The SRJ Hub: A bold vision for sexual and reproductive justice

Sexual and reproductive health is an established priority in CUNY SPH’s social justice and health equity mission, with a considerable body of related research and training programs.

Terry McGovern, a human rights lawyer and public health leader, has focused her career on health and human rights, sexual and reproductive rights and health, gender justice and environmental justice (see Lancet profile).

In 2023, when she was recruited to the school from her position as chair of the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, it set in motion a drive to make sexual and reproductive health a pillar of strength at CUNY SPH.

McGovern, who joined CUNY SPH as senior associate dean for academic and student affairs, quickly engaged with the school’s faculty leaders in sexual and reproductive health research and training to collaboratively envision an entirely new entity at the school that would integrate sexual and reproductive health with sexual and reproductive justice (SRJ).

In January 2024, the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Hub (SRJ Hub) launched as a center for research, advocacy, and training at CUNY SPH, with the aim of addressing systemic inequities and integrating sexual and reproductive justice into all aspects of public health at CUNY SPH. Combining grassroots learning with public health expertise, it will strengthen the school’s ability to foster change in local and national communities and around the world.

“Unjust limits on reproductive health and bodily autonomy were inflicting harm even while Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, particularly for people of color, adolescents, and those with limited financial resources,” says McGovern. “The Dobbs decision in 2022 drastically exacerbated inequality in states across the U.S.”

And now, the recent firehose of attacks from our federal government on women and gender-diverse individuals is already having devastating consequences in the U.S. and worldwide.

“It’s more important than ever to ensure that the emerging public health workforce is well versed in the scientific, social, and legal elements of SRJ,” she says.

The SRJ Hub is committed to protecting the right to reproductive autonomy and strives to be a leading force in the fight for reproductive justice. But its mission is not limited to abortion rights: recognizing that sexual and reproductive rights are deeply intertwined with broader social justice movements, the Hub also works to advance intersectional solutions that improve health outcomes for all, centering the lived experiences of women of color as well as that of other marginalized people.

Off to a roaring start

Less than a year since its inception, the SRJ Hub has:

• Launched a campaign to endow a professorship
• Convened SRJ thought leaders from around the world for talks, seminars, and workshops
• Designed a master’s degree in SRJ at CUNY SPH
• Developed a plan to integrate SRJ in the school’s core public health curriculum
• Published several opinion pieces on reproductive rights
• Become the new host for the international initiative called the Global 365 Days of Activism to End Gender Based Violence campaign
• Participated as a gender expert in the UN Review of the Sustainable Development Goal to End Gender Discrimination
• Played ongoing advisory roles for global, national, and local policymakers

Standing on the shoulders of giants: Black feminism and the birth of a new movement

In 1994, a group of twelve Black women calling themselves, “Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice” organized a full-page ad in the Washington Post to raise awareness of the barriers they faced in accessing reproductive health care. The ad, entitled, “Black Women and Health Care Reform” and the subsequence press conference on Capitol Hill launched the Reproductive Justice (RJ) movement on a national scale.

Since then, RJ has garnered international recognition as a critical framework grounded in Black feminist thought and human rights and incorporating the principles and practices of self-help and community care. That framework has been expanded to include the right to bodily autonomy, free from all forms of both sexual and reproductive oppression. This expansion resulted in the framework being renamed sexual and reproductive justice (SRJ).

The Byllye Avery Endowed Professorship

The SRJ Hub advanced a funding campaign for the nation’s first endowed professorship dedicated to advancing sexual and reproductive justice. Endowing the professorship will make it a permanent academic appointment that isn’t dependent on public funding year after year. Named for esteemed Black feminist leader Byllye Avery, (see profile on Avery and the professorship on page 9) the professorship will enable the school to attract an outstanding pool of applicants for the position once the funding is secured.

“We’re in the midst of raising funds for the professorship,” McGovern says, confident that efforts to meet that goal will be successful.

Solutions-oriented scholarship and training

McGovern observes that public health research has long focused on identifying disparities, and that what is needed is an educational curriculum that trains students to think critically and develop solutions. This calls for an approach that integrates grassroots learning and brings together multiple disciplines, including policy, medicine, and the law.

“Students need to recognize that science itself can be biased,” she says. “It’s important to look closely at who is and who is not included in the datasets that inform public policy.”

CUNY has an exceptionally diverse student body that reflects the population of New York City. Who better to engage in the fight for SRJ, especially given the troublingly disproportionate rates of maternal mortality among Black women in the city and nationwide? With the support and resources provided by the SRJ Hub, faculty will educate, engage, and train the next generation of leaders to make the connections between human rights, sexual and reproductive justice, and women’s health.

“And we’ll continue to help our students get placements with organizations in a position to make the changes we hope to see, from the city and state departments of health to academic institutes and nonprofits,” says SRJ faculty member Diana Romero, associate professor of community health and social sciences, and director of the maternal, child, reproductive, and sexual health (MCRSH) curriculum—which will soon be integrated with a broader SRJ curriculum and evolve into a full-fledged master’s degree.

For decades, Associate Dean Lynn Roberts, a national leader in the RJ movement and now SRJ Hub faculty member, has taught the course in Community Organizing to Advance Health and Social Justice, with the highest student accolades. At the intersection of scholarship and activism, the course will be a central feature of the new master’s concentration.

Roberts’ community organizing began with an HIV/AIDS prevention program focused on women and youth in Brooklyn during the 1990s. That’s where she first crossed paths with McGovern, and it’s where she learned first-hand what works and what doesn’t.

“We need all kinds of leaders now to change the narrative,” she says. “We need insiders who think like outsiders and vice versa. Public health and reproductive justice belong in every sector of society.”

Global 365 Days of Activism to End Gender Based Violence campaign

In partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), CUNY SPH took on the stewardship of a global campaign originally called 16 Days Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), formerly sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University.

For more than 30 years, feminist activists and movements around the world have used the 16 days between the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25) and Human Rights Day (December 10) to advocate for an end to gender-based violence. With the help of the SRJ Hub, the campaign is transitioning into a year-round initiative, reflecting the 365-days-a-year efforts of feminist activists to shift norms, secure accountability, and transform power structures that oppress women, girls, and gender-diverse people.

“Gender-based violence is rampant in the workplace, in armed conflict, and in everyday life,” says Clarisa Bencomo, project director for gender justice at the SRJ Hub. But like the SRJ issues CUNY SPH is championing, GBV is vastly under-recognized, under-funded, and under-reported.

“There’s simply too much at stake to limit the campaign to 16 days,” says Bencomo, “which is why we’ve decided to make it a year-round effort.”