We have some great news to share! The U.S. Department of Education has proposed new Title IX regulations for schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. Please sign on to the letter drafted by Jessica Lee from The Pregnant Scholar, Love Anderson from Breastfeeding Family Friendly Communities, and many more community advocates from around the country. These new regulations will, for the first time ever, recognize lactation as a pregnancy-related condition and require educational institutions to provide lactation break time, space, and other accommodations.The Office for Civil Rights, Department of Education has opened public comment on the draft regulations, and your help is needed to make sure they enact the strongest protections possible for lactating students and educators!
Please sign on to the letter before September 9, 2022!
Not only will the new rules make clear (finally) that lactation is a pregnancy-related condition protected by Title IX non-discrimination rules, the Department of Education also went a step further by requiring lactation space. When these rules are implemented, schools, colleges, and every entity covered by Title IX will be required to “(iv) Ensure the availability of a lactation space, which must be a space other than a bathroom, that is clean, shielded from view, free from intrusion from others, and may be used by a student for expressing breast milk or breastfeeding as needed.”
Another huge win is that the proposed rules will do the same for employees. While we’re very hopeful that the PUMP Act will extend federal workplace protections to lactating teachers and administrators (currently unprotected by the federal law), this is a great additional layer of protection. The new rules will would require essentially the same basic protections as are in the existing break time for nursing mothers provision of the FLSA:
“(1) A recipient must provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk or breastfeed as needed. (2) A recipient must ensure the availability of a lactation space, which must be a space other than a bathroom that is clean, shielded from view, free from intrusion from others, and may be used by an employee for expressing breast milk or breastfeeding as needed.”
The strategy is to submit joint letters so as to not overwhelm the Department of Education or slow them down.—Even though this is an agency regulation Congress still has some oversight and any delay could mean that this might not move forward in a new Congress next year.
Please sign up and share the letter as widely as possible.