Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ) and the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) Law School Initiative are now accepting submissions for the sixth annual Sarah Weddington Writing Prize. The theme this year is “Beyond the Books: Realizing Reproductive Rights in Real Lives.”
LSRJ & CRR are seeking fresh student scholarship that focuses on a particular community’s unique struggle for reproductive justice. Examples of communities disproportionately affected by reproductive oppression include ethnic, religious, or cultural minorities; people of color; women in developing or war-torn countries; adolescents; low-income women; survivors of domestic violence; prisoners; LGBTQ individuals; and undocumented immigrants. Example topics include: legal and non-legal barriers to health care access (e.g., impact of the Hyde and Helms Amendments on poor women in the U.S. and abroad); surviving pregnancy and childbirth (e.g., racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality); denial of reproductive healthcare services on the basis of conscience (e.g., repercussions in rural communities with only one hospital or pharmacy); cruel, unusual, or degrading treatment in reproductive healthcare delivery (e.g., shackling of incarcerated women during pregnancy, labor, and delivery); reproductive health effects of exposure to pollution and toxins (e.g., farm/factory workers and residents of low-income neighborhoods); and the intersection of HIV/AIDS and intimate partner violence (e.g., barriers to justice for communities with problematic relationships to governmental authorities).
We encourage writing that amplifies lesser heard voices, applies an intersectional, reproductive justice lens to legal thinking, offers anti-essentialist analysis, and/or suggests innovative solutions that take into account the practical realities and the lived experiences of the people affected by various forms of subordination and reproductive oppression.
Papers may be domestic or international in scope and may draw on human rights treaties, international legal norms, comparative law, U.S. constitutional case law, and/or statutory law and regulation. Authors are asked to apply a reproductive justice lens and/or human rights framework to their analyses of the issues. To learn more about:
Reproductive Justice (RJ):
o What is Reproductive Justice?: www.lsrj.org/documents/What_is_RJ.pdf
o Links to publications about RJ: www.lsrj.org/motivation
Reproductive Rights as Human Rights:
o Human Rights Law Primer: www.lsrj.org/resources/#humanrightslawprimer
o CRR publication: Repro Rights are Human Rights: http://reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/RRareHR_final.pdf
Previous winning submissions: www.lsrj.org/awards/#writingprize
Papers must be at least 20 pages in length (not including footnotes), double-spaced in 12-point font with footnotes in 10-point font. Papers must conform to Bluebook citation format. Only original scholarship by law students or law graduates of 2010 will be accepted. Papers submitted for publication elsewhere will be accepted; however papers previously published will not be accepted. Winners will be selected by an outside panel of legal academic judges. Send your submission (in Word format as an email attachment) to submissions@lsrj.org by 5:00pm PST on Tuesday, March 1, 2011.
The 1st place winning submission will be published in the NYU Review of Law and Social Change. Winning authors will receive cash prizes: $750 (1st place), $500 (2nd place), or $250 (3rd place) and have the opportunity to be published in the Reproductive Justice Law & Policy SSRN e-journal.
More information here.
This blog is no longer updated. Please instead visit Writers For Diversity for new opportunities for women/ LGBT writers and writers of color. Thank you.
