Location(s)

Center for Reproductive Rights
Director of the Law School Initiative

The Center for Reproductive Rights, a global human rights organization seeks a Director to develop and implement the U.S. Law School Initiative.  This is an opportunity to work for an innovator in reproductive rights legal advocacy to create partnerships and programs to advance legal scholarship and teaching on reproductive rights as human rights and emerging legal developments in transnational law on reproductive health.  

Organizational Overview

Founded in 1992 and located in New York City, the Center for Reproductive Rights is a non-profit organization that promotes women's equality worldwide by securing reproductive rights in constitutional and international human rights law. Sixteen years after its founding, the Center remains the only reproductive rights organization that combines U.S. and international legal advocacy.  The Center is the recognized leader in using international law and legal mechanisms to advance reproductive freedom as a fundamental right that all governments are legally obligated to protect, respect and fulfill.

Among its accomplishments internationally, the Center has filed groundbreaking cases in the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American human rights system, and before U.N. human rights bodies, and provided legal analysis and support in precedent-setting cases in national courts in Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa.  The Center has partnered with women's rights advocates around the world, working in over 50 countries on cases, fact-finding reports, legal publications and law reform efforts. Issues addressed have included access to essential obstetrics care, contraception, assisted reproductive technologies, and abortion; coercive sterilization; family limits; comprehensive sexuality education; as well as issues concerning access to information, rights relating to conscience, and the special status of minors.

In the U.S. the Center’s highly experienced litigators have helped millions of women and their families by securing Medicaid funding for abortions; striking abortion bans and other access restrictions; and protecting teens’ access to confidential reproductive healthcare services and information. In the last two years, the Center argued Gonzales v. Carhart before the U.S. Supreme Court and litigated over 20 cases on a range of reproductive rights issues, including leading-edge lawsuits to force the FDA to grant emergency contraception over-the-counter status and to derail the misuse of state child-abuse laws to require reporting of all consensual sexual activity between teens under 16. 
  
The Center has worked in collaboration with legal academics on projects in the U.S. and abroad. Luisa Cabal, a Colombian lawyer who directs the Center’s International Legal Program, designed and co-coordinated the first comparative study in Latin America on women's rights jurisprudence of the region's highest level courts. She is co-founder of Red Alas, a network of Latin American law professors who are integrating a gender perspective and women's rights into law school curricula in the region. In 2006, the Center hosted a symposium on Equality and Reproductive Rights that was published in the Emory Law Journal.  President Nancy Northup has designed a seminar on “Reproductive Health and Human Rights”, which she currently teaches as a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School. Cynthia Soohoo, who heads the Center’s U.S. legal program, previously directed the Bringing Human Rights Home Project at the Human Rights Institute, Columbia Law School. Members of the Center’s distinguished Board of Directors hold appointments on law and medical faculties: Rebecca J. Cook, Professor of Law and Faculty Chair in International Human Rights, University of Toronto; Sylvia A. Law, Elizabeth K Dollard Professor of Law, Medicine and Psychiatry, NYU School of Law; Dr. Machelle H. Allen, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, NYU Medical School; Dr. Paula Johnson,  Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; and Dr. Sophia Yen, Clinical Instructor, Pediatrics - Adolescent Medicine, Stanford Medical School.

The Law School Initiative

Context.  Around the world, regional human rights courts and United Nations bodies have increasingly recognized that a woman’s rights to reproductive autonomy and reproductive healthcare are basic human rights that must be protected.  The Center for Reproductive Rights has played a key role in securing these legal victories and works with a wide range of lawyers and law teachers around the world in securing human rights norms on reproductive health. Yet this emerging body of transnational law – best captured by the Colombian Constitutional Court’s declaration in a 2006 decision: “reproductive rights have finally been recognized as human rights” – is not widely taught in U.S. law schools and incorporated in legal scholarship. The Law School Initiative seeks to invigorate scholarship and teaching around this emerging body of law and train the next generation of lawyers to think about reproductive health in the human rights framework. The increased attention in the legal academy on international and comparative law, as well as the recent adverse decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in Carhart II (2007),  are generating significant interest in new approaches and make this an apt time for this initiative.

Key Components.  The Director will be responsible for developing and running an integrated program, including conceiving of new projects. The following key components have already been identified.

• Future Scholar Fellowships will support the next generation of legal scholars on reproductive rights. The first such fellowship has been established jointly with Columbia Law School. The Center for Reproductive Rights – Columbia Fellowship is open to outstanding recent graduates from law schools nationwide. Fellows, who are in residence both at the Center and Columbia Law School for two years, conduct independent research and writing, and assist in convening scholarly symposia and projects related to the Initiative. Fellows have a Columbia Law School mentor and participate in faculty events, including workshops, conferences, and other exchanges. They enter the legal academic job market in the fall of their second year.

• Visiting Scholars Program will support scholarship that develops the theoretical bases and empirical analyses for reproductive rights advocacy, litigation, and policy. Established scholars in law and other disciplines will be invited to the Center’s New York offices for a semester or full year to conduct independent research and engage with Center staff.

• Roundtables, symposia, and conferences, hosted in collaboration with law schools, academic associations, think tanks and other institutions, will stimulate writing and research by bringing together leading scholars within and outside of the U.S. to share their work and ideas. A major conference on transnational developments in reproductive rights law is planned for 2010.

• Ongoing analysis of law school curricula and teaching will encourage and support the teaching of reproductive rights and healthcare as human rights issues. The initiative will examine and track how and where reproductive rights are taught within the law school curricula.

• Development of course materials, publications and website to support teaching reproductive rights in stand-alone courses and integrated into a range of other curricula, both academic and clinical, including human rights law, constitutional law, family law, and criminal law. The initiative will encourage and support the translation of transnational cases and materials to ensure that they are available for use in U.S. research and classes.

The Position

Responsibilities.  The Director of the Law School Initiative reports to the Director of the Domestic Legal Program.  In collaboration with Center leadership, staff and external stakeholders, the Director is responsible for building, implementing, and evaluating the key components of the Initiative outlined above and conceiving and developing new projects to encourage and support scholarly dialogue and publications. S/he will build relationships with and support from law school faculty and administration, law school associations, law student groups, law school journals and publications. While funding is in place for the first three years of the Initiative, the Director will work with the Center’s leadership and development staff to secure additional and long-term funding, and to evaluate and report to current funders. S/he will prepare and manage annual plans and budget. S/he will represent the Center at conferences, symposia and other professional gatherings directed at scholars. S/he will supervise interns and coordinate the work of the Fellows, Visiting Scholars, and others working on the Initiative.

This is a two-year position, potentially renewable.

Ideal Candidate.
While no one person will possess all of the qualities listed below, the ideal candidate would have the following professional and personal characteristics:

• Strategic thinking coupled with the drive and organizational skills necessary to ensure that strategies are implemented, objectives achieved, and success measured.

• Experience in conceiving, planning, building, implementing and evaluating programs in a non-profit organization, foundation, educational institution, or government agency

• Familiarity with legal academic scholarship concerning human rights, reproductive rights, and/or women’s rights; experience and a high comfort level with academic settings, legal scholarship, and curriculum development

• Outstanding academic record and research and writing skills; publications, advanced degrees in other fields, graduate teaching experience a plus

• Experience building networks and working effectively with a range of internal and external collaborators

• Excellent analytical skills with the ability to solve problems and exercise good judgment in a fast-paced environment.

• Excellent presentation and communication skills

• A high level of energy, initiative, drive, grace and sense of humor

• Ethical, professional, and committed to exceptional work quality and standards

• Committed to the mission, purpose, and values of the Center

• Spanish language proficiency a plus

• J.D. and ability to travel are required.
 
TO APPLY

Applicants should provide a resume, writing samples, law school transcript, references, and cover letter describing interest in and suitability for the position, sent via email to: resumes@reprorights.org

Note: Applicants must indicate "Law School Initiative Director – Domestic Legal Program (code 34)" and their last name as the subject of emailed applications. Cover letter, resume, transcript and writing sample should be sent as attachments.

The deadline for applications is August 31, 2008.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is an equal opportunity employer, committed to inclusive hiring and dedicated to diversity in our work and staff. CRR strongly encourages people from all groups and communities to apply.
To learn more about the Center for Reproductive Rights, go to www.reproductiverights.org.