Legal Momentum Sets Forth Urgent Reform Agenda For New Administration

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February 3, 2021

On January 20, 2021, Legal Momentum issued its list of priority actions urging the Biden-Harris administration to swiftly reverse assaults on gender justice within its first 100 days in office. By starting with corrective action, our memo, Reversing the Administrative Assault on Women: An Urgent Reform Agenda to Build Back Towards Inclusive Gender Equity, sets the stage for the new administration to meaningfully achieve a transformative gender equity plan within the coming four years. We are pleased that the Biden-Harris administration is already acting on some of these critical issues.

 

To start off on the right course, the new administration must begin by dismantling the damaging administrative infrastructure erected under the prior administration. In our Urgent Reform Agenda, Legal Momentum calls on the Biden-Harris administration to promptly correct a host of executive and administrative actions that amounted to a widescale assault on the wellbeing of women and other groups. Over the past four years, the executive branch aggressively engaged in policymaking to undermine a broad spectrum of fundamental protections, rescinding or revising critical rules, pushing through disturbing regulations on an expedited basis, issuing problematic executive orders, and revising existing guidance with overreaching legal interpretations. As a result, critical federal statutes have been implemented in a way that turned back the clock for women and other vulnerable groups, defeated the true purpose of invaluable federal laws, and eroded core protections for the American people.

 

The end result was an agenda that targeted the most vulnerable, disproportionately harming women, people of color, low-income individuals, the LGBTQ+ community, and immigrants. This agenda facilitated unlawful discriminatory conduct, weakened protections against gender-based violence, reduced access to critical public benefits, diminished economic security for families, denied reproductive rights, and reduced healthcare access at a time when it is all the more critical. For women and girls, these actions have had a widespread and profound impact on every aspect of their lives—including on education, employment, economic security, health, and enjoyment of basic legal rights—limiting their ability to protect themselves against sexual violence, seek pay equity, and control their bodies.

 

Legal Momentum’s agenda—which is not exhaustive—makes specific recommendations to undo harm to anti-discrimination enforcement, equity in education, economic and workplace equality, access to reproductive health and justice, healthcare access, and immigrant rights. It is a starting point to reverse the substantial harm caused by the previous administration and meaningfully advance gender equity for all women and girls.

For an overview or a more in-depth analysis and list of problematic actions, read our Executive Summary and full Agenda here.

 

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COVID-19 Resources. In this challenging time, our legal team developed a no-cost guide to Legal Rights and Economic Resources for Workers Impacted by COVID-19, also available in Spanish and Chinese.

 

Protecting women’s and girls’ rights begins with the law. Thank you for your ongoing support - you make our work possible! Stay safe and stay healthy.

Legal Momentum Legal Team