Chicanx-Latinx Law Review

Luminarias are the country’s first Latina solo practitioners, law firm associates and partners, corporate counsel, prosecutors and public defenders, legal aid and civil rights attorneys, law professors, federal, state, and local judges, and the first Presidential Appointments requiring U.S. Senate confirmation (PAS) who are Article III judges, U.S. Ambassadors, U.S. Attorneys, and high-level appointees to U.S. Agencies, commissions, and boards. These are “las primeras–the firsts” in their respective fields across all segments of the legal profession. Few Luminarias, such as our first Latina Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, federal judges, state Supreme Court Justices, U.S. Ambassadors, and U.S. Attorneys are well known within the legal profession and beyond. Most, however, are not nationally renowned. Many Luminarias have passed without their contributions being documented or recognized beyond their families and local communities, to the extent they were known. Being collectively unrecorded through the decades does not diminish their successes; to the contrary. The contributions of Luminarias irradiate through the ages because they were the first and succeeded during segregation and at the dawn of integration. Only when viewed through the lens of history does this properly contextualize the significance of their accomplishments.

Throughout the pandemic, Mother-Scholars, one of many types of “super-moms,” have persisted despite the burdens of gender inequity in academia and the challenges of bearing the bulk of the domestic duties at home. The deep networks of help and social capital, referred to as familismo in Latina/x/o parenting discourse, that have historically helped super-moms be productive, coupled with strong self-care habits that have helped super-moms survive in academia, were slowly unraveling as a result of distancing and isolation measures that were aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19. Mother-Scholars, now a village of one or two, with less scholarship, devalued productivity, and increased psychological distress, are less likely than ever to achieve tenure, receive grant awards, and assume leadership roles, particularly in legal education. Challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and lack of adequate responses to those challenges, are subjecting Mother-Scholars to a new kind of glass ceiling made visible by the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic—the COVID Ceiling. This Article establishes a framework for understanding and analyzing the intersectional and multi-layer impacts of the COVID Ceiling on mothers in the workforce, revealing intersectional impacts that exacerbate pre-existing inequities in academia, with a focus on the legal academy.

The implications of the COVID Ceiling are far-reaching and require policymakers to rethink baseline protections and social safety nets for all mothers, especially those in the workforce. Many scholars have renewed calls to expand and strengthen existing work-family policies, such as the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), so that all mothers are protected. This Article also advocates for free, accessible high-quality childcare for working mothers. Although a good start, work-family policy shifts alone will not eliminate the persistent gender, racial, ethnic, and motherhood biases prevalent in workplace attitudes and societal prejudices. The implications of the COVID Ceiling require self-governing institutions and corporations to provide greater protections to ensure that mothers can thrive in the workforce and families can thrive in society. True equity requires changing work-family policies to better protect and acknowledge mothers’ roles in society and the workplace. By applying the COVID Ceiling’s vulnerability framework, institutions can identify subordinated or oppressed groups subgroups, such as unpartnered mothers, within traditionally dominant or privileged groups, like academia, in order to equitably distribute benefits and support.

The lack of adequate pandemic policy responses has made surviving in academia a challenge for many Mother-Scholars. Equity is key to helping Mother-Scholars, particularly unpartnered mothers and minoritized mothers in academia, thrive in pandemic and post-pandemic times. True equity requires reimagining hiring, promotion, and tenure standards. In particular, leaders must preserve and protect Mother-Scholars in legal education. Mother-Scholars in legal academia play a unique role in their [wo]mentorship of women and minoritized women law students, engagement in feminist critical knowledge production, and advocacy for women and families.

Despite widespread pressure, the Supreme Court has not overruled the Insular Cases, a set of cases the Court decided between 1901-1922 which are infamous for their racist rhetoric and their determination that the Constitution should not apply in full to all Americans. Serving as part and parcel of the Anglo-Saxon colonialist project, these cases helped generate a conception of American “belonging” that excludes non-white or non-English-speaking individuals. Today, this legacy manifests through discriminatory border protection policies and perpetuations of an English linguistic supremacy, both which serve to denigrate Latine individuals and which leave them with more tenuous access to justice. While overruling the Insular Cases is long overdue, the ethno-racialized system of exclusion that they perpetuated is so deeply entrenched into our society that departing from the cases’ deplorable legal precedents today would not suffice to prove that the country has abandoned their divisive norms.

The label Latinx was originally conceived of by activists and academics to be inclusive of non-binary and LGBTQIA people, but when it came into wider use in the mid-2010s, it generated pushback from both conservatives and moderates. Recently there have been attempts to ban the term by a governor and a state legislature, with even Democratic Arizona Representative Rubén Gallego expressing his disgust for the term. This article examines the political debate, the history of the use of the term, and the underlying arguments that have arisen during this era of racial reckoning.