As part of an ongoing legal battle to reform the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS), a federal judge ordered an evaluation of agency facilities, the Chicago Tribune reports. Independent monitors will be sent into the most troubled facilities in order to protect the youth that are housed there.

The Chicago Tribune's investigative series, "Harsh Treatment" exposed how many of the children under DCFS' care endure assault and abuse in facilities that lack adequate staff and services. The ACLU of Illinois has monitored DCFS under a consent decree aimed at reforming the agency, despite a revolving door of leadership within the Department. This week's ruling comes as a result of the ACLU going back to court in an effort to jump-start reforms. The Chicago Tribune spoke with ACLU of Illinois associate legal director Ben Wolf:

"As (we) know from the Tribune, some of (the centers) have been permitted to deteriorate quite a bit in recent years," said Ben Wolf, the ACLU chapter's associate legal director. "The first steps are to start to look at the most troubled residential treatment centers and to figure out if we need to close them, if we can provide technical assistance to fix them and, if we can't, where the kids will go."

Read the entire article.

In These Times has an ongoing investigative series called "We Surveil and Protect" that looks at the surveillance activities of the Chicago Police Department (CPD). This article highlights inconsistencies in the data released by the CPD regarding police use of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs). ALPRs are cameras mounted on the dashboards of police cars and are used to scan the license plates of every car in its vicinity, regardless of whether or not the driver is suspected of criminal activity. The data scanned by the ALPR are stored in a database, and can be shared with other law enforcement agencies across state lines. The power of the CPD to surveil citizens is completely unregulated, which is why the ACLU of Illinois has worked with State Senator Daniel Biss to draft a bill - Senate Bill 1753 - that would place modest regulations on the use of ALPRs in Illinois. In These Times reports:

Illinois, like 39 other states, does not have any state-imposed regulations. And, according to the ACLU, police departments are loathe to create any internal policies that would restrict their ALPR programs. How widely ALPR data is shared between police departments, federal agencies and the private databases that sell that information to anyone willing to pay, is unknown.

Read the entire article.

By Kristin Pagano

I gave birth to my first child 8 weeks ago and took the bar exam last week. For a time, this grueling combination did not seem possible – and not because of the exhausting nature of both experiences. But thanks to the Illinois Bar Examiners, who granted me and three other nursing mothers the essential accommodations to pump breast milk for our babies during the exam, I now await the test results.

I recently moved to Illinois from California, where I already am licensed to practice, and needed to take the Illinois bar exam to work here. With planning and preparation – and the support of my family – I was confident that I could take the exam so soon after giving birth.

My daughter, like other newborns, eats every two to three hours, and sometimes as often as every 90 minutes. Taking the bar exam required full days away from her, so I needed to pump on a similar schedule. If that schedule was not maintained, my breasts could become painfully engorged – distracting my concentration from the exam and creating a risk of infection. On top of this, my milk production would be disrupted.

To pump throughout the exam, I needed an accommodation. I needed to pump in a private and sanitary place, and I needed adequate breaks to pump and attend to other basic needs, like eating and going to the bathroom.

I confidently submitted a request for these accommodations, consistent with my doctor’s recommendations. I knew that the bar examiners already make these kinds of accommodations for those protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. It seemed possible that the bar examiners might make minor adjustments to my requests, but it never occurred to me that they would deny my request outright.

I was shocked when I received a letter denying my request because nursing “is not a physical disability and therefore not covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” They said I could leave the exam to pump in a restroom only during certain times – as opposed to when it was physiologically required – and that I would not be given any additional time to make up for the time it took to pump.

The complicated process would take approximately 50 minutes each time I needed to pump: signing out of the exam room, going to the Help Center where my pump would be stored, finding the nearest “family restroom,” pumping for about 20 minutes, cleaning up, storing the breast milk, returning the pump to the Help Center, returning to the exam room, and signing back in. Doing this multiple times in the day would make it impossible for me to successfully complete the exam. This was unacceptable.

I wrote the bar examiners requesting reconsideration. I also reached out to various organizations, including the ACLU of Illinois, to express my shock and disappointment. A blog on legal issues, Above the Law, published my story, and within days, it was picked up by the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, the Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan and various other media outlets and blogs.

In response, the bar examiners notified me that they had decided to grant my request. After receiving a letter from the ACLU of Illinois requesting a broader policy change for the benefit of all nursing mothers who need to take the Illinois bar exam, they informed the ACLU that they would change their policy so that anyone who needed this type of accommodation would be granted these necessary modifications. I have learned that at least three other nursing mothers benefitted from this change in policy during the February bar exam.

I applaud the Illinois Bar Examiners for making this change, meaning that I and other nursing women can pursue the requirements of this profession while meeting their personal and family needs. Now it is time for every state’s bar examiners to do the same.

 
Do you have a story about needing accommodations for pumping during a standardized or licensure test? Tell us your story.