Georgetown University’s callous response to pregnant law student who asked to take test early to avoid clash with due date

Georgetown Law School came under fire for its blistering response to a pregnant student who asked to take one of her exams early to avoid clashing with her scheduled due date.

Brittany Lovely says school administrators told her during a phone call that “motherhood is not for the faint of heart” when she asked for shelter while she prepared to give birth.

Lovely enrolled at Georgetown in Washington DC last year and will graduate from the rigorous program in 2026.

This year, she and her partner, Tyler Zirker, who is also a law student at Georgetown, found out she was pregnant with a boy.

‘When I found out, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ By the time he gets here, I would still be in law school for another year and a half,” Lovely said The Washington Post.

Little did she know the trouble would start before her first son was born, when she said school officials denied her request to take her criminal justice exam early or at home because it would be unfair to other students.

The exam was scheduled for December 13, over a week after her due date of December 2.

The law school’s fall semester exam schedule runs from December 6 to 13, with December 16 to 18 serving as dates to which students can defer their exams.

Georgetown Law did not confirm Lovely’s side of the story, only revealing that it had reached “a mutually acceptable resolution” after months of pressure from Lovely and the student body

According to the university, students have the right to postpone their exams if they become ill, if there is a death in the family or if a student has a child during or just before the exam period. website.

As news of the university’s denial spread across campus, students spread a message petition calling on the administration to grant Lovely’s request to take her exam before her due date. It received thousands of signatures.

But long before the pressure on college leadership dropped throughout the school, Lovely shouldered the burden of getting her accommodations approved all by herself.

Since the fall semester started in September, she’s been trying to find a solution.

On September 11, she contacted her school’s Title IX coordinator, who asked the law school’s registrar and academic affairs office if Lovely could take the test early or at home.

Lovely was willing to take the test at home on the scheduled date of December 13 or on the postponed dates of December 16 to 18.

Then she received a denial from school officials, who stated it would be unfair to her classmates.

Lovely then requested a meeting with them and hoped to change their minds.

Lovely’s last attempt to meet her demands was to write a legal memo to the dean. She said this didn’t help her

“The encounter was terrible,” Lovely said CNN.

“They said I had to come in person to take this exam anyway, and the only times I could take it was between the 13th and the 18th, with the option of extending it until the morning of the 20th.’

If she couldn’t make this happen, she was told she wouldn’t pass the class.

Lovely also said that one of the participants told her that she “should have planned better” and that “motherhood is not for the faint of heart.”

Lovely’s school board said she spoke up and suggested that Lovely could have someone sit outside the exam room with her newborn so she could take breaks to breastfeed him.

With none of her demands met by early November, Lovely revisited the issue.

She drafted and sent a legal memo to the dean, describing what she had experienced and citing relevant case law, including Title IX and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

She said the dean responded by saying he was not concerned with maternity planning adjustments and referred her back to the Title IX official with whom she had already worked unsuccessfully.

The university has not confirmed Lovely’s account of the events, including the controversial phone call she said she had with school officials.

Lovely said Georgetown agreed to extend the exam postponement period from mid-December to January

“Georgetown is committed to providing a caring, supportive environment for pregnant and parenting students. We have reached a mutually acceptable resolution with the student who raised concerns,” a university spokesperson said in a statement distributed to numerous media outlets.

According to Lovely, this “mutually acceptable solution” was only reached after the “public outcry” from her friends and fellow students.

Lovely said Georgetown agreed to extend the exam postponement period from mid-December to January.

“That’s great that they figured out a way to do that,” Lovely said, “but why have I been fighting them for months?”

She also asked the university to update its policy on how it handles housing requests. She said she was told an official would follow her up.

“That hardly feels satisfying or meaningful,” Zirker said.