The movie ´Juno´ is up for an academy award. It is the story of a pregrent teenager who choses adoption. Her chose is not the choice of the majority of teenagers who become pregnant. Most of these pregnancies are unintended, but the majority of these young women opt to give birth to and raise their own children. Women of Courage: The Rights of Single Mothers and Their Children Inspired by Crystal Chambers a New Rosa Parks is about the Constitutional rights of non-marital or "illegitimate" children and their parents, about the right to give birth and raise your own children regardless of race ethnicity and marital status. It was inspired by Chrystal Chambers and her lawsuit against the Omaha Girls Club for pregnancy and race-sex discrimination tried in l986.
Ms. Chambers case was filed under the 1978 Civil Rights Act, Title VII of the l964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting race and sex discrimination in employment and under the federal statutes prohibiting race descrimination based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution as well as the U.S. Supreme Court decisions under 9th Amendment, the reproductive rights amendment. Ms. Chambers’ case had a role in the passage of the l991 Civil Rights Act, Section 105 (a)(2) banning the use of the business necessity defense in cases where intentional discrimination is alleged. It literally took an act of Congress to get the Omaha Girls Club to abandon their single pregnancy negative role modeling discharge policy. Commission of a felony, racial discrimination and single pregnancies were grounds for discharge under their Negative Role Modeling Policy. The Club ended the policy in the early l990´s.
The case has been covered in “The Loud Voice” of the national media. In June of 2003, Ms. Chambers and her case were featured by national black syndicated morning radio talk show host Tom Joyner Show in his segment “Little Known Black Heroes.”
In the winter of l986, the case was featured in the New York Times, in Newsweek, in The New York Daily News, and the magazine In These Times as well as locally in Nebraska. The case was also featured twice on National Public Radio’s ‘All Things Considered,’ and Ms. Chambers and her lawyer Mary Kay Green and others were featured on Phil Donahue’s national talk show April 4th, l986.
This case has inspired the writing and publication of nearly forty law review articles, most supporting Ms. Chambers and her rights. The book also covers the Magdalene asylums in Ireland for unwed mothers, and challenges the Constitutionality of provisions of the Welfare Reform Act and the Temporary Assistance Act. The book is unique in that both Crystal Chambers and her attorney Mary Kay Green,J.D. were single mothers. Ms. Chambers married the father of her daughter Ruth in l986. She finished college summa cum laude and has lived an exemplary life. She is an excellent role model for young mothers. The majority of these young mothers eventually marry.
