This report outlines the ways in which a guidance document issued by the Trump-era Attorney General interprets and expands religious liberty laws in a way that elevates the right to religious exemptions over other legal and constitutional rights. The guidance has been used to limit access to reproductive health care and threatens to limit enforcement of various health, employment, and anti-discrimination protections.

This report presents data showing that in many states, women of color disproportionately give birth in Catholic hospitals that place religious restrictions on care—even during medical emergencies. Such restrictions stand to exacerbate the existing disparities women of color already face in accessing quality reproductive health care.

Ashe McGovern, Legislative and Policy Director of Columbia Law School’s Law, Rights, and Religion Project testified before the New York City Council Committee on Women’s Issues on a bill that would require several city agencies to undergo training on “implicit bias, discrimination, cultural competency and structural inequity, including with respect to gender, race and sexual orientation.”

This report shows how recent legislative efforts to expand religious liberty rights, such as the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), allow religious objectors to violate laws that protect against pregnancy, familial status, and marital status discrimination.

LRRP assisted the Counsel for Church-State Scholars in the preparation of an amicus brief submitted in the Supreme Court of the United States case of Zubik v. Burwell. We also issued a fact sheet exploring what women of color have at stake in this round of litigation over the ACA.