Programs

The CWLC is dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls through programs designed not only to educate women and their loved ones about their rights, but also to facilitate community and state-wide change.

Educational Rights of Pregnant and Parenting Students

Despite legal protections against sex discrimination in education, pregnant and parenting students are routinely stigmatized, marginalized, and coerced into attending substandard, non-traditional schools.  To protect students’ rights, CWLC travels throughout California to train advocates, legal services attorneys, and school personnel on the educational rights of pregnant and parenting students, including their right to stay in school, participate in all extra-curricular activities, and receive child care and confidential family planning services.  CWLC also advocates for innovative policy initiatives to protect the civil rights of pregnant and parenting students.

 

Habeas Project

Under state law, a limited number of battered women who are in prison for certain violent felonies, including murder of their abuser, may submit a petition for habeas corpus if they were prejudiced by the fact that expert testimony on battering and its effects was not presented during their original trial. CWLC works in collaboration with the USC Law School Post-Conviction Justice Project, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and Free Battered Women to secure pro bono representation for incarcerated battered women who qualify for habeas relief under state law.

 

Murder at Home Project

Murder at Home is a groundbreaking effort to transform criminal justice, community and media responses to intimate murder and intimate violence to ensure that these crimes are taken seriously and addressed appropriately.  In October 2005, CWLC released the first volume of its policy report Murder at Home: An Examination of Legal and Community Responses to Intimate Femicide in California. The report chronicles important advancements that have been made to improve legal and community responses to domestic violence in California, assesses the current status of domestic violence response and prevention efforts, and makes recommendations for furthering existing efforts to respond to and prevent domestic violence and domestic violence homicide in California.

 

S.T.O.P. (School Training, Outreach and Prevention) Teen Dating Violence Project

The S.T.O.P. Teen Dating Violence Initiative is a statewide, public policy and education initiative to protect the health and safety of teens by ensuring that schools institute comprehensive policies, protocols, training and resources that enable their employees to effectively prevent and respond to complaints of teen dating and sexual violence against students.

 

Domestic Violence Advocate Legal Support Network

The Domestic Violence Advocate Legal Support Network promotes the capacity and sustainability of California’s battered women’s shelters by ensuring that they have access to ongoing, free legal support and services for matters relating to the management and operation of their organizations. As part of this project, CWLC conducts legal trainings for shelters throughout the state and is developing a legal manual for shelter directors and managers.

 

Two years ago, the Free Men’s Association attempted to sue Los Angeles area women’s shelters for not allowing men in the shelters. Although the lawsuit was eventually dismissed, CWLC organized a legal team to represent the shelters and later established the Adopt-An-Angel Program which matches shelter organizations with law firms that will provide them with ongoing pro bono legal assistance.

 

Reproductive Rights Enforcement Center

California has the strongest reproductive rights laws in the nation.  However, these rights mean little to large populations of California women due to the lack of reproductive health information, dearth of culturally and linguistically appropriate reproductive health services, and a growing incidence of HIV/AIDS and reproductive cancers among women of color.  Through the RREC, CWLC is collaborating with grassroots community based organizations to develop and disseminate culturally and linguistically appropriate reproductive health and rights educational materials with the goal of empowering women to advocate for themselves, individually and as a community.

 

Paid Family Leave Collaborative

The California Women’s Law Center is a founding member of the Paid Family Leave Collaborative, which works to inform Californians about their rights under the Paid Family Leave law – the first comprehensive paid leave program in the nation.  The law provides most Californians with up to six weeks of partial pay when taking leave from work to bond with a new baby, foster, or adopted child or to care for a seriously ill parent, spouse, child or domestic partner. 

 

As part of the Collaborative, CWLC offers workshops to community groups, labor unions, health care providers, legal services agencies and social services agencies.  CWLC also offers technical assistance and written materials to the public