Bio
Galen Sherwin was a Senior Staff Attorney at the Women’s Rights Project of the ACLU. She focused on gender equality in education and employment, and litigated and conducted advocacy around issues related to pregnancy discrimination, the rights of breastfeeding workers, sex stereotypes, single-sex education, and athletics.
Sherwin began her career as a legislative aide to a New York State Senator, and then served as President of the New York City Chapter of the National Organization for Women and served on the NOW national board of directors. During law school, she worked at Sanctuary for Families/Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services and at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Upon law school graduation, Sherwin clerked for the Honorable Gerard E. Lynch, who was then in the Southern District of New York, and then joined the Center for Reproductive Rights as a Blackmun Fellow, where she focused on protecting minors’ rights to reproductive health care and abortion. She went on to join the New York Civil Liberties Union as a Staff Attorney in the Reproductive Rights Project, where she later became the project director.
Sherwin is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Stone Scholar and recipient of the Rosenman Prize for academic excellence in public law, and of Yale University, where she was awarded the Steere Prize in Women’s Studies.
Featured work
Sep 8, 2017
This Officer Was Given an Impossible Choice: Quit Breastfeeding or Put Your Life at Risk. The Courts Sided With Her.
Apr 6, 2017
What Does Mike Pence’s ‘No Girls Allowed’ Rule Have in Common With School Dress Codes and Single-Sex Classrooms? Exclusion, Shaming, and Victim-Blaming.
Mar 8, 2017
On International Women’s Day, Here’s How the ACLU Is Fighting for Women’s Rights in the Face of the Most Anti-Woman Agenda in History
Mar 3, 2017
In Trump’s ‘Maternity Leave’ Plan, The Devil — and the Stereotypes — Are In the Details
Aug 4, 2016
Top 10 Reasons the ACLU Fights for Breastfeeding Rights
Dec 7, 2015
More and More Employers Are Getting the Memo on Pregnancy Discrimination
Aug 14, 2015
The 8 Crazy Stereotypes Used in Wisconsin to Justify Single-Sex Classes and How They’re Boomeranging Back on Administrators
Apr 28, 2015
2 State Bars Have Done the Right Thing for New Moms Needing to Pump. We’re Making Sure the 48 Left Do Too.
Feb 26, 2015
New Mom Who Needed to Pump During Bar Exam Would Not Take 'No' for an Answer
Feb 10, 2015
Would You Like Some (More) Sexism With That?