions apply or can apply, might apply in the context of the case in Texas where Texas has sued a New York abortion provider at this point in time, early in February, Texas obtained a default judgment against her, basically meaning that she did not show up.
(15:16):
So they got a verdict for over a hundred thousand dollars, but now they have to enforce it because she's in New York. Now, if this were a normal case, just like I described the car accident, the hypothetical car accident, Texas would go to New York and say, Hey, enforce this judgment. And it would. But there are two exceptions that come up here. One, if there's no personal jurisdiction over the defendant, think back to one El Civ Pro, right? If there is no personal jurisdiction over the defendant, then they don't have to be, that verdict doesn't have to be enforced in the other state. And with telehealth, Dr. Carpenter provided pills allegedly to this patient via telehealth. There's probably personal jurisdiction, but that might be claimed that there's no personal jurisdiction over her because she wasn't in Texas. But I think more clearly the issue is that the other exception is that when a civil judgment is really penal in nature, meaning it's punishment instead of compensation, then states don't have to enforce that judgment from out of state.
(16:20):
So what does that mean? It means if I'm injured and the verdict is to compensate me for the injuries that has to be enforced in another state. But if there's no injury or if the verdict is not about compensating for injury, but rather for punishing someone for violating the law, that doesn't have to be enforced. And that's what I think is pretty clearly happened in the Texas case because the plaintiff is the state of Texas. The state of Texas didn't suffer any financial injury or health injury or mental health injury. So the a hundred thousand dollars verdict is really just punishment for violating what Texas thinks is its law. It's not being compensated for anything. And so New York's not going to have to enforce this law. And this is very well established under constitutional law. So I don't think it's going to be, I mean, it'll be controversial because it's abortion, but it's not going to be controversial legally that this is punishment. This is not civil compensation. And so New York doesn't have to enforce this out-of-state judgment.
Chay Rodriguez (17:22):
I think you said one thing that made me think of another thing that's going to make law students groan that there's exceptions, which also leads to, it depends, which is our favorite phrase, our shield laws like state sovereignty tools or are they violating how some states are choosing to govern themselves?
David S. Cohen (17:44):
So it depends which state you ask. So back to your favorite term, right? If you graduate law school without knowing how to say it depends, then you've done it wrong. So New York thinks that what it is doing is protecting its abortion providers who are following New York law and that they are in the process expanding care for patients who can get care from New York licensed providers. Texas thinks that the SHIELD law is infringing on Texas's sovereignty to control what happens within its borders. Because for instance, the patient that allegedly Dr. Carpenter cared for via telehealth was in Texas borders. So there's no doubt that there's two different views of these laws based on which state you're in. And I think that they would both claim they're doing something to protect and further the interests of their own state.
Chay Rodriguez (18:40):
I think sooner rather than later, this is going to bubble up to the Supreme Court, whether it be something to do with state interplay directly or an actual piece that addresses abortion in this way, they're going to have some pretty big questions to tackle, including maybe fetal personhood or the full resuscitation of the Comstock Act. Where can this really go federally?
David S. Cohen (19:03):
So I don't know if the Supreme Court will get into this soon. I think there's lots of reasons why the Supreme Court takes cases. There's also lots of reasons why the Supreme Court doesn't take cases. I'm not in the camp, that they are definitely going to take this case predicting the future. That is really hard, especially when there are lots of interests involved. They may take a case related to this. It may be this year, it may be 10 years from now. I have no idea. I can't predict the future, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion. That being said, this will certainly work its way through the lower courts, whether it's New York state court, Texas state courts, federal courts that cover one or the other. I'm sure what's happened so far with the default judgment in Texas is not the end of the matter in this case.
(19:56):
So I would all but guarantee that there will be future court decisions here. But like I said, I think New York, to the extent that it denies the enforcement of this default judgment in New York State is on incredibly solid ground. So I would be surprised if any of the New York courts say otherwise. And same with the federal courts, just because this penal exception to the full faith in credit clause has been established over a century, it's firmly within Supreme Court jurisprudence, and it's really up to the Supreme Court to change that if it wants to, which we know it can, but the lower courts can't. They have to follow this.
Chay Rodriguez (20:35):
Understood. Switching gears a little bit, you are writing a book on this topic entitled After Dobbs, how the Supreme Court ended Roe, but not Abortion. And in the book you detail the stories of different people and how they've been impacted by the Dobbs decision. And I want to touch a little bit on that impact and how my mind is kind of trying to decipher what's going on here, reading some of the pieces of your book that you so graciously sent over early to me. Thank you so much. The Alabama Supreme Court, I was thinking about when they issued a ruling in February of last year, 2024, and they declared that embryos created through IVF should be considered children, and it had to do with a case where it was against the fertility clinic. Some couples came against the fertility clinic because their embryos had been destroyed, and it was under the Wrongful Death Act of a minor.
(21:32):
And at the trial court level, the case was dismissed and the judge stated that the embryos were not people or childrens for the purposes of the Wrongful Death Act, the wrongful death, but minor act. And so therefore, the couples didn't have a claim, but the Alabama Supreme Court determined that that was not the case and the embryos could be considered children and chaos kind of ensued. And it led to the state of Georgia just very recently codifying IVF and expanding access to fertility treatment. And it sailed through the house last week just for the state of Georgia. And I kind of thought that there was a class element at play here. And as I worked through my thinking, I just kind of pictured a middle to upper class couple that wanted to reproduce, and it almost seemed as if they were going to be given a pass if they had embryos that they weren't able to use and decided not to use because the treatment might've worked a little earlier than accepted. And then I pictured a couple with maybe less means who decided that around a seven or eight week mark, that having children and moving forward with children just wouldn't be prime for them right now, and they wouldn't be allowed to do that. And so I guess there's no personhood there. Is there an equal protection claim that could arise from a scenario like that on a low level rational basis level for economic
David S. Cohen (22:53):
Discrimination? Yeah, it's a good question. And so Georgia is a great state to talk about because Georgia has a ban on abortion at six weeks. And look, it's proven very hard other than a few cases in the late 1960s, early 1970s, to make a claim based on equal protection around wealth discrimination. The Supreme Court has been very reluctant to do that even in the context of a much more liberal Supreme Court. So the chances now in that regard, and I don't know if courts would say that the two groups are similarly situated, which is a requirement for equal protection. That being said, everything you said is right. The rush to protect IVF after the Alabama decision, really across party lines, not universally, but across party lines really has been fueled based on class issues. This is a group of people who can afford very expensive fertility treatments like IVF.
(23:55):
Look, some people who don't have a lot of money are somehow able to do it, whether they find some money for it, they borrow or they have insurance coverage. But a lot of times it's people who have means, right? And we know that three quarters of people who get abortions are either at the poverty line or just above the poverty line. So we're talking about pretty distinct groups of people. And I think it's no coincidence that when you've got a medical procedure that is overwhelmingly obtained by people of less means that legislatures in a lot of states don't care about it, and they're quick to ban this and not care about the implications in this regard. And I think one of the things that the book that you're referring to, which comes out on March 25th, I wrote with Carol Jaffe, one of the things that we really talk a lot about is part of the reason to go back to earlier in our conversation, part of the reason why abortion numbers have gotten up post-ops is because there's been so much financial assistance from rage donations to help people.
(25:05):
For instance, this lower income couple that you're talking about in Georgia, maybe they're at seven or eight weeks, an abortion ban is at six weeks. So now the closest state to them where abortion is legal is North Carolina up to 12 weeks or Virginia up to viability, and so they've got to get to Virginia or North Carolina. How do they do that? Well, they certainly need a functioning car. They need money for gas, they need food money, they need time off of work. They need support for the kids they already have, because 60% of people who have abortions already have kids, and that takes money, that takes resources. And so the donations after Dobbs have really filled in that gap for a lot of people. And as Carol and I document in our book, a big part of the story post dos is that there's been so much money that has been funneled into practical access issues.
(25:58):
That's what we're talking about, not just legality, but access issues. So much money and so many volunteer hours that one of the things we worry about in our book is that if that were to dry up and there's already signs that that money has dried up, but if that money were to dry up, then there'll be more people left in the position of, I want or need an abortion. I can't afford to travel, so what do I do? We really need people to continue who care about this issue, to continue to put their money where their heart is and put their volunteer hours where their heart is, because sustainability of everything we're talking about is one of the biggest issues going forward. The numbers going up is only because of the real hard work and money put in to help people like you're talking about.
Chay Rodriguez (26:46):
When we talk about the hard work that goes into helping people, and this might sound weird, regardless of where you stand on the issue, what can law students do to break into this field and to really try to make their mark or just to help the cause in general?
David S. Cohen (27:04):
I think there's a few things. So one is that there are a lot of law schools around the country that have either some kind of how chapter or something like that that has partnerships locally in the community. So here in Philadelphia where I am, there are several how chapters that help with clinic escorting, so helping people into and out of clinics because of anti-abortion protestors who are out there. So that's one thing that I know law students can do right now. Another thing is, and this is essential, which is voting in every election, not just national elections. I always here in Pennsylvania, we have a primary and a general election every single year. And so the thing I tell everyone is, if you're not voting twice a year every year, you're doing it wrong because it doesn't just matter who the president is. It doesn't just matter who the people in Congress are.
(27:59):
It matters who your local officials are. So you need to know every election cycle and participate in all of it, especially as law students who are more informed than the general public about these issues. That needs to be a priority. So every single election from local dog catcher to the United States President, you need to be voting every single time. But beyond that, as people who are going to have a law degree and ultimately be practicing law, for most people who get a law degree, there's volunteer opportunities to help with local organizations being on the board of an organization, helping with volunteer legal work. And then something anyone can do, and this is true almost everywhere in the country, is there are volunteer opportunities with practical support driving people to and from abortion clinics, housing them if they're traveling. That kind of real practical support makes a difference in people's lives, especially in this post-ops world where 20% of people who get abortions travel across state lines now.
(29:06):
And so like I said, travel requires all sorts of resources and volunteers can do that. So that's something that people can help with at any point in their lives and career. Then further down the line, when hopefully law students are employed and maybe have some extra money in their bank accounts, consider organizations that help with some of these practical support issues that I'm talking about in terms of donation dollars, because hopefully people listening to this podcast will one day it might not seem like it's on the horizon because of student debt and the fact that a lot of students don't have a lot of money, but one day hopefully you will have some money and be in a position to think, where am I going to spend my charity dollars? And organizations like I'm talking about are one way to do that.
Todd Berger (29:54):
We'll be right back to our conversation with Professor Collin.
Chay Rodriguez (30:05):
You spoke of 20% of those seeking abortion crossing state lines. Can you speak a little bit about abortion trafficking and kind of the practice that some states are putting in supply in criminalizing, helping those get across state lines to seek abortions?
David S. Cohen (30:23):
So there's a few states that have banned what they call abortion trafficking, and that term is certainly very loaded. It's meant to conjure up sex trafficking or something like that. It's a very loaded term or human trafficking. And so Idaho sort of pioneered this, Tennessee on Idaho's heels. A couple other states have proposed bills so far. What these bills do is these laws do in Idaho and Tennessee is ban transporting a minor within the state in order to get an abortion outside the state that the minor's parent does not consent to. The idea being make it harder for minors to leave the state to get an abortion, because in Idaho and Tennessee, abortion is banned almost completely. And so on the one hand, you're like, oh, well, I don't want adults driving minors around because that sounds really creepy. But when you think about who the adults are who are usually going to be in this position, it might be an older sister, it might be an aunt.
(31:27):
So you're 17 and you're pregnant. You don't want to be pregnant, you can't go to your parents. Your parents are abusive, whether physically or mentally or just generally, you don't have a relationship with them where you can tell them this, but you've got a sister and your sister's 20 years old, and so your 20-year-old sister says, Hey, I can help you. I've got a car. I don't live with mom and dad anymore, so I'll take you. And they're just going to think, Hey, the sisters are hanging out, and that's, they're going to be happy about that. So that sister would be caught up in the abortion trafficking law in Idaho or Tennessee because it's anyone driving a minor without the parent's consent to get an abortion out of state. Now you've got a sister helping another sister, and that's now criminal. You can say the same thing about an aunt or a grandma or a trusted friend.
(32:13):
And so these laws are meant to restrict minors at this point in time from getting abortions where they're legal. But I think that a lot of people, I'm one of them, thinks that some of these laws start out applying only to minors as an experiment to then see what can we do next when it comes to adults. So right now, adults aren't criminalized from traveling to get an abortion out of state, but I think that's on the horizon, and that's actually the exact issue that got me and your other guests, Steve Ache and our co-author, Bri Donley, to start writing about these issues. And we've been writing about them for a few years thinking about these issues about crossing state lines, what states can do to stop someone from traveling or criminalize something they do in other states. These are complex issues, but it's exactly the scenario that we were thinking about when we started writing about this.
Chay Rodriguez (33:09):
So ironic, because earlier you said that predicting the future is hard, but it seems to be that's exactly what you did.
David S. Cohen (33:17):
Yeah, no, that's funny. I think you're right. We thought these issues would come about. We didn't know exactly how they would come about, but yes, we were anticipating, we started working on these projects about a year before Dobbs. We were not alone. We knew Dobbs was coming. Were we a hundred percent sure that it was going to overturn Roe? No. But were we 95% sure Roe was going to be overturned? Yes. So we started thinking about what that would mean, and what did seem obvious was that people would have to travel. And we've seen that in the past. We saw that before Roe v. Wade, we've seen that. Think of something that's not controversial at all, right? About gambling or fireworks when one state bans it, people travel to go do it somewhere else. So we knew this would happen. And so that's what got us thinking about all the legal issues if people would travel, and I wish we had predicted wrong, and some of the things that have come about didn't happen, but we got those things, right.
Chay Rodriguez (34:19):
Well talk about the value of scholarship. I think even just that story right there kind of can speak to students that, yes, we want to graduate and a lot of us want to practice, and some of us don't think about writing again after law review or maybe being an RA for a professor at one point in time. I think a lot of us kind of put that to bed. But how important is it to still consider scholarship in writing as you practice or and or grow as an attorney?
David S. Cohen (34:47):
Yeah, no, it's a really excellent question, especially for the students who work on law reviews and you're like, why am I doing this? It's boring site checking and blue booking some of the less glamorous parts of law school. Not that any parts of law school are necessarily that glamorous, but I think what we did with this article that we wrote, it was called New Abortion Battleground. It appeared in the Columbia Law Review in 2023, but we started on it in 2021, and it really sort of the ideas we had in there about abortion travel, about abortion pills, about what might happen after Dobbs. We were very fortunate that we started getting people who were interested in hearing more about what we were working on, and we were able to turn some of the ideas into a New York Times op-ed, a couple of them in fact, and those were read widely by legislators and advocates who then took some of those ideas and ran with them.
(35:46):
And so, look, this is not the story for a lot of scholarship. Some scholarship has no connection to advocacy. It's just looking at ideas. But our scholarship certainly had some connection to ideas for the future, for improvements, and we were able to get a broader audience for them, and it was the right time, the right moment to think about these issues. Nothing we did was alone. Three of us certainly wrote together, but we worked with advocates, we worked with legislators, we worked with providers on the ground to think, well, okay, we've identified some issues that are going to come. What can we do about them? And that really was a story of scholarship being translated into advocacy and on the ground effects. Again, this has not been true for a lot of scholarship, but there is a lot of scholarship where this happens. And just as a quick note in this regard, one of my colleagues here at Drexel is a law professor named Wendy Green, who a decade and a half ago was writing about hair discrimination against black women.
(36:54):
And she was suggesting in her scholarship that Title VII needs to cover hair discrimination, but if it doesn't, there should be a law that covers hair discrimination. And so this was in her scholarship, and now there's what's called Crown Act, C-R-O-W-N in, I think it's a majority of states, and there are some internationally all started with her scholarship on this issue. She wasn't the first person to think about hair discrimination against black women. That's been happening forever. But she wrote about it in a way that identified a real problem in a complex, important way, but also suggested resolution or solutions for it, and that turned into laws on the ground that are helping people live their true authentic selves and not be discriminated against. You never know, but I think that ideas matter and sometimes ideas can turn into actual change in the world.
Todd Berger (37:52):
Thanks again to our two guests for joining us today, and thanks to our host Chay for her great work. If you'd like to read our guest article, we'll have a link in the show notes below and be on the lookout for Professor Cohen's upcoming book. If you're looking for even more content curated just for you, head over to the a a lawsuit division website and become a member. We want to make sure we're making the best content for you. Let us know what you'd like to learn more about by telling us in a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Finally, we'd like to thank our production partners at Mera Media and thank you to the ABA Law Student Division for making this show a reality. We'll be back next month with our next episode. See you then.
