Legal Issues

Child Care

As part of its on-going commitment to low-income families, Legal Momentum has long focused on the need for child care. Legal Momentum is broaening its work into a campaign to provide a comprehensive system of quality, affordable child care for every family in America.

Poverty and Welfare Reform

Legal Momentum supports the State Advocacy Project, an initiative that promotes child care, reproductive rights, employment rights, and ending domestic violence for low-income women.

Recognizing that 90% of adult TANF recipients are female, Legal Momentum views welfare as a women's issue. Currently, our work has focused on ensuring that a fair and sensible welfare policy that addresses the barriers to women's economic security will be implemented upon Congressional reauthorization.

Employment

Legal Momentum supports placing women in non-traditional jobs, such as firefighting and law enforcement, as well as construction trades and technology fields. Following the World Trade Center disaster of 9/11/2001, Legal Momentum launched Women Rebuild NY/Women Rebuild America, a program designed to further training and job opportunities in these areas.

Immigration

Legal Momentum advocates on behalf of battered immigrant women and victims of trafficking. The organization's Immigrant Women Program, based in the Washington, DC office, has extensive contact with grass-roots organizations and works with federal legislators to ensure the rights and protections of immigrant survivors of violence and sexual abuse. We also advocate for immigrant women to receive economic benefits to which they are lawfully entitled.

Violence against Women

Legal Momentum crafted the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) and currently leads the fight for passage of the Victims Economic Security and Safety Act (VESSA).

Under our Economic Rights for Survivors of Abuse (ERSA) program, we are litigating cases on behalf of women whose careers and well-being are affected by domestic and sexual violence.

Law/Legal Issues

Legal Momentum's Project on Federalism monitors and seeks to educate the public about the Supreme Court's recent decisions limiting the federal government's ability to legislate such vital areas of national policy as violence in the home, guns in schools, protection of our environment, and many other civil and women's rights issues.

The National Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and Men in the Courts (NJEP), develops trainings, publications, and video curricula to educate judges and prosecutors on gender issues.

Child Care

Know Your Rights: Parents Receiving Public Assistance in New York City

Nowhere to Turn: New York City's Failure to Inform Parents on Public Assistance About Their Child Care Rights

Still Nowhere to Turn: New York City's Continuing Failure to Inform Parents on Public Assistance About Their Child Care Rights

Poverty and Welfare Reform

Legal Momentum. 2009. Ensuring the Economic and Personal Security of Women and Girls. 

www.legalmomentum.org/assets/pdfs/2009-legal-momentum-annual.pdf

Bonus for Building Real Opportunities for Poor Families: State Action Packet

Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement, 1960-1973, Martha Davis (1993). Describes the emergence of welfare rights litigation in the 1960s and highlights the strategies of important constitutional cases.

Dangerous Indifference: New York City's Failure to Implement the Family Violence Option

Welfare Reform Information Packet (1998). Includes background on child exclusion (family cap) and illegitimacy ratio.

What Congress Didn't Tell You: This 50-state report begins to track state responses to welfare reform in the area of reproductive choice and specficially focuses on the illegitimacy bonus, the family cap, and the abstinence-only sex education funding.

Working First But Working Poor: The Need for Education & Training in Wefare Reform (Executive Summary and Full Report Available): A Study by Legal Momentum and the Institute for Women's Policy Research on how women welfare recipients are denied access to job training for good-paying jobs in fields traditionally populated by men.

Employment

Household Workers' Rights Under Federal Law Fact Sheet

Know Your rights: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Harassment and Workfare

Manual for Survival for Women in Nontraditional Employment

Nontraditional Employment for Low-Income Women: A Guide for Advocates

The Women of Ground Zero: A Documentary: A 12-minute film documenting the efforts of six women form various backgrounds who helped at the disaster site on and after 9/11.

Violence Against Women & ERSA:

Not Enough: What TANF Offers Family Violence Victims. 2010. 

The survey on which this report is based is a unique, comprehensive effort to understand when TANF successfully assists victims of family violence, and when the program falls short, leaving victims to fend for themselves. 

Action Packet: State Laws Can Help Domestic Violence Victims At Work

The Impact of Violence in the Lives of Working Women: Creating Solutions, Creating Change: Designed to aid employers, managers, supervisors, and human resource professionals, this guide explains how violence against women affects the workplace and how businesses can develop solutions that assist women employees who have suffered.

Protecting Women's Welfare in the Face of Violence: Critiques welfare reform proposals in light of data on the relationship between violence against women and poverty.

Report From the Front Lines: The Impact of Violence on Poor Women: This qualitative study demonstrates that domestic violence and poverty interact to keep women on public assistance. Also included is a copy of the Family Violence Amendment.

State-by-State Laws on Discrimination Against Domestic Violence Victims

State-by-State Laws on Domestic Violence Workplace Policies

State-by-State Laws on Employment Leave for Domestic Violence Victims

State-by-State Laws on Unemployment Insurance

Employment Rights for Survivors of Abuse (ERSA) General Brochure

Domestic Violence and Unemployment Insurance: A Manual for Clients and Advocates

Eligibility for Unemployment Benefits (also available in French)

Employment Rights of Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Domestic Violence Survivors

Job Protections & Accommodations for Disabilities Caused by Domestic Violence

Safety Planning in the Workplace: Protecting Yourself and Your Job (also available in Chinese, French, Hindu, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese)

Survivors' Right to Take Time from Work to Participae in Criminal Proceedings (also available in French)

Taking Leave from Work for a Family Member's Serious Condition

Taking Leave from Work for Your Own Serious Condition

Welfare-to-Work Programs

Welfare-to-Work Programs in New York

Workplace Discrimination Against Abused Women (also available in French)

Your Legal Rights When an Abuser Injures You at Work

Law/Legal Issues and NJEP:

National Judicial Education Program (NJEP)Publications List

Credibility in the Courts: Why is There a Gender Gap?

Implementation Resources Directory, a publication of the Gender Fairness Strategies Project: Provides an annotated list of actions taken and materials available to address gender bias in state courts that can be replicated or adapted in other jurisdictions.

Is the Law Male? Let Me Count the Ways: Illustrates the concept of the law as male by analogizing it to the medical community's treatment of the male body as the norm.

Overwhelming Evidence: Reports on Gender Bias in the Courts

There's No Accounting For Judges: Recounts recent cases in which judges imposed minimal sentences on wife beaters and murderers, the intense response of the communities in which these cases occurred, and the ways in which judicial selection, election, education, evaluation, and discipline can be used to prevent recurrence of this type of gender bias.

Women of Color in the Courts

NJEP curricula materials for judges and prosecutors also available.

Education

An Annotated Summary of the Regulations for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1997). A summary and an analysis of Title IX regulations, including housing and facilities, counseling, scholarships, and athletics.

Public Education Programs for African-American Males: A Women's Educational Perspective, Walteen Grady Truely and Martha F. Davis (1995). Reviews educational research data and theories relevant to recent public school programs targeting African-American males and analyzes the programs from a gender equity perspective.

Reproductive Rights

Drawing the Line: A Handbook for Creating Residential Picketing and Buffer Zone Laws in Your Community: Explores the legal basics of how to enact and implement residential picketing and buffer zone ordinances to protect clinics and their staff from anti-choice violence and harassment. It covers legal standards, perovides an overview of recent court decisions, and offers guidelines for drafting municipal ordinances.

Stop the Terrorism: Understanding Your Rights Under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE): Explains how you can use FACE in your community to prevent, stop, and redress anti-abortion tactics including clinic blockades and invasions, and acts of violence, intimidation, and property damage directed at those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.

Legal Resource Kits:

Collections of materials providing general legal information are available on the following topics:

Divorce

Domestic Violence and Child Custody

Employment Sexual Harassment & Discrimination

Filing a Judicial Complaint in State Courts

How to Find a Lawyer (also available in Spanish)

Incest and Child Abuse

Sexual Harassment in Housing

Sexual Harassment in the Schools

Stalking

Violence Against Women

NOW LDEF also distributes the following publications of the National Center on Women and Family Law, which is now closed:

Analysis and Policy Implications of the New Domestic Violence Police Studies (1994).

Battered Women - Procedure for Change of Name and Social Security Number (1995).

Batterer's Pathology: Questions and Implications (1993).

Defending a Battered Woman Accused of Parental Abduction (1992).

The Effect of Woman Abuse on Children, 2nd. ed. (1994).

Guide to Interstate Custody: A Manual for Domestic Violence Advocates, 2nd. ed. (1995).

Improving the Health Care Response to Domestic Violence Through Protocols and Policies (1994).

Mandatory Arrest Laws (1994).

Mandatory Arrest: Problems and Possibilities (1994).

Mediation - A Guide for Advocates and Attorneys Representing Battered Women (1990).

Mediation and You (1991).

Mediator's Guide to Domestic Abuse (1989).

Mediation of Domestic Violence Cases (1994).

Medical Domestic Violence Protocols and Standards (1994).

Mutual Orders of Protection (1994).

National Handbook on Teen Dating Violence and the Law. For teens and college-age students.

Non-Disclosure Laws: Protection for Domestic Violence Victims (1994).

State Domestic Violence Laws Regarding Firearms (1993).

State Laws Exempting Battered Women from Mediation (1992).

Status of Marital Rape Exemption Statutes in the United States (1996).

Suing the Police After DeShaney (1995).

Voter Address Confidentiality for Domestic Violence Victims (1995).

Woman Battering: A Major Cause of Homelessness (1991).

Back issues of The Women's Advocate newsletter also available.

The Ms. Foundation for Women is dedicated to building women's collective power to ignite change. We seek opportunities to both proactively and reactively inform public policy, and obtain policy wins at the local, state, tribal and national level, with the ultimate goal of transforming the systems that govern women's lives.

We also aim to change the language, beliefs and behaviors that continue to hold women's oppression in place-particularly at the intersection of race, class and gender-and to shift public debate on key issues so that the perspectives of, and impact on, low income women and women of color are visible and addressed.

We support both cross-issue organizing and organizing within four broad areas of impact:

Women's Health

Reproductive Justice organizing and advocacy
Sexuality education organizing and advocacy
Women and HIV/AIDS policy advocacy and organizational capacity building
Access to health care coverage

Ending Violence

Community-based strategies to prevent child sexual abuse and violence against women and LGBTQ people
Strategies to engage men and boys in ending violence
Public education and media literacy
Youth-driven strategies

Economic Security

Organizing for better wages and working conditions, especially in female dominated sectors
Paid leave (including paid sick days and paid family leave)
Affordable, accessible quality child care
Access to health care coverage

Building Democracy

Building the infrastructure of organizations working for a progressive vision of democracy
Amplifying the voices of women of color, with a special emphasis on the Gulf South
Voter/civic engagement
Just immigration and refugee policies
Criminal Justice reform
Media Justice

Examples of funding initiatives across these broad and interconnected issue areas include:

Katrina Women's Response Fund: The Ms. Foundation responded immediately to the destruction and massive displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina by creating the Katrina Women's Response Fund. The Fund provides strategic support to meet the immediate needs of women of color and low-income women in the Gulf Coast region and ensure that their leadership and priorities are central in both short and long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts. By making grants to organizations throughout the region, the Katrina Women's Response Fund invests in the crucial infrastructure that promotes the health, safety, and economic well-being of women, their families and communities.

The Women and AIDS Fund: The Ms. Foundation for Women created the Women and AIDS Fund (WAF)to support organizations that advocate for policies and services that meet the needs of women with HIV/AIDS. WAF remains the only national fund that supports advocacy and self-determination by and for women living with this disease. By providing grants, technical assistance and networking opportunities to community-based organizations led by and for women who are HIV-positive, we contribute to the development of model approaches for women's HIV/AIDS advocacy that can be shared across the country. Our work has also helped create a national network of HIV-positive infected and affected women, called the National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC), who strive to influence the ways in which policies are determined at the federal level.

The Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund: The Ms. Foundation for Women's Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund (RRCOF) has been a strong, responsive resource for state reproductive rights organizations across the United States since 1989. RRCOF provides grantmaking, technical assistance, and networking activities to strengthen state-level infrastructures and build critical, broad-based support for reproductive rights. RRCOF aims to increase the capacity of state and local reproductive rights organizations so that they can: 1) expand and mobilize their base of support; 2) reach a broader and more diverse audience; 3) frame reproductive rights and health in a broader health and social justice context; and 4) more effectively advocate for positive - and avert restrictive - reproductive health policies and programs.

Join our movement for social justice and help to bring the experience and solutions of women and girls to the challenging issues that impact women and their communities most. Learn more about how you can show your support. 

Support Us
Events and Opportunities
The Gloria Awards: A National Salute to Women of Vision
Follow Us on Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Sign up for Email Alerts

Stir It UP: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. Written by activist and trainer Rinku Sen, this publication examines the work of economic justice organizations funded by the Ms. Foundation and applies the lessons they learned to other community organizations. Sen also provides models and tools that any organization can use to successfully create social change and influence public policy.

Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies that Work for All of Us . Most Americans believe a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. Raise The Floor shows us how we can translate that belief into reality by raising the minimum wage. In addition to telling workers' stories, presenting original data, and proposing comprehensive policies, Raise The Floor spotlights businesses large and small that demonstrate how good wages are good business-in good economic times and bad.

Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses. This publication tells the inspirational stories of eleven low-income women who have marshaled the creative energy, confidence, and capital necessary to start their own small businesses. These women, who have used their entrepreneurial skills as a route out of poverty, give an American face to an economic empowerment tool that has enjoyed great success in developing countries.

Ms. Foundation. 2009. Creating Connections, Igniting Change: Annual Report 2007-2008.

Ms. Foundation. 2009. Building Momentum to Sustain Social Change: Evaluation of the Katrina Women's Response Fund.  

Grants