Pregnant Students Like Brittany Lovely Need Simple Accommodations to Continue Learning. Title IX Is Supposed to Protect Them, But It’s Falling Short.
By Samantha Hunt
Many of us heard in recent months about Brittany Lovely, a pregnant student at Georgetown Law, who was denied a very simple request to enable her to continue her studies while growing her family. Brittany’s challenge arose when her school scheduled a final exam within two weeks of her due date. Keen to make sure she could recover from childbirth and also complete her course requirements, Brittany reached out to her school’s coordinator for Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, including by protecting pregnant and postpartum students from being excluded from their education. Brittany embraced two options that would have met her need to recover from childbirth while simultaneously fulfilling the school’s need to assess her understanding of her coursework: she would either take her exam early, or take the exam from home at the same time as the rest of her peers, just days after giving birth. Yet despite her flexibility, her administration flatly denied her request.
Brittany did everything right, and everything that Title IX requires of pregnant students. Yet because of a gap in clarity around how Title IX should apply in cases like Brittany’s, it still was not enough to protect her rights. The regulations for Title IX, which are set by the federal agency charged with enforcing the law, the U.S. Department of Education, are what should provide that clarity to students and schools alike. And in August 2024, the Biden administration released new regulations for Title IX that would have given Brittany clearer rights to reschedule her exams. But, because of a series of lawsuits across the country, the new regulations are not in place at Brittany’s school and thus could not protect her from her school administration’s inflexibility.
One in four college students is a parent, but only 37% of student parents complete their course requirements in six years. We know that education plays a vital role in families’ long term economic stability: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as workers’ educational attainment increases, their earnings increase and unemployment rates decrease. Students like Brittany are facing needless barriers to completing their education and ultimately achieving financial stability for their families. On A Better Balance’s helpline, we hear similar stories from pregnant students across the country who cannot access the support they need to learn while pregnant and parenting because they attend schools in states where court orders are blocking these critical new protections. These students often need modest, simple adjustments like access to clean, private spaces on campus so they can pump milk, or protective gear to wear during chemistry labs. Sometimes, all they need is to be able to use the bathroom during class. These are common-sense protections for pregnant students, protections that would allow them to learn and participate fully in their academics. Despite the fact that Title IX is designed to protect students in situations like these, all too often, these requests are denied.
It was only after Brittany’s friends launched a public awareness campaign, which included a petition, that Georgetown reversed its decision, allowing Brittany to defer her exam until January. Yet even while granting Brittany’s request in the face of public pressure, Georgetown stopped short of implementing any policies or practices that would prevent this same situation from happening to another pregnant student in the future.
It should not take a student-led public awareness campaign for a law school to allow a student to take an exam remotely after childbirth. Schools should have institution-wide policies that comply with Title IX so that all pregnant students know about and have access to these protections. In its statement following the public outrage surrounding Brittany’s case, Georgetown stated it was “committed to providing a caring, supportive environment for pregnant and parenting students.” If that statement is true, they, and other schools who purport to care about pregnant students should update their policies to comply with the new Title IX regulations. And if the federal government wants to show its support for the health and wellbeing of women and families, it can do that by continuing to stand by its Title IX regulations and ensuring meaningful and lasting protections for all pregnant students.
We also encourage students who are pregnant or planning their families to take steps to learn about their rights at school as well as in the workplace. A Better Balance’s free, confidential legal helpline is here to support pregnant and postpartum students with questions about their rights. Students can contact us here or by calling 1–833-NEED-ABB.
Samantha Hunt is an attorney and an Equal Justice Works Fellow at national work-family legal advocacy organization A Better Balance.
