Sandra Fluke

Attorney and women’s rights activist Sandra Fluke, who last February testified before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on the need to provide access to contraception, will kick off the spring lecture series sponsored by the Danforth Center on Religion & Politics.Her presentation, “Making Our Voices Heard: Women’s Rights Today,” will be followed by a response from WUSTL’s Adrienne D. Davis, JD, vice provost and the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law. The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, in Simon Hall’s May AuditoriumLast February, Fluke, a recent graduate of the Georgetown University Law School, found herself in the middle of a contentious debate between those in favor of mandatory coverage of contraceptives and those against the mandate for religious reasons. The latter group included radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh who called her a “slut” and claimed she wanted “taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”

Since her undergraduate days at Cornell University, Fluke has been a champion of women’s and children’s rights, and co-founded the New York Statewide Coalition for Fair Access to Family Court, which also aided LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) youth. She has served on the Manhattan Borough President’s Taskforce on Domestic Violence, as well as many other New York city and state coalitions to make policy recommendations for domestic abuse victims. She passed the California Bar in 2012.